This page is not built from the Treasury's catalogue. The catalogue holds no death certificate record. The amounts below are read from the civil status law of December 2024 and the 2026 edition of the tax code, both archived here.
Registering the death is free
Article 5 (2) of Law No. 2024/016 of 23 December 2024 makes the public civil status service free for the declaration, the registration, the original certificate and the first copy from the national file. The law defines an acte d'état civil at article 3 as the authentic document recording a civil status event "à l'instar de la naissance, du mariage ou du décès", so a death certificate is covered by the same words as a birth certificate. There is no separate charge for registering a death, and nothing in the law creates one.
What a later copy costs
Exactly what a birth record copy costs, because the tax code does not distinguish between them. Article C 89 charges the local stamp on "la copie ou l'extrait d'acte d'état civil" without saying which event it records.
| What | Set by | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal stamp, any paper format | Tax code, articles 428 (6) and 547 | 1,500 FCFA |
| Local stamp, A4 or smaller | Tax code, article C 89 | 500 FCFA |
| Total at a council counter | The two above | 2,000 FCFA |
| Copy or extract from the national file | Published by the Treasury, no law named | 2,500 FCFA |
The reasoning behind each of those lines, the councils that publish them and the problems with the 2,500, are set out on the birth certificate page. They apply here unchanged. The Communauté urbaine de Douala writes its 2,000 FCFA rule as covering "copies ou extraits d'actes" generally, and the Treasury's national file records describe themselves as covering "naissance, mariage, décès".
The deadlines
This is where a death differs from a birth, and where most published guidance is wrong in an interesting way.
| Situation | Deadline | Set by |
|---|---|---|
| Death in the community | 90 days | Law 2024/016, articles 21 (1) and 22 (3) |
| Death in a health or prison establishment | 30 days for the establishment | Article 22 (1) |
| Then, if the establishment fails to declare | 60 further days for the family | Article 22 (2) |
| Body found and identifiable | 30 days for the judicial police officer, then 60 for the heirs | Article 23 (2) |
| Soldiers and sailors killed in action | 90 days | Article 25 |
| Death abroad where there is no Cameroonian mission | 12 months from return to Cameroon, after which the claim is time-barred | Article 27 (3) |
A death declaration must be attested by two witnesses, under article 21 (2). If the declarant has no identity papers, article 21 (3) allows the declaration on the testimony of the traditional ruler of the area.
Now the part guides get wrong. The ninety day window for a death is not new. It came in with the 2011 law, which replaced the one month window of the 1981 ordinance, and the 2024 law kept it. A birth, by contrast, only reached ninety days at the end of 2024. So writers who assume the two documents moved together will date one of them wrong, and plenty do.
When the deadline has passed
The court route rests on the same text as for a birth. Article 61: "Le jugement déclaratif intervient lorsque l'acte de naissance ou de décès n'a pas été établi dans les délais prévus par la présente loi."
No text says what it costs. The only court route component with a published figure is the 500 FCFA local stamp on the jugement supplétif at article C 89 of the tax code. Registry fees, service, the certificate of non appeal and the engrossed copy have no published tariff that we could find. The institutional estimates that exist, from the World Bank and UNICEF, were produced for birth registration and we do not transfer them to deaths.
Two provisions are worth knowing because they cut the other way.
Article 54 (2) makes one correction expressly free. Where a body was registered unidentified and is later identified, the record is corrected "sur ordonnance sans frais du président de la juridiction compétente".
Article 24 covers the case of a child who dies before the birth was declared. The birth must be declared and registered first, then the death. Both records, and both free under article 5 (2).
And one provision uses the old vocabulary. Article 55 is the only place the 2024 law still says jugement supplétif, and it is about undoing a death: where a death certificate was drawn up in error and the person turns out to be alive, the court annuls it on the application of the person concerned, the heirs or the Legal Department.
Moving a body
If a death requires a body to be transported, the travel document is a mortuary laissez-passer, and the tax code sets a stamp duty on it. The annex of the 2026 edition puts it at 100,000 FCFA. The body of the same volume does not carry the line at all, and sets a single laissez-passer at 25,000 FCFA. Those two printings of article 548 do not reconcile, and the reasons are set out on the passport page.
We publish the 100,000 as the annex figure, not as a settled price, because the document that should settle it contradicts itself.
What this page does not tell you
What a hospital charges for a medical certificate of death. What a mortuary charges. What a registry charges for a judgment. None of those has a published tariff we could find.
Sources
Read on 21 October 2026 unless another date is given.
- Law No. 2024/016 of 23 December 2024 organising the civil status registration system. Certified true copy carrying the Presidency watermark, obtained from impots.cm. Articles 3, 5, 21 to 27, 54, 55, 61 and 129.
- General Tax Code, 2026 editionour copy, impots.cm. Articles 428 (6), 547, 548 and C 89. Archived in full.
- Ordinance No. 81-02 of 29 June 1981, article 78, for the one month window, and Law No. 2011/011 of 6 May 2011, article 78 nouveau, for the move to ninety days. Article 129 of the 2024 law repeals them in their civil status aspects.
- The Treasury's catalogue of payable services, for the national civil status office fees at 2,500 FCFA.
- Communauté urbaine de Douala, état civil page, archived snapshot of 29 December 2025.
There is no online Journal Officiel for Cameroon. prc.cm is the de facto gazette.
If a figure here is wrong, tell us. The method is written out at how we verify.
Page updated 21 October 2026