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Green burial

A green burial uses no embalming, no concrete vault and no metal casket. A shroud or a plain wooden coffin, a hand dug grave, and ground managed as meadow or woodland rather than mown lawn. It is the oldest way of burying people and, in most cases, also the cheapest.

Written by Raphael Hertz, licensed life insurance agentUpdated 1 September 2026Editorial standards

What natural burial is

Natural burial, also called green burial, means burying a body so that it returns to the soil without obstruction. Nothing goes into the ground that will not break down. The grave is usually shallower than a conventional one, at a depth where soil biology is most active, and the site is managed for native habitat rather than for a lawnmower.

None of this is new or exotic. It is how almost everyone was buried before the middle of the nineteenth century, and how a great many people are still buried in religious traditions that require prompt burial without embalming. What is new is the formal certification of burial grounds and the availability of the option through mainstream funeral homes.

Families choose it for different reasons. Some for the environment. Some because a plain shroud and a hand filled grave felt truer to the person than a polished casket. And a good number simply because it costs less, which is a perfectly respectable reason and one nobody should feel awkward about.

What it forbids

Rules vary between burial grounds, but a certified natural burial ground will prohibit most or all of the following.

Not permitted	Why	What is used instead
Embalming with formaldehyde based fluid	The chemistry does not belong in the soil, and the practice is not required by law.	Refrigeration, dry ice, or simply a shorter interval before burial.
Metal caskets and sealed or gasketed units	They do not break down and they are designed to exclude the ground.	Untreated softwood, wicker, bamboo, cardboard, or a shroud alone.
Exotic and tropical hardwoods	Slow to decompose and usually imported.	Locally sourced pine, poplar or willow.
Concrete vaults and grave liners	They are the largest single piece of material in a conventional grave and exist to keep the ground level for mowing.	Nothing. The ground is allowed to settle and is topped up.
Varnish, veneer, glue and metal fittings	Finishes and fixings persist in the soil.	Unfinished timber with wooden pegs or rope handles.
Upright polished granite headstones	Quarried, transported and set in concrete, and they force the site into cemetery lawn management.	A flat native fieldstone, an engraved wooden marker, a planted tree, or a GPS record with no marker at all.
Herbicides and fertilisers on the grounds	The site is managed as habitat.	Native meadow, woodland or prairie planting.
Synthetic clothing and shrouds	Polyester does not decompose.	Cotton, linen, wool or silk.

What it costs

There is no national survey of green burial prices in the way there is for conventional funerals, so anyone quoting you a single number is guessing. What can be done honestly is to take the published median line items for a conventional burial and mark the ones a natural burial removes. The table below does exactly that, using the same NFDA medians and cemetery mid points used everywhere else on this site.

Item	Conventional	Natural burial
Basic services of the funeral director and staff	$2,495	The same. Non declinable everywhere.
Removal and transfer	$395	The same.
Embalming	$845	Not used. Refrigeration instead, usually far less.
Casket	$2,500	A shroud or plain wooden coffin, typically a small fraction of that.
Burial vault or grave liner	$1,695	Prohibited. Removed entirely.
Plot	$2,000	$1,000 to $4,000. Conservation grounds sit at the higher end because part of the fee funds the land.
Opening and closing the grave	$1,400	Comparable, and hand digging is sometimes dearer than machine work.
Headstone or marker	$2,000	A flat native stone, a tree or a GPS record, commonly a small fraction or nothing.

Take out the vault, the embalming and the metal casket and roughly $5,040 of a $15,395 conventional burial disappears before you have negotiated anything. Replace the headstone with a fieldstone and more goes with it. Most families end up somewhere between the immediate burial figure of $5,138 and the full conventional figure, and a graveside only service with a shroud can land well below either.

The one place natural burial is not always cheaper is the plot itself. A conservation burial ground is buying and permanently protecting land with your fee, so its plots sometimes cost more than a conventional cemetery nearby. You are paying for acreage that will never be developed, which is a different product. Compare against the full conventional breakdown before assuming either way.

The three kinds of burial ground

The Green Burial Council certifies burial grounds at three levels, and the distinction matters because the word green is used loosely by cemeteries that only meet the first.

Type	What it is	What to expect
Hybrid burial ground	A conventional cemetery with a section that permits burial without a vault, without embalming and in a biodegradable container.	The most common and the easiest to find. The rest of the cemetery is still mown lawn and granite.
Natural burial ground	A dedicated site with no vaults anywhere, no chemical embalming, no non biodegradable materials, and habitat led management.	Meadow or woodland. Markers restricted to flat native stone or none at all.
Conservation burial ground	Everything above, plus a legal conservation easement held by a separate land trust, and burial fees that fund the stewardship of the land in perpetuity.	The strictest standard and the rarest. Fewer than a hundred exist nationally.

Conservation cemeteries

A conservation burial ground is a working piece of protected land that happens to accept burials. The land is placed under a conservation easement held by a third party land trust, which means it cannot later be sold for development even if the cemetery business changes hands. Burial fees fund the restoration and long term stewardship of the habitat.

Graves are recorded by survey and GPS rather than marked in rows, and the site reads as meadow, prairie or woodland rather than as a cemetery. Families are usually permitted to carry the coffin, lower it themselves, and fill the grave by hand, and many find that the part of the day they remember.

The catch is availability. There are not many, they are unevenly distributed across the country, and a family in the wrong state may face a long drive. Distance costs money and adds mileage charges to the funeral home bill, so factor that in rather than discovering it at the end.

Is it legal where you live

Natural burial is legal in all fifty states. The rules that stop it are almost always cemetery policy rather than law, and it is worth knowing the difference when someone tells you otherwise.

No state requires embalming as a matter of routine, and under the FTC Funeral Rule a funeral home may not perform it for a fee without permission, nor claim a law requires something without identifying that law in writing. No state requires a burial vault either. Vaults are a condition many cemeteries impose so the ground stays level for mowing, which is a commercial requirement and not a legal one. A cemetery is entitled to insist on it, and you are entitled to bury elsewhere.

Burial on private land is permitted in most states, subject to county zoning, minimum acreage, setbacks from water and a recorded plat, and a small number of states require a licensed funeral director to be involved in the disposition. Check with the county clerk and the state funeral board before planning it, and think carefully about what happens when the land is sold.

Two related methods are worth mentioning because they come up in the same conversation. Alkaline hydrolysis, sold as water cremation or aquamation, and natural organic reduction, sold as human composting, are each legal in a growing number of states but not in most of them. Availability depends entirely on where you are, so ask locally rather than assuming. For the wider comparison, see cremation against burial.

What happens on the day

A natural burial is usually simpler and slower than a conventional one. The body is washed and dressed, often by the family if they want to, and wrapped in a shroud or placed in a plain coffin. There is generally no viewing at a funeral home, though a short goodbye at home is common and entirely lawful in most states.

At the burial ground the coffin or shrouded body is carried to the grave, sometimes on a simple bier. The service happens at the graveside rather than in a chapel, which removes the facility and ceremony charges from the funeral home bill. The grave is filled by hand, often by the people who came, and the site is planted or left to regrow. A flat native stone may be set later, or the location recorded and left unmarked.

Families frequently describe it as more physical and more involving than they expected. That is worth knowing in advance so nobody is caught unprepared, and it is worth telling anyone attending who may not want to take part in filling the grave.

How to find a burial ground

Search the Green Burial Council directory of certified burial grounds and funeral homes, which is the primary national list.
Check the Conservation Burial Alliance for conservation grounds specifically, which are the strictest tier.
Ask conventional cemeteries near you whether they have a natural section. Hybrid sections are far more common than dedicated grounds and are rarely advertised.
Ask your local Funeral Consumers Alliance affiliate, which surveys prices and providers in its own area.
Ring three funeral homes and ask directly whether they handle natural burials and which grounds they work with. Under the Funeral Rule they must quote prices over the phone.

Questions to ask before you commit

Green is not a regulated word in this industry, so verify rather than trust the brochure. Ask whether the ground is certified and at which level. Ask whether vaults are prohibited everywhere or only in one section. Ask what containers are permitted and whether a shroud alone is allowed. Ask who holds the conservation easement, if the ground claims to be a conservation cemetery. Ask what markers are permitted and whether the location is surveyed. Ask what the plot fee covers, what opening and closing costs, and whether any of the fee goes to an endowment for long term care. And ask what happens to the land if the operator goes out of business.

The same discipline applies to the funeral home half of the bill. Get the itemised price list, decline what you do not want, and read how families get overcharged before you sit down. If you are planning rather than arranging, prepaid plans and burial insurance are the two ways families cover the figure in advance.

Work out your own figure first

A natural burial removes several thousand dollars from a typical bill, and what remains still has to be paid at the time. Get a number for your state, then decide how to cover it.

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Common questions

Do you need a casket for a green burial?

Generally no. Most green cemeteries accept a shroud alone, and those that require a container accept plain wood, wicker or cardboard. What green burial rules out is the metal casket, the concrete vault and the embalming, which together are most of the cost and nearly all of the material left in the ground.

How much does a green burial cost?

There is no national price survey for green burial, so treat any single figure with caution. What can be said is what it removes. Taking out embalming at $845, a metal casket at $2,500 and a vault at $1,695 strips roughly $5,040 from a conventional burial before anything else changes. Most families land between the immediate burial figure of $5,138 and a full conventional burial.

Is green burial legal in all states?

Yes. Natural burial is legal in all fifty states. What varies is cemetery policy, since a cemetery may require a vault as a condition of selling you a plot even though no state law demands one. Burial on private land is also permitted in most states subject to county zoning, though a few states require a licensed funeral director to be involved.

Do you need a casket for a green burial?

No. A shroud alone is accepted at most natural burial grounds. Where a container is used it must be biodegradable, which in practice means untreated softwood, wicker, bamboo or cardboard, with no metal fittings, varnish or glue. Under the Funeral Rule a funeral home must accept a container you bought elsewhere without a handling fee.

Can you be buried without embalming?

Yes, and it is the normal case rather than the exception. No state requires embalming as a matter of routine. Refrigeration is used instead, and a few states require either embalming or refrigeration only if burial is delayed beyond a set number of days or the body crosses a state line.

What is a conservation burial ground?

A natural burial ground protected by a legal conservation easement held by a separate land trust, so the land cannot later be developed. Burial fees fund the long term stewardship of the habitat. It is the strictest of the three Green Burial Council certification levels and the rarest, with fewer than a hundred nationally.

Are green burials cheaper than conventional burials?

Usually, because the vault, the embalming, the metal casket and often the headstone all come out of the bill. The exception is the plot itself at a conservation burial ground, where part of the fee buys and protects land permanently and can therefore cost more than a plot at a conventional cemetery nearby.

Can you have a green burial in a regular cemetery?

Often yes. Many conventional cemeteries now maintain a hybrid section that permits burial without a vault, without embalming and in a biodegradable container. These sections are far more common than dedicated natural burial grounds and are rarely advertised, so ask the cemetery directly.

How is a green burial grave marked?

Usually with a flat native fieldstone, an engraved wooden marker or a planted tree, and at some grounds not at all. Conservation grounds record each grave by survey and GPS so the location is permanently known even where nothing is visible above ground. Upright polished granite is generally not permitted.