Most corridors this service handles run one way: British families bringing someone home from abroad. Lithuania is different. One of the largest Lithuanian communities anywhere in the EU has settled in the UK, so repatriation cases run in both directions, UK to Lithuania as often as the reverse. That’s shaped how well practised the process has become on both ends.
A resident Embassy and organised registration
The British Embassy in Vilnius is resident, reachable on +370 5 246 2900, and provides full consular support without the delay a non-resident arrangement can add. Death registration goes through Registru centras, the Register Centre’s Civil Metrical Records division, which issues the Mirties liudijimas, the Lithuanian death certificate, in Lithuanian. Certified English translation is required before the UK Coroner can use it, and your repatriation firm arranges this as standard.
When police and prosecutors get involved
A non-natural death brings in the Lithuanian Police. Where criminal proceedings are a possibility, the Prokuratura, the Prosecutor’s Office, has to clear the case before release. This adds time on top of the standard process, though Lithuania’s EU-standard judicial system moves at a broadly predictable pace compared with many non-EU corridors.
Getting home
Vilnius International Airport has direct Ryanair and Wizz Air flights to London Gatwick and Luton. Kaunas International Airport also serves London routes. Flight time from either is around three hours, among the shorter European connections this service deals with. Most cases complete in five to fourteen days.
A border region worth knowing about
Lithuania borders Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave, and shares a frontier with Belarus. The FCDO advises awareness of the security context in these border areas. This has no bearing on a routine repatriation case centred on Vilnius or Kaunas, but it’s worth understanding if a death occurs near either border.
Read how a UK Coroner treats a repatriated body, or see repatriation from Lithuania to the UK for the country-specific detail.
Contact Repatriate Service on +44 7703 577246 at any hour, or use the enquiry form below.