HomeFuneral laws by state
Funeral and burial laws by state
Almost everything a family is told is “required” in the week after a death is a funeral home’s policy, not the law. The law is shorter than people expect and it differs by state. These pages set out what each state actually requires, with the statute for every point, and say plainly where a rule could not be verified.
- Embalming is never required in every case. Most states require it, or refrigeration, only when disposition is delayed past a set number of hours or when a body is shipped. The FTC Funeral Rule forbids a funeral home from claiming otherwise.
- No state requires a casket for cremation, and the funeral home must offer an alternative container. Vaults are cemetery policy, not statute.
- Most states let a family handle a death without a funeral director. A handful require one for specific steps such as filing the certificate or signing at the crematory. The state page says which.
Choose a state
- Alabama1 official sources
- Alaska1 official sources
- Arizona3 official sources
- Arkansas1 official sources
- California3 official sources
- Colorado1 official sources
- Connecticut4 official sources
- Delaware2 official sources
- District of Columbia3 official sources
- Florida4 official sources
- Georgia0 official sources
- Hawaii1 official sources
- Idaho3 official sources
- Illinois4 official sources
- Indiana0 official sources
- Iowa3 official sources
- Kansas3 official sources
- Kentucky4 official sources
- Louisiana1 official sources
- Maine3 official sources
- Maryland4 official sources
- Massachusetts3 official sources
- Michigan4 official sources
- Minnesota4 official sources
- Mississippi2 official sources
- Missouri3 official sources
- Montana2 official sources
- Nebraska3 official sources
- Nevada3 official sources
- New Hampshire4 official sources
- New Jersey4 official sources
- New Mexico4 official sources
- New York4 official sources
- North Carolina4 official sources
- North Dakota4 official sources
- Ohio4 official sources
- Oklahoma4 official sources
- Oregon3 official sources
- Pennsylvania4 official sources
- Rhode Island4 official sources
- South Carolina4 official sources
- South Dakota4 official sources
- Tennessee1 official sources
- Texas3 official sources
- Utah4 official sources
- Vermont4 official sources
- Virginia4 official sources
- Washington4 official sources
- West Virginia3 official sources
- Wisconsin4 official sources
- Wyoming2 official sources
The federal layer every state sits on
The FTC Funeral Rule applies in all fifty states. It gives you the right to an itemised price list before you agree to anything, to prices over the phone, to buy only the items you want, and to bring a casket or urn from elsewhere with no handling fee. It forbids a funeral home from saying embalming, a casket for cremation or a vault is legally required when it is not. Everything on the state pages is what the state adds on top.
What a funeral costs in each state · How to compare funeral homes