A death must be registered within 5 days unless a coroner is involved.
All deaths should be registered with the Registrar in the area where the death occurred.
For information on stillbirth registration, please visit our register a stillbirth page.
Online pre-registration form
If the death occurred within the Borough of Bedford, we ask that a family member or another qualified informant completes the online pre-registration form below giving details of the deceased and pre-purchasing any copies of the death certificate they may require.
The online pre-registration form is only for deaths that have occurred in Bedford Borough. To check if the death did occur in Bedford Borough, please enter the postcode of where the death occurred on this gov.uk webpage.
If the death occurred outside Bedford Borough, please contact us by email giving the name of the deceased, when and where the death occurred and we will advise you further.
Once we have checked the pre-registration form and have received the electronic copy of the MCCD from the GP or hospital and/or Coroner's paperwork we will telephone the applicant to arrange an appointment to attend our offices to complete the registration.
If they are available, please check the following documents before you complete the online pre-registration form.
- passport
- Council Tax bill or utility bill
- driving licence
- marriage or civil partnership certificate
- birth certificate, deed poll document
- NHS medical card
This will help the Registrar to make sure the record is correct. Don't worry if you can't find some of the documents, we can register the death without them as long as you know the information. Any incorrect information provided on the pre-registration form can be corrected during the face-to-face appointment.
The Registrar will, with the informant’s permission, send the form for burial or cremation directly to the relevant burial or cremation authority.
Green form permission
If the person named as the informant on the register page is unsure where the funeral will take place, they will need to contact us by email as soon as possible, once they have decided, to confirm where the funeral is to take place and to give permission for the green form to be sent, if permission has not already been granted.
To ensure that any such permission to forward the green form is provided by the person named as the informant on the register page, Bedford Register Office will require any such permission given after the registration has been completed, to be provided to us using the same email address which was used when completing the online pre-registration form to civil.registration@bedford.gov.uk.
The person named as the informant will also need to provide the company name and branch of the Funeral Director they are using and state clearly that they give permission if they wish for the green form to be forwarded to that Funeral Director.
Make a change to the record or certificate
Use GOV.UK's correct a death registration if you need to correct the information on a certificate.
