The FTC Funeral Rule: Your Rights and the General Price List

The FTC Funeral Rule is a federal regulation (16 CFR Part 453), in effect since 1984, that sets what every funeral home in the United States must do when you shop for a funeral. A funeral home must give you accurate prices over the phone, hand you an itemized General Price List to keep when you discuss arrangements in person, and let you buy only the goods and services you choose. It cannot make you buy a casket for a direct cremation, refuse or charge extra for a casket or urn you bought elsewhere, or tell you embalming is required by law when it is not.

Who has to follow the rule

The rule applies to funeral providers: any business that sells or offers both funeral goods, such as caskets, and funeral services, such as embalming or arranging a ceremony. It does not cover third-party sellers such as casket retailers and monument dealers, or cemeteries that do not have a funeral home on site.

Your rights under the Funeral Rule

• Prices by phone. If you call and ask, the funeral home must give you accurate price information from its price lists, and it cannot require your name, address or phone number first. It does not have to mail you a price list, though many will.
• A General Price List to keep. When you start discussing arrangements in person — at the funeral home or anywhere else — the funeral home must offer you a written, itemized General Price List. It shows an effective date and the price of each item the home offers (see the list below).
• Casket prices before caskets. You must be offered a casket price list before you are shown any caskets, so you can ask about lower-priced models that may not be on display. The same applies to outer burial containers (vaults and grave liners) unless their prices are already on the General Price List.
• Buy only what you want. You can choose individual items instead of a package. Funeral homes may offer packages, but only in addition to itemized prices, not instead of them. The one charge you cannot decline is the basic services fee for the funeral director and staff, which covers work common to every funeral, such as planning the arrangements and obtaining permits.
• An itemized statement before you pay. When the arrangements are settled, you must receive a written statement listing each item you chose, its price and the total. If a law, cemetery or crematory requires you to buy something, the statement must explain that requirement in writing.
• No casket for direct cremation. No state or local law requires a casket for cremation. A funeral home that offers direct cremation must make an alternative container available: an unfinished wood box or other non-metal container without ornamentation or a fixed lining, such as pressed wood, fiberboard or cardboard.
• Caskets and urns bought elsewhere. You can buy a casket or urn from another seller, online or locally. The funeral home cannot refuse to use it, cannot charge a fee for handling it, and cannot require you to be there when it is delivered.
• No embalming you did not approve. Embalming is not required by law except in certain special cases, and the General Price List must say so. A funeral home may not claim embalming is needed for a direct cremation, an immediate burial or a closed-casket funeral without viewing when refrigeration is available. It may not charge for embalming you did not approve unless state law required it, or unless it could not reach the family despite trying and you then choose an arrangement, such as a viewing, that needs it. Some states require embalming or refrigeration if the body is not buried or cremated within a set time.
• Honest cash advance charges. Some items are bought from others on your behalf: cemetery or crematory services, flowers, obituary notices, death certificates, pallbearers and public transportation. If the funeral home adds its own charge to these or keeps a rebate or commission, your statement must say so.
• No false protection claims. A funeral home cannot claim that a casket, a vault or embalming will preserve the body for a long or indefinite time, or that a product protects the body from the soil when it does not. No state law requires an outer burial container, although many cemeteries do so the grave will not sink.

What is on a General Price List

The list must show the price of each of these items the funeral home offers:

• Transfer of the body to the funeral home
• Embalming, and other preparation of the body
• Use of facilities and staff for a viewing, a funeral ceremony and a memorial service
• Use of equipment and staff for a graveside service
• Hearse and limousine
• Direct cremation and immediate burial, with a description of what each price includes
• Forwarding remains to, and receiving remains from, another funeral home
• The basic services fee

Caskets and outer burial containers may appear as a price range, with the full price lists available at the funeral home. For what each of these items typically costs, see our funeral cost breakdown.

What the rule does not require

Prices online. The federal rule does not require funeral homes to post prices on their websites. The FTC asked for public comment on requiring online or electronic price lists in November 2022 and held a public workshop on the question in September 2023, but the rule still requires prices only by phone and in person. Some states go further: in California, a funeral home with a website must post the goods and services on its General Price List and link to them from its homepage. In the National Funeral Directors Association's 2026 consumer study, 82.4% of people said they would be more likely to choose a funeral home that posts its price list online.

Everyone else involved in a funeral. Cemeteries without an on-site funeral home, casket and monument dealers, and other third-party sellers are outside the rule, so ask them for their prices in writing too.

Does the FTC enforce it?

Yes. In 2023, FTC staff placed undercover calls to more than 250 funeral homes across the country. Thirty-nine violated the Funeral Rule on those calls and were sent warning letters in January 2024. Most refused to answer pricing questions or gave inconsistent prices for identical services; one falsely said a local health code required embalming, and another promised a General Price List but sent package prices instead. Penalties can exceed $50,000 per violation.

How to use your rights when comparing funeral homes

1. Call two or three funeral homes and ask the price of the arrangement you are considering — for example, a direct cremation with an alternative container, or a funeral with viewing and burial. You do not have to give your name.
2. Ask for the General Price List when you visit, or ask whether they will email it or have it online. Compare the basic services fee first, because it is part of every arrangement.
3. See the casket price list before you walk through the selection room, and ask about lower-priced models.
4. Read the itemized statement before you sign. Question any item you did not choose and any requirement that is not explained in writing.

Our guide to choosing a funeral home has ten questions to ask, and our free AI Planning Assistant can list funeral homes near you and help you prepare for the call.

If a funeral home does not follow the rule

• Raise it with the funeral director first, ideally in writing, and keep copies of every price list and statement you were given.
• Complain to your state. Contact the board or agency that licenses funeral homes in your state, and your state attorney general's consumer protection office. The nonprofit Funeral Consumers Alliance publishes advice on filing a complaint.
• Report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. The FTC does not resolve individual complaints, but reports help it spot patterns and decide where to enforce.

Sources

• Electronic Code of Federal Regulations: 16 CFR Part 453 (Funeral Industry Practices)
• FTC: The FTC Funeral Rule
• FTC: Complying with the Funeral Rule
• FTC: FTC Sends Warning Letters to Funeral Homes After First Undercover Phone Sweep (January 25, 2024)
• FTC: Funeral Rule Workshop (September 7, 2023)
• California Business and Professions Code § 7685
• NFDA 2026 Consumer Awareness and Preferences Study
• Funeral Consumers Alliance: Filing a Complaint