Register Death of Australian Citizen in New Zealand: BDM28 Process

Every Death in New Zealand Must Be Registered

Regardless of the deceased's nationality, every death occurring on New Zealand soil must be registered with the Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM) registry, a division of the Department of Internal Affairs. An Australian passport does not create any exemption or alternative pathway — the same process applies whether the person was a lifelong Kiwi or arrived on a two-week holiday.

Registration is what creates the official legal record of the death. Without it, no death certificate can be issued, and without a death certificate, almost nothing else moves — repatriation paperwork stalls, insurance claims cannot be submitted, Australian banks refuse to release funds, and probate courts will not entertain an application.

Who Is Responsible for Registering

The legal obligation to register falls on the person who arranged the disposition of the body — burial or cremation. In practice, this is almost always the funeral director. When an Australian family engages a New Zealand funeral director to handle the repatriation or local funeral arrangements, that funeral director takes on the registration responsibility as a standard part of their service.

If the family is managing a private disposition without a funeral director — rare in cross-border situations but legally possible — the executor or closest next of kin must submit the registration themselves.

The registration must be completed within three working days of the burial or cremation, not three days from the date of death. This distinction matters because coronial cases can delay the funeral by weeks, and the registration clock does not start ticking until the body is actually buried or cremated.

Form BDM 28: What It Asks For

The registration is submitted through the "Notification of Death for Registration" — Form BDM 28. The form captures detailed biographical information about the deceased:

• Full legal name and any aliases
• Date of birth and date of death
• Place of death (specific address or facility)
• Usual residential address (the Australian address, in this case)
• Parents' full names and occupations
• Marriage history — dates, partners, and places of each marriage or civil union
• Children's names and ages
• The medical cause of death (from the MCCD or coroner's report)
• The informant's details — the person arranging the funeral or providing the information

For an Australian citizen, some of these fields require information that the New Zealand funeral director may not have immediately available. The deceased's parents' full names, historical marriage details, and children's ages all need to come from the family. Your funeral director will walk you through the form, but having these details ready avoids delays in the registration process.

Registration Is Free — The Certificate Is Not

Registering the death costs nothing. Obtaining the official New Zealand death certificate after registration costs approximately $30–33 NZD per copy. For delivery to an Australian address, add $22 NZD for international courier — standard post is technically available but introduces delays that are unacceptable when you need the certificate for time-sensitive insurance claims or probate applications.

Order at least three certified copies. You will need them simultaneously for different institutions — the super fund, the bank, the probate court — and each wants to hold onto their copy for processing. Ordering more copies now is far cheaper than ordering them one at a time later.

BDM offices in Wellington, Auckland, Manukau, and Christchurch accept in-person orders with valid photo identification if you or a representative happen to be in New Zealand. Otherwise, the paper application is submitted by post using Form BDM93D, which is the pathway designed for overseas applicants who cannot satisfy BDM's online identity verification system.

What Registration Does Not Do

Registering the death in New Zealand does not register it in Australia. Australia does not maintain a parallel register of its citizens' overseas deaths the way some countries do (the United States, for example, issues a Consular Report of Death Abroad). The New Zealand death certificate serves as the primary legal proof of death for all Australian purposes — estate settlement, superannuation claims, Centrelink notification, and court proceedings.

It also does not trigger any automatic notifications. Neither Australian nor New Zealand government agencies are informed automatically when a death is registered with BDM New Zealand. You or your funeral director must separately notify Centrelink, the ATO, NZ Inland Revenue, banks, and every other institution. New Zealand's myTrove service can notify NZ agencies in a single submission, but it does not reach across the Tasman.

The Registration-to-Certificate Timeline

Once the funeral director submits Form BDM 28, BDM processes the registration and the death certificate becomes available to order. Processing time varies, and coronial cases may take longer when the cause-of-death information is still being finalised. Ask BDM, your funeral director, and the receiving institution which record they will accept for repatriation, probate, or a financial claim.

What Comes After Registration

With the death registered and certificates ordered, the next steps in the cross-border process include arranging the apostille authentication for any certificates needed for Australian judicial proceedings, starting the probate reseal if the deceased held assets above the bank thresholds, and filing claims with superannuation funds and Centrelink.

Our Australian Dies in New Zealand emergency guide sequences all of these steps into a single actionable roadmap, so you know exactly what to do at each stage and which tasks can run in parallel.