Bringing a loved one home to Egypt from Dallas

Texas is served from Houston

Egypt keeps five consular offices in the United States, and its own directory assigns Texas to the Consulate General in Houston, along with Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Tennessee. The directory gives the office as 5718 Westheimer St, Suite 1350, Houston, TX 77057, with the telephone 713-961-4915. The Texas Secretary of State’s page for Egypt lists the same address and the same telephone, which is a useful independent check.

One caution about where the detail below comes from. The full death procedure, with its fees, is published by the embassy in Washington rather than by Houston, and it is published in Arabic. Read it as the national procedure and confirm with Houston that it applies to your case unchanged. The embassy also states that consular transactions are conducted directly between it and the citizen, without intermediaries, so expect to deal with the office yourself or through the funeral director rather than through an agent.

First step: authenticating the Texas death certificate

The embassy’s death-cases page treats authentication as the first task. It authenticates the original American death certificate and prepares an official Arabic translation of its essential data, attached to the authenticated original, and it asks for a copy of the passport or national identity card of the person who died to guide the spelling. The published fees are 47 dollars for the authentication and 52 dollars for the translation.

The mailing rules are strict. Only envelopes sent through the United States Postal Service are accepted; the page says FedEx and UPS are not, and documents arriving by an unapproved carrier sit unprocessed until the right envelope is supplied. Payment must be a cashier’s check made out to Embassy of Egypt; money orders, personal checks and cash are refused. Enclose a prepaid, tracked, self-addressed envelope, and send two copies of every document. Papers are returned ten business days after the envelope arrives.

Second step: the permit to move the body

Once the certificate is authenticated and translated, the same page describes a separate consular permit for moving the body to Egypt, and says it is obtained through the funeral home responsible for preparing the body, together with the family. It lists five items: the original American death certificate after authentication and translation; the original Egyptian passport of the person who died, which is marked cancelled and copied, or that person’s Egyptian national identity card; a certificate from the American health authorities that the death was not caused by an epidemic contagious disease; the American authorities’ permit to move and bury the body; and a certificate from the funeral home that the body has been prepared for travel or embalmed and placed in the casket in accordance with international health rules.

The originals are inspected and handed back, and the embassy issues its permit for the transfer. Two items on that list are not produced here by default, so ask for them early: the health-authority letter about epidemic disease, and the funeral home’s statement about international rules.

Registering the death, and why it cannot be posted

Registering the death with Egypt’s civil status service is a third and separate task, and the page is explicit that it cannot be done by mail: the person reporting the death must attend in person and complete the notification form. It asks for the authenticated and translated death certificate, the Egyptian passport or a copy of the national identity card, and proof of identity of the person reporting. The fee is 46 dollars, paid in cash.

The timetable matters. The embassy forwards the file to the civil status service in Cairo, the death is recorded within about 45 days of despatch, and the printed Egyptian certificate returns to the embassy in about 90 days from the application. A further copy of an already registered death costs 14 dollars and takes about 60 days. Order plenty of certified Texas copies meanwhile.

Egypt is outside the apostille system

We read the HCCH status table on September 21, 2026 and Egypt has no row on it. So an apostille is not the route, whatever a general article may say. As the Texas Secretary of State’s authentication page explains for countries outside the Convention, a Texas document goes first to the state, then to the Office of Authentications at the U.S. State Department, and then to the country’s own mission.

In practice the embassy’s own authentication step described above is the Egyptian end of that chain, and it comes with the Arabic translation the file will need. What the published page does not say is whether the State Department step is required first for these particular documents. Ask Houston that question in writing before anything is posted, because getting the order wrong costs two mailings.

Routes and what the carriers publish

EgyptAir’s conditions pages refuse automated reading and returned an error, so we cannot tell you what the national carrier publishes; ask its cargo desk by telephone. Turkish Cargo does publish a list for shipments through Istanbul: a death certificate approved by the consulate and translated into Turkish, a consular letter and the air waybill, with an autopsy report where the death was a suicide, homicide or accident. Lufthansa Cargo lists a death certificate, a mortuary passport or transfer certificate, an embalming or cremation certificate and any permits, and says private individuals generally cannot book directly.

Both those carrier lists expect a consular document, which is the embassy permit described above. Order the steps accordingly: authentication, then the transfer permit, then the booking. Our guide to airlines and cargo agents explains what a carrier can and cannot confirm in advance.

Who pays

The published page sets out fees the family pays and says nothing about the state meeting the cost of a return. Plan on the family, an insurer, an employer or a community association paying for preparation, the casket and the flight. The consular charges above are separate and small beside those. Read the guide to government schemes and the insurance and assistance guide for places worth asking.

Questions families ask about a return to Egypt

Which Egyptian office handles a Dallas case?

The Consulate General in Houston. Egypt's own consular directory assigns Texas to it, and the Texas Secretary of State lists the same Houston address and telephone. The detailed procedure and its fees are published by the embassy in Washington, in Arabic.

How should documents be sent?

By United States Postal Service only. The embassy's page says FedEx and UPS are not accepted and that papers in an unapproved envelope stay unprocessed. Pay by cashier's check made out to Embassy of Egypt; money orders, personal checks and cash are refused.

Does Egypt accept a Texas apostille?

Egypt has no row on the HCCH status table, so the apostille route does not apply. The embassy authenticates the American death certificate itself and prepares an Arabic translation, for a published 47 dollars and 52 dollars.

Sources checked and case confirmation

Sources checked September 21, 2026, and the embassy’s death-cases page was read in Arabic rather than through a summary. Fees and timetables change without notice, and the page does not say whether a U.S. State Department authentication is needed before the consular step. Confirm the documents, fees, order of steps and receiving arrangements with the Houston consulate for the individual case. Contact Vargas–London with the governorate in Egypt and where your relative is now, without sending medical or identity documents through the inquiry form.