Reviewed by Carlos Vargas, Texas Licensed Funeral Director (TFSC #119648) ·
An office in Garland, and a file that still goes to Washington
Almost every destination in these guides puts its nearest office in Houston, in Washington, or nowhere. Sierra Leone is one of the few with one in the Dallas area. The Texas Secretary of State lists an honorary consul of Sierra Leone at 2301 Forest Lane, Suite 400, Garland, Texas 75042, marked Dallas Area, with a telephone number.
Now the part that matters as much as the address. That listing gives the address and telephone and nothing else — no hours, no consular district, no list of what the office can do — and the embassy’s own website never mentions Garland. So we are not going to tell you it can issue anything. It is a local number worth calling first, and that is the whole of what is established.
The published procedure lives in Washington. The Embassy of Sierra Leone sets out its consular services and gives its hours as Monday to Friday, ten until three, excluding public holidays, on +1 (202) 939-9261. It says walk-ins are welcome in those hours and recommends calling ahead for complex matters. A repatriation is one.
The list is headed “for citizens”, and that heading is load-bearing
The embassy publishes something most do not: a section headed requirements for repatriation of human remains to Sierra Leone, with the documents named one by one. Read the heading under it first: for citizens of the Republic of Sierra Leone. Nothing published says what happens when the person who died was not a Sierra Leonean citizen, and we will not invent that answer. If that is your situation, the telephone call comes before the paperwork.
Above the list sits a second instruction that quietly governs the whole file: unless indicated, all documents submitted should be original. Not certified copies, unless the item itself says so. Order the extra originals from Texas at the start, because ordering them again in week two costs a week.
The documents themselves are a death certificate, a burial or transit permit, a letter from the embalmer, a certificate of non-contagious disease, the passport, a copy of the itinerary, and the fee. The embalmer’s letter has to say two things, not one: that the remains were embalmed according to accepted mortuary procedures, and that they are enclosed in a sealed casket containing only the body, the clothing and the packing.
| Document | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Death certificate, original | Texas vital records |
| Burial or transit permit | Texas, through your funeral home |
| Embalmer’s letter, sealed-casket wording | Your funeral home |
| Certificate of non-contagious disease | Treating physician or health department |
| Current Sierra Leone passport, or a travel certificate | The family, or the embassy |
| Copy of the itinerary | Whoever books the flight |
A hundred dollars, by money order, and cash is not accepted
Sierra Leone prints its price, which most destinations do not. The embassy asks for a money order of US$100 made payable to the Embassy of Sierra Leone for processing the funeral documents, together with a prepaid self-addressed envelope, and it advises United States Postal Service Express Mail for the return.
The method is as fixed as the amount. On the same page, for its travel certificate, the embassy states that cash payments are not accepted. A family that arrives with cash, or posts a personal cheque, has not paid. A money order has to be bought, and that is an errand, so put it at the top of the list.
One figure on that page is not yours to pay. The embassy charges US$100 per document to authenticate documents issued by the authorities in Sierra Leone. That is the opposite direction — papers coming from Freetown, not going to it — and a Texas death certificate is not one of them.
The passport question that stops a file
The item most likely to hold up a Sierra Leonean repatriation is not the medical paperwork. It is the passport.
The list asks for a current Republic of Sierra Leone passport. Where one is not available, the embassy directs families to an Emergency Travel Certificate, applied for on its own site, with two passport photographs, a copy of the old passport or a birth certificate, a prepaid self-addressed envelope and a further money order of US$100. That is a second hundred dollars, not the same one.
And there is a line for dual nationals that is easy to read past: the Sierra Leone passport needs to be valid, or a travel certificate has to be obtained. Holding a United States passport does not remove the requirement. If your relative’s Sierra Leonean passport lapsed years ago — which, for someone who left long ago, is the normal case — that certificate is part of the file from day one.
Outside the apostille system altogether
Several African guides in this set turn on whether a Texas apostille is accepted. For Sierra Leone the answer is short. It is not a party to the Apostille Convention at all.
We read the HCCH status table in full and searched it: Sierra Leone does not appear on it. The same search found Liberia and Senegal, which tells you the reading was working rather than the page failing to load. So an apostille has no treaty effect for Sierra Leone, and the embassy’s published list is consistent with that — it asks for original documents and never mentions an apostille or a legalisation step at all. Texas will still issue its universal apostille certificate for fifteen dollars per document if a Sierra Leonean authority later asks, but nothing published says one is wanted, and we will not send a family to Austin for a certificate no source requires.
Two limits close this out honestly. Nothing we read describes the arrival: who receives remains in Freetown, what a funeral home there must produce, or whether any domestic permit applies. And the United States Embassy in Freetown publishes only the death-in-Sierra-Leone case, which is the other journey. Neither gap is filled here.
Questions families ask about a return to Sierra Leone
- Is there a Sierra Leonean office near Dallas?
- The Texas Secretary of State lists an honorary consul in Garland, marked Dallas Area, with an address and a telephone number. The listing publishes no hours, no district and no list of services, and the embassy site does not mention it, so call before relying on it.
- Does a Texas death certificate need an apostille for Sierra Leone?
- Sierra Leone is not on the Apostille Convention status table at all, so an apostille has no treaty effect there. The embassy’s published list asks for original documents and never mentions one.
- What does the embassy charge?
- A money order of US$100 for processing the funeral documents, plus a prepaid self-addressed envelope. Cash is not accepted. A further US$100 money order applies if an Emergency Travel Certificate is needed.
Sources checked and case confirmation
Sources checked September 22, 2026 on the Texas Secretary of State directory of consular offices in Texas and its entry for Sierra Leone; the Embassy of Sierra Leone consular services page, including its repatriation requirements, its fees and its travel certificate; the HCCH status table of the Apostille Convention, read in full and searched; the Texas Secretary of State pages on authentication and on requesting a universal apostille; and the United States Embassy in Freetown page on the death of a citizen. What this page deliberately does not claim: what applies when the person who died was not a Sierra Leonean citizen, because the published list is headed for citizens and says no more; what the honorary consul in Garland can do, because no source states it; what happens on arrival in Sierra Leone, because no source we read describes it; and any fee other than the two the embassy prints. No airline, route or crate specification is stated here, and no individual is named. Contact Vargas-London with the district in Sierra Leone and where your relative is now, without sending medical or identity documents through the inquiry form.
