Reviewed by Carlos Vargas, Texas Licensed Funeral Director (TFSC #119648) ·
Texas has the consulate, and in this region that is unusual
Most of the destinations in this part of the world send a Dallas family somewhere else. Algeria's file goes to San Francisco. Tunisia has only an honorary post. Saudi Arabia is different: the Texas Secretary of State directory carries a full entry, and the Saudi Arabia page names a Consul General of Saudi Arabia at 5718 Westheimer, Suite 1500, Houston, Texas 77057, with a telephone number and a fax number.
That is a career consulate general, not an honorary consulate, and it is about four hours down the road. The directory names the individual holding the post; these guides never print the name of a consular officer, so it is not reproduced here.
Having the office nearby is worth a great deal. What we could not find is anything published, by that consulate or by the embassy, about what it does when somebody dies. The telephone number is the asset here, not a web page.
The apostille road is open, and it is the settled part
The HCCH status table records Saudi Arabia as a Contracting Party to the Apostille Convention, acceding on 8 April 2022 with the Convention entering into force for the Kingdom on 7 December 2022. Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt appear in the same copy we searched, which is how we know the search was working.
So the Texas side is short. The Secretary of State is the only agency in the state that can authenticate a Texas public record for use abroad, and its universal apostille acts as both an authentication and an apostille, with no federal step added for a Convention country. Its list of recordable documents names Burial Transit Forms. The fee is fifteen dollars per document, expressly per document and not per page, up to ten documents in one transaction.
Get the apostille. It is cheap, it is the step nobody disputes, and it is the one thing you can do before anyone answers the telephone.
What the Saudi side publishes, and what it does not
The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in the United States keeps a working site, and its list of electronic services is the place a consular procedure would sit. Read on September 23, 2026, that list held five entries: Absher, the interior ministry platform; Najiz, from the justice ministry; a digital services centre; a visa service for family and friends; and a property platform. None of them concerns a death, the attestation of a foreign death certificate, or an authorisation to move remains.
The ministry's unified embassies portal publishes the network at a glance, and the figures are its own: a hundred and nine countries, a hundred and eight embassies, twenty consulates and five delegations. Both mission paths we requested from it returned the same index page rather than a mission's own services, so nothing about Houston or Washington was read from it.
Two other domains a family may find do not help. One that many sites still cite does not serve at all, and the ministry's shorter embassy domain returned a not-found page when we asked for it today. Use the telephone number on the Texas page instead.
Four rules that decide whether this is possible at all
The fullest source on Saudi Arabia is the United States Mission page on the death of a United States citizen, and nearly all of it describes remains leaving the Kingdom for America: exit visas, police letters, the passport office, embalming before export. That is the opposite journey from this page and none of it is turned around here.
Four of its statements are not about the journey at all. They are about Saudi Arabia as a place, which is where a Dallas shipment would arrive, and they matter more than any document list. Its wording is about United States citizens and we have not stretched it further than that.
| Question | What the page says |
|---|---|
| A Muslim United States citizen who dies there | May be buried locally, or the remains may be shipped to the United States or elsewhere |
| A non-Muslim United States citizen | Generally prohibited from being buried in Saudi Arabia except in emergency circumstances, and repatriation out is described as required |
| Cremation | Contrary to Islamic law and forbidden in the Kingdom; the page names Oman and the United Arab Emirates as options |
| How quickly burial happens | Tradition is burial within twenty-four hours; the page states that no law governs the practice |
Read the second row before anything else is arranged. If the person who died was not Muslim, the page you are reading may not be the right one at all, and that is a conversation to have with the consulate general in Houston before a family is given any expectation.
What to ask Houston first
Nothing published by any Saudi office tells a Dallas funeral home what the Kingdom requires when remains arrive from abroad: which authority receives them, whether an entry authorisation exists, what it costs, or whether the consulate general attests a Texas death certificate at all. We are stating that gap rather than filling it.
So the order is simple. Apply for the Texas apostille straight away, because it is cheap and uncontested. Then telephone the consulate general in Houston on the number the Texas directory publishes, and ask three things: whether that office attests a death certificate, whether any Saudi authorisation is needed before the remains travel, and, if the person who died was not Muslim, whether burial is possible at the intended place. The twenty-four-hour burial tradition means the answers decide the timetable, not the other way round.
Questions families ask about a return to Saudi Arabia
- Is there a Saudi consulate in Texas?
- Yes. The Texas Secretary of State directory names a Consul General of Saudi Arabia in Houston, at 5718 Westheimer, Suite 1500, with a published telephone number. It is a career consulate general, not an honorary post.
- Does a Texas apostille work for Saudi Arabia?
- Saudi Arabia has been a Contracting Party to the Apostille Convention since 7 December 2022, so the Texas universal apostille is the whole chain, at fifteen dollars per document and not per page.
- Can anyone be buried in Saudi Arabia?
- The United States Mission page states that non-Muslim United States citizens are generally prohibited from being buried in Saudi Arabia except in emergency circumstances, and that cremation is forbidden in the Kingdom. Ask Houston before making arrangements.
Sources checked and case confirmation
Sources checked September 23, 2026: the Texas Secretary of State consular directory and its Saudi Arabia entry, and its pages on authentication and on requesting a universal apostille; the HCCH status table for the Apostille Convention; the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in the United States and its electronic services list; the Saudi foreign ministry unified embassies portal; and the United States Mission page on the death of a United States citizen in Saudi Arabia. What this page deliberately does not claim: anything drawn from reversing the export procedure published for remains leaving the Kingdom; what Saudi Arabia requires when remains arrive, because no source we read states it; that the consulate general in Houston performs any particular service, because nothing published says so; or that the burial rules quoted extend beyond the United States citizens the page describes. The Texas directory names the Consul General; that name is not reproduced here. Contact Vargas-London with the city in Saudi Arabia and where your relative is now, without sending medical or identity documents through the inquiry form.
