Funeral transportation cost, from the first call to a flight across the country

The first call, and what a transfer includes

The industry calls it the first call. Someone dies, the funeral home is contacted, and a vehicle with one or two staff collects the person and brings them to the funeral home. On the price list this appears as transfer or removal of remains, and the national median is $395.

What that figure normally buys is the vehicle, the staff and a transfer inside a stated local radius during normal working hours. What it does not buy is a collection at three in the morning from a third floor apartment forty miles away, and each of those variations has its own charge.

The transfer is a declinable service in principle, since you may in most states transport a person yourself, but in practice almost every family uses the funeral home for it. It is one of the few charges on the list where the price is genuinely tied to the work.

Local transport prices

These are typical market ranges observed across American funeral providers, not survey medians. The three anchored figures are the NFDA medians for the transfer of remains at $395, the hearse at $375 and the service car at $175.

The service car and the family limousine are the two rows worth a second look. Neither is required, both are commonly presented as part of the arrangement, and a family driving itself to the cemetery in its own cars removes $175 to $800 from the bill without changing the day at all. What is declinable and what is not is set out here.

Mileage, the charge nobody quotes

Every general price list states a service radius, commonly 25 to 50 miles from the funeral home, and every one of them charges beyond it. The rate is typically $2 to $6 a mile, and it applies to the transfer, to the hearse and to any additional vehicle.

The arithmetic gets uncomfortable quickly. A death at a hospital sixty miles away, a funeral home in town and a cemetery thirty miles in the other direction can add $400 to $900 in mileage to a quote that never mentioned it. Ask for the radius and the per mile rate at the same time you ask for the price list, and ask it on the phone, where the Funeral Rule requires an answer without your name.

Moving remains between states

A death away from home is the single most expensive logistical problem in this whole subject, and it is common. People die on holiday, in hospitals near an adult child, or in a state they retired to and never intended to be buried in.

Two funeral homes are now involved. The one where the death occurred prepares and dispatches, and the one at the destination receives and conducts the funeral. Federal rules require both of those roles to appear as separate priced items on every general price list, described as forwarding remains to another funeral home and receiving remains from another funeral home, so you can price each side.

Typical market ranges rather than survey medians, except the embalming row, which uses the NFDA median of $845. The anchored range for interstate shipping used across this site is $1,500 to $5,000.

For anything within about five hundred miles, ask about a ground transfer before anyone books a flight. Specialist livery firms move remains by road between funeral homes every day, it avoids the airline charge and the shipping container entirely, and it is frequently the cheaper and simpler answer.

What air shipping actually involves

Airlines carry human remains as cargo under their own procedures, and the funeral home books it, because the airline will only deal with an approved shipper. The pieces that make up the price are these.

• Preparation at the sending end, which normally includes embalming. Airlines and receiving states commonly require it for shipment, and this is one of the genuine cases where embalming is not optional. The rules on embalming are here.
• A shipping container, either an air tray that holds the casket or a sealed combination unit, bought once and included in the freight.
• The airline charge itself, priced by weight and distance, which is why a heavier casket costs more to fly than a lighter one.
• A burial transit permit, issued by the state where the death occurred, plus any documentation the receiving state requires.
• Transport to the departure airport and collection at the arrival airport, each usually charged separately.
• The receiving funeral home, which meets the flight and takes over from there.

Ask both funeral homes for a written itemised quote before you agree to anything. Prices at each end vary as much as they do for a local funeral, and the family is usually dealing with the sending home by telephone from another state, which is exactly the situation the telephone price disclosure rule exists for.

Moving cremated remains instead

This is the practical alternative that saves the most money, and it deserves stating plainly. Cremating where the death occurred and moving the remains costs a fraction of shipping a body. A direct cremation has a national median of $2,202, and the transport afterwards costs tens of dollars rather than thousands.

• Within the United States the Postal Service is the only carrier authorised to carry cremated remains, by Priority Mail Express with its required label and packaging, for roughly $30 to $120.
• Flying with them in the cabin is permitted, provided the container can be scanned by x ray. Screeners may not open it, so travel with wood, plastic or cardboard rather than dense metal or stone.
• A memorial service and burial of the remains can then happen at home, on the family timetable, with no transit deadline at all. Urn sizing and prices are here.

Families sometimes resist this because it feels like a compromise. It is worth saying that the alternative is several thousand dollars spent on freight, and that many families later say they would rather have put that money into the marker or the reception. The full comparison is here.

A death in another country

Repatriation to or from the United States is a different order of expense, commonly $5,000 to $15,000 and occasionally more. The cost is driven by consular paperwork, a certified translation of the death certificate, a hermetically sealed casket required by most airlines for international carriage, embassy fees and a funeral home at each end that has done it before.

Three things reduce the pain. Cremation abroad and carrying the remains home is dramatically cheaper where the family and the faith are comfortable with it. Travel insurance and some credit cards include repatriation of remains, so check every policy the person held before paying anything. And funeral homes sell inexpensive travel protection plans, usually a one time charge of a few hundred dollars, that cover transport home if a death occurs beyond a set distance. That is worth considering for anyone who travels regularly or spends winters away.