Reviewed by Carlos Vargas, Texas Licensed Funeral Director (TFSC #119648) ·
Houston seals the coffin, but Los Angeles registers the death
The Consulate General of France in Houston covers Texas along with Arkansas and Oklahoma, at 777 Post Oak Boulevard, Suite 600, and it opens to the public by appointment only. The Texas Secretary of State’s entry for France lists that same Post Oak Boulevard address and adds honorary consular offices in Dallas and Austin. So far this looks like every other country in these guides.
Then the consulate’s own instructions on transporting a body or ashes add a step nobody expects. If the person who died was a French national, the death must first be entered in the French civil register before a transport authorisation can even be requested. And the post that registers a death occurring in the Houston district is not Houston. The instruction sheet routes it to the Consulate General of France in Los Angeles. Deaths in the Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Miami, New York and Washington districts go to Washington instead. Two different offices, in two different states, for one death in Dallas: Los Angeles to register it, Houston to seal the coffin.
There is not one certificate. There are three, and they differ
Families arrive expecting a single travel document, often under a name the consulate does not use. What the consulate actually issues is a certificat sanitaire et de transport de corps, and which version you get depends on what will happen in France. A burial, a cremation and an urn of ashes each have their own document and their own list of supporting papers.
The common core is the same for all three: a written request from the person entitled to arrange the funeral, taken in order as the surviving spouse, then the children, then the parents, then the nearest relatives; that person’s identity document; proof of the relationship, such as a birth or marriage certificate or a livret de famille; the deceased’s identity document; and the death certificate, which for a foreign national means the American certificate duly apostilled. That phrase is the consulate telling you that an apostille from the Texas Secretary of State is the right authentication, and that a consular legalisation is not needed.
| If the plan in France is | What the file must also contain |
|---|---|
| Burial | The mairie’s burial authorisation for the commune of the grave |
| Cremation | The mairie’s cremation authorisation for the commune where it will happen |
| Cremation | A medical certificate that the deceased carries no pacemaker |
| Burial or cremation | The permit of disposal of human remains, and a mortuary certificate of embalming |
| Ashes | The procès-verbal d’incinération from the firm that carried out the cremation |
The consulate physically seals the coffin, and that sets the date
This is the part of the French process that most changes a family’s schedule. The same instruction sheet states that the coffin or the urn must be sealed by the consulate before repatriation. A consular officer verifies the identity of the body and the coffin, then seals it with a ribbon and a wax stamp bearing the seal of the post, and only then issues the certificate. It is a physical act at a fixed appointment, not a document that can be emailed over.
The order of operations matters. You send the complete file to the consulate first, by email; the consulate checks that nothing is missing; and only then are you given an appointment for the sealing and the certificate. If you want an honorary consul to carry out the sealing instead, the same sheet says the papers still go to your consulate first, and the consulate puts you in touch with the honorary consul once the file has been verified. We name the offices and not the officers. For a burial the medical certificate comes from the county coroner or health officer.
For ashes, the urn itself has to meet a specification
Most countries in these guides treat ashes as the easy case. France treats them as a sealed object with a specification, and the consulate’s sheet is unusually precise about it. The urn must be able to be opened by the consulate. It must be parallelepiped, that is box shaped, so that it can be sealed with a ribbon. Inside it there must be a transparent bag holding the ashes, itself sealed with the number that appears on the cremation certificate. And the funeral home must have fixed a metal plate or a label to the urn identifying the deceased by first name, surname and that same cremation number.
A rounded decorative urn will not satisfy this, and that is worth knowing before one is chosen in Dallas rather than after. The sheet ends that section by saying that if any of these conditions is not met, contact the consulate.
France also limits what may be done with the ashes after arrival
One more French rule has no equivalent in most destinations, and the consulate reproduces it in the same sheet: once the urn has entered French territory it is for the applicant to comply with the general law on the destination of ashes, which allows exactly three things. The ashes may be kept in the urn, which may be buried in a grave, placed in a columbarium niche or sealed on a funerary monument inside a cemetery or a cinerary site. They may be scattered in a space laid out for that purpose at a cemetery or cinerary site. Or they may be scattered in open nature, but never on public roads, and that option requires a declaration to the mairie of the commune where the deceased was born.
Keeping an urn at home indefinitely is not among the three, so families who mean to divide ashes among relatives should raise it with the receiving funeral director before the flight. The consulate’s civil-status page on a death abroad adds that the town hall of the birthplace is notified so the death is noted in the margin of the birth certificate, and that the costs of repatriation fall on the family or the deceased’s insurer.
Questions families ask about a return to France
- Which office do we contact from Dallas?
- The Consulate General of France in Houston handles the transport file and the sealing for Texas. But if the person was a French national, the death itself is registered through the Consulate General of France in Los Angeles, which is the post the instruction sheet names for the Houston district.
- Why can the consulate not just send the certificate?
- Because a consular officer has to verify the identity of the body and the coffin and seal it in person with a ribbon and a wax stamp. The certificate is issued at that appointment, which is why the file must be complete and checked beforehand.
- Does the urn have to be a particular shape?
- Yes. The consulate requires an urn it can open and that is box shaped so it can be sealed with a ribbon, carrying a plate or label with the name and the cremation number, and holding a transparent sealed bag inside.
Sources checked and case confirmation
Sources checked September 21, 2026. The four-page consular instruction sheet on transporting a body or ashes was downloaded and read in full here, and every requirement above comes from it or from the consulate’s civil-status page. The French code article said to give the consulate its authority over entry into France could not be opened: the government legal database refused two different methods of access, so no code article is quoted. No official fee for the certificate was found on any page we could open, and no airline cargo policy for this route could be read, so neither is stated. Confirm the document list and the appointment with the consulate for the individual case. Contact Vargas–London with the commune in France and where your relative is now, without sending medical or identity documents through the inquiry form.
