Reviewed by Carlos Vargas, Texas Licensed Funeral Director (TFSC #119648) ·
There is no Liberian office in Texas, and that is checkable
Several of these guides begin by naming the consulate that covers Dallas. Liberia has none to name. The Texas Secretary of State keeps a directory of consular offices in Texas and Liberia is not on it, between Lesotho and Liechtenstein where it would sit. The per-country page that would hold it is not published either. Two checks, one answer.
Everything therefore goes to Washington. The Embassy of the Republic of Liberia publishes its particulars: 5201 16th Street NW, Washington, DC 20011, on (202) 723-0437, with the embassy open Monday to Friday from ten until five.
One caution about the narrower window. The page also gives consular hours of Monday to Thursday, ten until three, but labels that line visa and passport. It does not say that a mortuary certificate is issued inside those hours, and we are not going to assume it is. Ask when you telephone.
The list is written to the funeral director, not to the family
Under other consular services the embassy links one item that concerns a death: a Mortuary Certificate form. It is two pages, and the second page is the requirement list — eleven numbered items for what it calls a notarial certificate to transport human remains.
Read them and it becomes clear who the reader is meant to be. Item one is a letter from the funeral home setting out the arrangements for transporting the remains. Item two is a copy of the funeral home’s licence. Most destinations ask the family for papers about the deceased; Liberia opens by asking the funeral home for papers about itself. The rest are the ordinary set: an embalming affidavit, a burial transit permit, a certified copy of the death certificate, a non-contagious disease letter, the passport of the deceased, a non-contraband letter and the flight itinerary.
The first page asks for three things the list does not mention: a photograph of the deceased, the shipping airline with its flight number and departure date, and the name, address, telephone and arrival date of the receiving funeral home in Liberia. That last one is the item families underestimate. The receiving home has to be chosen and named before the file is complete.
| Item | Who it comes from |
|---|---|
| Letter of arrangements and a copy of the licence | Your funeral home |
| Embalming affidavit and non-contraband letter | Your funeral home |
| Burial transit permit and certified death certificate | Texas records |
| Non-contagious disease letter | A physician or health department |
| Passport of the deceased and a photograph | The family |
| Receiving funeral home in Liberia and its arrival date | The family, in Liberia |
A hundred and fifty dollars, and the currency is specified
Liberia is one of the minority of destinations in these guides that publishes what it charges, on the same sheet as the requirements. The form states a fee of $150.00 with the application and adds, in its own parenthesis, US currency only. There is a second figure under it: an additional $50 for next day rush.
Both numbers come from the form itself rather than from a tariff page, and the embassy publishes no other fee schedule we could find, so treat them as current until the embassy says otherwise and confirm when you call. A published rush price is worth knowing about in advance, because the decision about whether to pay it usually has to be made on the day the flight is booked.
The apostille that did not work until 2015
This is the part where older advice about Liberia is simply wrong, and it is wrong for a reason worth understanding.
The HCCH status table records Liberia acceding to the Apostille Convention on 24 May 1995, in force 8 February 1996. But its type is printed as A with two asterisks, and the table’s own legend defines those asterisks as an objection. Following that marker to the declaration the table links gives the rest: Belgium, Germany and the United States raised an objection to the accession inside the six-month period that expired on 10 December 1995. An objection means the Convention does not operate between the objecting state and the acceding one.
Then the note that changes everything for a Texas family. On 20 May 2015 the United States withdrew its objection, and the page states the consequence in plain words: the Convention entered into force between Liberia and the United States on that date. So an apostille does work now, and did not before. Texas issues a universal apostille certificate and charges fifteen dollars per document, expressly per document and not per page. Belgium’s and Germany’s objections carry no withdrawal note on that page and we say nothing further about them.
What Liberia publishes about conditions at home
One question decides a great deal for a family, and the honest answer here is uncomfortable. The United States Mission in Liberia publishes a disposition-of-remains report dated 3 June 2024, and it states that cremation is not normally done in Liberia and is not available at the mortuaries it lists, with one facility named as an exception available on special request. It also states that Liberian law requires embalming, and that embalming is required again when a body is shipped overseas. And it records that there is no restriction on how long a body may be kept before burial, which removes the deadline pressure some destinations impose.
The same report carries a full export checklist, a zinc-lined casket specification and a list of prices. Every line of that describes remains leaving Liberia for the United States. It is the opposite journey and we are not reversing it here, because a reversed list is a guess with a citation attached. What no source we read publishes is the arrival side: who clears remains into Liberia, what the receiving funeral home must produce there, or whether any domestic permit applies. That gap is stated, not filled.
Questions families ask about a return to Liberia
- Is there a Liberian consulate in Texas?
- No. The Texas Secretary of State’s directory of consular offices in Texas does not list Liberia, and no per-country page for it is published. The file goes to the embassy in Washington.
- Does a Texas apostille work for Liberia?
- Yes, and only since 20 May 2015. The United States had objected to Liberia’s 1995 accession and withdrew that objection on that date, which is when the Convention entered into force between the two countries.
- What does the Liberian embassy charge?
- The mortuary certificate form states $150.00 with the application, in US currency only, and an additional $50 for next day rush. No other fee schedule is published.
Sources checked and case confirmation
Sources checked September 22, 2026 on the Texas Secretary of State directory of consular offices in Texas and its per-country page for Liberia; the Liberian embassy pages for consular services and other consular services; both pages of the embassy’s Mortuary Certificate form; the HCCH status table and the declaration page its objection marker links to; the Texas Secretary of State pages on authentication and on requesting a universal apostille; and the United States Mission in Liberia disposition-of-remains report. What this page deliberately does not claim: what Liberia requires on arrival, because no source we read states it; that the mortuary certificate is issued within the published visa and passport hours, because the page does not say so; any fee beyond the two the form itself prints; and anything about airlines or routes. The report from Monrovia names an airline and names funeral directors; neither is reproduced here. Contact Vargas-London with the county in Liberia and where your relative is now, without sending medical or identity documents through the inquiry form.
