Bosnia and Herzegovina looks like a single country on a map. Administratively, it isn’t. Two parallel systems handle death registration, forensic examination, and export permits, and knowing which one applies to your case matters from the first phone call.
Two entities, two systems
The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina covers Sarajevo, Mostar, Travnik, and Tuzla. Republika Srpska covers Banja Luka, Trebinje, and East Sarajevo. Each registers deaths through its own municipal civil records office, known as the Matičar, and each has a separate forensic institute for non-natural deaths. A case in Sarajevo and a case in Banja Luka follow entirely different administrative paths, even though both end at the same British Embassy.
Mostar is the one to know
Most UK visitors who die in Bosnia and Herzegovina do so in or near Mostar, drawn by the Old Bridge and the old town. Mostar sits in the Federation, so its cases go through the Federation’s municipal registration and, if the death wasn’t natural, to the Federal Institute of Forensic Medicine in Sarajevo. Mostar’s own airport rarely has the scheduled capacity for cargo repatriation, so bodies typically transfer to Sarajevo for the flight home.
A brief war legacy still matters
Rural and mountainous parts of the country still contain landmines and unexploded ordnance from the 1992 to 1995 conflict. The Mine Action Centre of Bosnia and Herzegovina maintains maps of cleared areas. A death in a suspected mined area can bring in additional police and Mine Action Centre protocols before recovery is possible. This is uncommon, but families hiking off marked paths in Herzegovina should know it’s a real possibility.
What the British Embassy in Sarajevo does
The Embassy is resident, not a satellite office covering the country from elsewhere, and staff have genuine experience with British repatriation cases given Sarajevo and Mostar’s tourist volumes. They register the death, issue the notifications UK probate needs, and can point families to the right entity’s process from the outset.
Read documents needed to repatriate a body to the UK for the wider document checklist, or see repatriation from Bosnia and Herzegovina to the UK for the full timeline breakdown.
Contact Repatriate Service on +44 7703 577246 at any hour, or use the enquiry form below.