Publishing a Death Notice¶

A death notice is the formal way of telling the wider world that someone has died. It serves three purposes: notifying people who knew the deceased but who the family may not have direct contact with, inviting those people to the funeral, and (where the family wants it) channelling charitable donations or floral tributes in a chosen direction. A notice is optional — there is no legal requirement to publish one — and many families choose not to, particularly where the deceased's circle is small or already personally informed.

This guide covers the practical mechanics: where to publish, what to include, what it costs, and how the family-facing death notice differs from the separate executor's Section 27 notice in The Gazette.

If you can only do one thing today: Decide whether you want a notice at all. If you do, the funeral director can place the notice on the family's behalf as part of the standard arrangements — this is usually the path of least friction. The funeral director knows the local newspapers, has accounts with the major online services, and can supply the wording from a template. The fee for placement is typically £50 to £150 for a local paper plus the funeral director's small admin charge.

What a notice is — and what it is not¶

UK convention distinguishes three kinds of public death-related publication:

A death notice is a short paid announcement that someone has died. Typical length is 50 to 150 words. The family writes it (or the funeral director writes it from family input) and pays for placement.

A funeral notice is a death notice that additionally includes the funeral details — date, time, venue, and any request about flowers or charitable donations. The purpose is partly informational and partly an invitation. A funeral notice is the normal form when the family wants people to attend the service.

An obituary is a longer editorial piece, written by a journalist or commissioned by the publication, about someone whose life was of public interest. Obituaries are not paid placements; they are editorial decisions made by the newspaper. National newspapers (The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian) publish obituaries of public figures but rarely commission them for private individuals at the family's request. For most people, "obituary" in everyday speech means a paid death or funeral notice; this guide uses the more accurate terms.

A separate, unrelated notice — the executor's Section 27 notice — is a statutory placement in The Gazette covered briefly at the end of this guide and in detail in Debt after death. It is not a public announcement; it is a creditor-protection mechanism for the executor.

Where to publish¶

The local newspaper. The most-used route. The local paper covers the area where the deceased lived or worked, reaches people who knew them locally, and remains the conventional place for a funeral notice. Most UK local papers have an online classified portal as well as the printed edition; the notice usually appears in both. Costs typically run £50 to £150 for a notice up to 100 words, placed by the family or by the funeral director on their behalf.

Which paper to use depends on geography:

England — the local daily or weekly. Major regional papers include The Manchester Evening News, The Birmingham Mail, The Bristol Post, The Yorkshire Post.
Scotland — The Scotsman, The Herald, The Press and Journal for the major regions; smaller local titles for individual towns.
Wales — The Western Mail, The South Wales Echo, The Wrexham Leader.
Northern Ireland — The Belfast Telegraph, The Irish News, The News Letter.

Where the deceased had connections to multiple places (born and raised in one town, lived their adult life in another), notices in two or three local papers reach a wider circle. Cost scales linearly.

National newspapers. Used for people who were prominent nationally or whose circle is geographically dispersed. Costs run materially higher — £200 to £500+ for a notice in The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, or the Financial Times — and the publications maintain editorial standards on placement. National notices are uncommon for private individuals; most are arranged through the funeral director.

Online death-notice services. Largely free for a basic notice and increasingly the primary channel:

Funeral-Notices.co.uk — a UK-specific service used by most UK funeral directors as their default online placement. Indexed by search engines, so the notice surfaces when people search the deceased's name. Free for the basic notice; paid upgrades for memorial pages with photographs and a guest book.
Legacy.com — global, US-headquartered, increasingly used for UK notices. Aggregates notices from many newspapers and presents them on a unified site. Free basic notice; paid memorial pages.
The funeral director's own website. Many UK funeral directors maintain a memorial section on their website, where the notice appears at no extra cost. Reach is limited to people who know to look there.

The standard practice for most families in 2026 is the local paper plus an online service, often both placed by the funeral director as part of arrangements.

What to include¶

A workable death or funeral notice fits comfortably in 75 to 150 words. The standard structure:

Full name of the deceased — including any name they were commonly known by ("Margaret 'Maggie' Smith").
Age at death, or date of birth.
Date of death — sometimes with the place ("peacefully at home" or "in hospital after a short illness").
Family relationships — typically partner, children, grandchildren, siblings, in the form "beloved husband of … father to … grandfather of …". Names of immediate family are conventional; extended family is optional.
A short personal line — what the deceased was known for, an interest, a defining quality. One sentence is enough.
Funeral details (in a funeral notice) — date, time, venue, dress code if any, and an indication of whether the funeral is open or family-only.
Floral and donation requests — "family flowers only" if the family does not want general flowers; a named charity for donations in lieu.
Contact information — usually the funeral director's name and phone number for queries about attendance.

A workable example:

Margaret Anne Smith, aged 82, of Northampton, peacefully at home on 15 April 2026 after a long illness. Beloved wife of John, mother of David, James, and Sarah, and grandmother of seven. Margaret will be remembered for her warmth, her garden, and her devotion to St. Andrew's choir.

Funeral service at St. Andrew's Church, Northampton, on 8 May 2026 at 11.00 am, followed by cremation at Northampton Crematorium. All welcome. Family flowers only; donations in Margaret's memory to Marie Curie via the funeral director.

Enquiries to Smith & Sons Funeral Directors, Northampton, 01604 555 1234.

The wording can be more or less formal as the family prefers. Light humour ("known by all for her terrible jokes") is acceptable and increasingly common. Religious references match the family's tradition or omit them.

What it costs¶

Costs in 2026 are roughly:

Local newspaper — £50 to £150 for a standard notice. Charged per line or per word above a base rate, so longer notices cost more. Placed by the family or via the funeral director.
National newspaper — £200 to £500+ depending on the publication and length. The Telegraph and The Times sit at the upper end.
Funeral-Notices.co.uk — free for the basic notice. Memorial-page upgrades £30 to £80.
Legacy.com — free basic notice. Memorial pages £40 to £100.
The funeral director's own website — free.
Multiple placements — additive. A common combination is one local newspaper plus Funeral-Notices.co.uk for around £75 to £150 total.

Most funeral directors include placement of one local notice in their standard package; check the itemised quote before paying separately.

Timing¶

For a funeral notice (one that includes the service details), the placement date matters. The notice should appear far enough before the funeral that people have time to plan to attend, but not so far that it gets buried by other content. The conventional pattern is 3 to 7 days before the funeral for a printed local-newspaper notice, with the online version going up at the same time and remaining available indefinitely; the funeral director usually coordinates this.

For a death notice without funeral details — used where the funeral is private or where the family wants to publish first and confirm details later — placement can be any time after registration. There is no legal deadline.

For an executor's Section 27 notice, the timing is different: that notice runs after grant of probate is issued and serves a specific creditor-protection function. See the next section.

The executor's notice in The Gazette¶

A separate kind of notice exists for executors dealing with the estate after the funeral. The Section 27 notice is a statutory placement in The Gazette — the official UK government newspaper of record — that invites unknown creditors of the estate to come forward within 2 months. After the 2-month period, the executor is personally protected from claims by creditors they did not know about and could not reasonably have discovered.

The Section 27 notice is not a public announcement of the death in any conventional sense. It is a creditor-protection step, separate from the family-facing death or funeral notice covered in this guide. It runs after probate, not before the funeral. It is placed through The Gazette's online portal at thegazette.co.uk and costs around £100 to £150. Most estates do not need one; complex estates with potentially-unknown creditors do.

For more on Section 27, see Debt after death and the Section 27 notice entity.

Privacy and not publishing¶

Many families choose not to publish a notice at all. There is no obligation, and where the deceased's circle is small enough that direct contact reaches everyone who needs to know, a public notice adds little. Where the family is concerned about privacy — particularly around the deceased's address, relationships, or cause of death — notices can be omitted entirely or written in deliberately spare terms ("Margaret Smith, on 15 April. Funeral private.").

A common middle path is the online-only notice on Funeral-Notices.co.uk or the funeral director's site, with no newspaper placement. This appears in search results when people search the deceased's name but does not push out into the local press. It is the lowest-friction public acknowledgement.

Scotland and Northern Ireland¶

The mechanics are identical to England and Wales. Local papers, online services, and The Gazette all operate UK-wide on the same terms. The Scottish equivalent of the central Gazette is The Edinburgh Gazette, accessed through the same thegazette.co.uk portal under the Scottish section. The Northern Irish equivalent is The Belfast Gazette, similarly accessed.

What this guide doesn't cover¶

This guide is about the family-facing death and funeral notice. It does not cover the executor's Section 27 notice in any depth (covered in the debt guide), the arrangements with the funeral director, or the underlying cost of the funeral itself.

It also does not cover memorial websites and crowdfunded tribute pages, which are increasingly common alternatives to traditional notices but operate outside the conventional newspaper-and-Gazette framework.

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Next: How to apply for probate

Last verified: 30 April 2026 against current published rates from major UK regional newspapers and Funeral-Notices.co.uk.