Ontario Death FAQs

Regular Service (15-20 business days)

• Death Certificate (File Size): $50.00
• Certified Copy of Statement of Death (Long Form):  $57.00
• Certified Copy of Statement of Death & Medical Certificate of Death (Extended Long Form): $57.00
• Search (each 5 years searched): $50.00

Rush Service (5-10 business days)   

• Death Certificate (File Size): $80.00
• Certified Copy of Statement of Death (Long Form): $87.00
• Certified Copy of Statement of Death & Medical Certificate of Death (Extended Long Form): $87.00
• Search (each 5 years searched): $80.00

Rush service is NOT available under the following circumstances:

• International Orders:  Rush Service is not available for delivery outside Canada.
• Recent Deaths:  A certificate will be issued upon completion of the death registration.  The registration takes approximately 12 weeks from the date of death.  Rush service is not available for deaths that took place within the last 12 weeks.  Please contact the Registrar’s Office at 1-800-461-2156 (Ontario Only) or 416-325-8305 if you do require a certificate for a recent death on a rush basis.
• Deaths Prior to 1991:  Death Certificate applications where the death took place prior to 1991 normally take longer to process and therefore, rush service is not available.
• Deaths Prior to 1980:  Deaths prior to 1980 may not be in electronic format.  When applying for a Death Certificate for a death that occurred prior to 1980, it can take up to an extra 6-8 weeks for the registration to be converted into electronic format before processing can be completed and therefore, rush service is not available.

The only payment currently accepted is credit card (Visa and MasterCard).

It will take 15-20 business days with the Regular Service options or 5-10 business days with the Rush Service option.

Death Certificate (File Size 7″ x 8.25″):

• This contains basic information, such as names, date and place of death.

Certified Copy of Statement of Death (Long Form 8.5″ x 14″):

• This contains all information registered on the Statement of Death including signatures.

Certified Copy of Statement of Death & Medical Certificate of Death (Extended Long Form):

• This contains all information registered on both the Statement of Death and Medical Certificate of Death including signatures.

The Death Certificate will be sent to you directly from the Office of the Registrar General.  It will arrive in the mail with the Regular Service option, or by courier with the Rush Service option.

Yes.  If the death record contains any French accents on the registered names, please ensure they are clearly displayed on the Death Certificate application form.

If you are following up on the status of an already ordered certificate, as the applicant, you will need to contact the government agency directly.  They will only discuss the status of the application with the applicant.  Please contact the Office of The Registrar General:

Toll Free: 1-800-461-2156 (Ontario only)
Telephone: 416-325-8305

You can also check the status of your application online.

Death Certificates are issued using the information from the original Registration of Death.  If you are not certain of the date of death or whether the person is deceased, you may order a search letter.  A search letter only states that according to the Office of the Registrar General, an event either is or is not recorded.  No actual information is provided or confirmed.  Fill out the estimated date of death on the Death Certificate application.  That entire year will be searched, plus two years before and after, for a total of five years.  You may also request a search of additional years, in increments of five years.

In Ontario, the Office of the Registrar General holds complete records from 1869, when civil registration began.  Death records remain there until they are more than 70 years old which means they are no longer within the restricted period.

These unrestricted death records are then transferred to the Archives of Ontario.  Due to the large demand, staff members at that office are unable to undertake genealogical searches in these vital records.  However, microfilm copies of the nominal indexes and the original registrations are available through inter-institutional loan from the Archives of Ontario and through your local Family History Library.  Should you prefer to hire someone to search through those records on your behalf, the Archives of Ontario can provide a list of researchers.

You can apply for an Ontario Death Certificate if you are:

• Any person with a valid reason.

You can apply for an Ontario Certified Copy of Statement of Death if you are:

• Next-of-kin (spouse, common law partner, mother, father, daughter, son, sister, or brother);
• If all next-of-kin are deceased the extended next-of-kin may apply (grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, first cousin, nephew, niece, or grandchild).

Each Death Certificate order form (except for Newfoundland & Labrador, Northwest Territories and Nunavut) has both a regular and rush service option.  If you require a Death Certificate in a hurry, please check off the rush service option.

If you need to obtain a Death Certificate even faster than the rush service option, the process can be expedited further.  In these instances, you must apply for an Early Registration of Death.  With adequate proof of urgency, Civil Processing Bureau can cut down the processing time for a Death Certificate from approximately 12 weeks to just 2-3 weeks.

The process of obtaining a Death Certificate can only be expedited when there is a valid pressing issue that must be dealt with very quickly.  You will not qualify for this expedited process without a valid proof of urgency.  The validity of the urgency is always left up to the discretion of the Office of the Registrar General, however, the following reasons have generally been accepted as valid for Early Registration of Death:

• Urgent need to settle the deceased person’s estate claims;
• Urgent need to claim a Will from a deceased relative.

In order to determine whether you qualify for an Early Registration of Death, Civil Processing Bureau will analyze your case, make sure that you have the all the necessary documentation, and prepare the reason of urgency in a way that gives it the best chance of success.

Yes.  Occasionally death records need to be amended, such as when an error has been made to the original Registration of Death.  Applicants may apply to correct an error to an original registration by completing a Form 23 and providing satisfactory evidence that proves the original registration was incorrect.

The application for a correction to a Death Registration (Form 23) is not available online.  You must contact Service Ontario directly at 1-800-461-2156 for all of North America (areas outside of Toronto) or 1-416-325-8305 in the Greater Toronto Area and Internationally, to request the form.

Form 23 must be signed in the presence of a commissioner for taking affidavits for oaths.

Depending on what information is being corrected, original copies of evidence required to make the correction may include one or more of the following:

• Hospital record of Birth (letter from the hospital)
• Copy of baptismal register certified by a church official or Cradle Roll certificate issued within four years of birth
• School record of registration for early elementary years (Grades 1 – 4)
• Canadian Record of Immigrant Landing
• Canadian Citizenship
• Copy of the church marriage register, certified by a church official
• Birth Certificate of subject
• Census record
• Change of Name certificate (copy)
• Copies of ID used at the time of the event

All forms, packages and evidence must be submitted with the application.  All original certificates provided as evidence will be returned to the applicant.  Copies will not be returned

Amendments to the original Death Registration cost $22.00.  The fee for the correction does not include a new Death Certificate once the correction has been made.