If you are comparing prices across states, you are probably deciding something real: where a loved one will be cared for, or what your own plan will cost.
Funeral and cremation cost by state is not as well documented as most websites make it look. The national medians are solid: $8,300 for a funeral with burial and $6,280 for a funeral with cremation (NFDA, 2023). State-level prices are published for only a few places, and this page shows every one we could trace to a source, with the date, plus the state rules that change what you can be asked to pay for.
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National medians: the numbers every state starts from
The National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) runs the most cited price study in the industry. Its 2023 General Price List Study, published December 2023, is the source for the medians below. A median is the middle price: half of providers charge more, half charge less.
| Arrangement | National median | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Funeral with viewing and burial | $8,300 | NFDA, 2023 |
| Funeral with viewing, burial, and vault | $9,995 | NFDA, 2023 |
| Funeral with viewing and cremation | $6,280 | NFDA, 2023 |
| Basic services fee (every arrangement) | $2,495 | NFDA, 2023 |
Source: National Funeral Directors Association, 2023 General Price List Study (published December 2023). National medians; your area will differ.
These cover what the funeral home charges. They leave out the cemetery plot, headstone, flowers, and obituary, which our funeral cost guide breaks down line by line. For the cheapest arrangement, see direct cremation cost.
Direct cremation prices by state, from published price surveys
Direct cremation (cremation with no viewing or ceremony) is the one service every funeral home must price the same way, which makes it the fairest thing to compare. These are the states where a consumer group has published a survey we could check. Sorted from the lowest typical price up.
| State | Lowest | Typical | Highest | Counted | Survey date | Who collected it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Washington | $485 | $1,685 average | $3,435 | 250 homes | 2024 | People’s Memorial Association |
| Idaho | $875 | $1,845 median | $2,575 | 21 homes | June 2024 | FCA of Idaho |
| District of Columbia | $1,175 | $2,335 median | $6,800 | 31 listings | 2023 | FCA of Maryland and Environs |
| Maryland | $875 | $2,459 median | $5,035 | 258 listings | 2023 | FCA of Maryland and Environs |
| Delaware | $1,350 | $2,935 median | $5,560 | 64 listings | 2023 | FCA of Maryland and Environs |
Direct cremation, least expensive package each home publishes. Survey figures, not guarantees; a provider’s current price may differ. Maryland, Delaware, and D.C. statistics are our tally of the FCA of Maryland and Environs 2023 listings. No verified figure is shown for the other 46 states.
Read the spread, not just the middle. In Washington, the cheapest provider charged $485 and the most expensive $3,435 for the same service. In Maryland the range was $875 to $5,035. When two neighbors in one state can pay $3,000 apart, a state’s typical price tells you less than three phone calls to providers near you.
One caution on the table. Washington’s figure is an average and the others are medians, so do not read the top row as proof that Washington is cheaper than Idaho. The Maryland, Delaware, and District of Columbia survey also lists the least expensive package each home offers, which by the survey’s own note in most cases leaves out the cremation container and generally the crematory fee. Your final quote may be higher.
The 46 states we cannot verify
Every state not in the table above has no direct cremation figure on this page, and that is deliberate. Several state consumer groups do publish local price lists, including Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, and Utah, and the Funeral Consumers Alliance keeps a directory of them at funerals.org/funeral-price-surveys. We left them out because we could not confirm a dated, statewide summary for each.
The same goes for state-level funeral (burial) prices. We found no study we could verify that reports a burial price by state, so the burial figure for your state is the national median above until you call a local provider. If you see a tidy 50-state price table elsewhere, check whether it names its source, its year, and how many providers it counted. Ours would not pass that test for the missing states, so we left them blank.
How common cremation is, state by state
Nationally, NFDA’s 2025 Cremation & Burial Report puts the cremation rate at 63.4% for 2025, against 31.6% for burial. NFDA projects 82.3% for cremation by 2045, with burial down to 13.0%, and expects every state and the District of Columbia to pass a 50% cremation rate by 2035.
The full state-by-state table lives in NFDA’s report, which is sold, not free. Secondary sites reprint state percentages that are often modeled estimates, and we could not check them against the report, so we are not reprinting them. If you need your state’s rate, request the report at nfda.org/research or ask your state’s funeral directors association.
Rules that differ by state
Price is only part of it. State law decides who must be hired, when remains can be moved, and how long you wait. These are the differences we can source to a statute or to the Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA), the nonprofit consumer group:
| Rule | Where it applies | Source |
|---|---|---|
| A funeral director must be hired | Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York | FCA, Funeral Rights (June 2023) |
| Embalming required to ship a body by common carrier | Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey. Alabama requires it when a body crosses state lines. Other states require embalming or a sealed casket. | FCA, Funeral Rights (June 2023). FCA notes this is rarely enforced. |
| Cremation not allowed until 48 hours after death | Florida | Fla. Stat. 872.03 |
| Casket required for cremation | No state. A rigid, combustible container is required. | FCA, Funeral Rights; FTC Funeral Rule |
Not a complete list. Many states set their own waiting periods and permit steps that we have not verified here; your funeral provider will know yours.
What does not change by state is the federal floor. The FTC Funeral Rule lets you get prices by phone, entitles you to an itemized General Price List, lets you buy only what you want, and means no law requires a casket for cremation. Embalming is not required for direct cremation anywhere. Our guide to prepaid funeral plans covers the other state-specific rule worth checking, how your state protects money paid in advance.
How to use this when you call
Treat the table as a sanity check, not a quote. A rule of thumb: get three quotes before you decide, and ask each one the same three things.
- 1.Call two or three providers near you and ask for the total price of a direct cremation, including the basic services fee.
- 2.Ask what it includes: container, crematory fee, permits, and certified death certificates.
- 3.Ask whether your state has a waiting period or paperwork step that affects timing or fees.
When not to call us
If all you are doing is pricing a funeral or cremation, do not call us. Call two local funeral homes and read their General Price Lists. That is faster, it is free, and nobody on our team can give you a better local price than the provider’s own list.
Call us if the question is how the cost will be paid: whether the life insurance you already have would cover it, whether a small final expense policy makes sense, or how to get a policy’s death benefit paid out. And if you already have coverage that handles these numbers, the right answer is to keep it and buy nothing. A review that ends there is a good review.
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Method and sources
Every number on this page comes from one of the sources below. We did not estimate or average across sources.
- National medians: NFDA, 2023 General Price List Study (published December 2023). Cremation and burial rates: NFDA 2025 Cremation & Burial Report (2025).
- Washington: People’s Memorial Association, 2024 price survey of 250 funeral homes. We use their published average and range.
- Idaho: Funeral Consumers Alliance of Idaho, June 2024 survey (updated July 17, 2024) of 21 funeral homes with published direct cremation prices. We use their published median and range.
- Maryland, Delaware, District of Columbia: FCA of Maryland and Environs, 2023 Mortuary Price Survey. The survey lists each home’s least expensive direct cremation. We tallied the listings that show a price (258 in Maryland, 64 in Delaware, 31 in the District) and computed the lowest, median, and highest ourselves. Each location of a multi-location home counts as a listing.
- State rules: FCA, Funeral Rights brochure (June 2023); Florida Statute 872.03; FTC Funeral Rule.
Prices change, and funeral homes can revise a General Price List at any time. Treat each figure as correct for the survey date shown, not for today. If you know of a statewide survey we have missed, tell us and we will check it against the same standard.
Questions families ask about funeral and cremation cost by state
01Which state has the cheapest cremation?
No one has surveyed all 50 states in a way we can verify, so we will not name one. In the surveys we cite, Washington’s statewide average for direct cremation was $1,685 (2024) and Idaho’s median was $1,845 (June 2024). The bigger finding is the spread inside a state: in Washington the same service ranged from $485 to $3,435. Which provider you call matters more than which state you live in.
02How much does a funeral cost in my state?
The only funeral price we can source to a national study is the NFDA median: $8,300 for a funeral with viewing and burial and $6,280 for a funeral with viewing and cremation (2023). Your state’s figure is set by the funeral homes near you. Under the FTC Funeral Rule, any of them must give you their prices over the phone, so a few calls gets you your real number.
03Why don’t you show a price for all 50 states?
Because we could not trace one to a primary source. Many 50-state tables online come from small samples, undated price lists, or modeled estimates. We print a figure only when we can name who collected it, when, and from how many providers. For the 46 states we leave out, the honest answer is “call two or three local providers.”
04Is cremation cheaper than burial in every state?
At the national level, yes. NFDA’s 2023 medians put a funeral with cremation about $2,000 below a funeral with burial ($6,280 versus $8,300), and a direct cremation costs far less than either. State by state, we do not have a verified burial price to compare, so we will not claim the gap is the same everywhere.
05Does my state require me to hire a funeral director?
Nine states do, according to the Funeral Consumers Alliance: Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, and New York. In most other states a family may handle some or all of the arrangements itself. Rules change, so confirm with your state’s funeral board before relying on this.
06Is there a waiting period before a cremation?
It depends on the state. Florida law, for example, makes it unlawful to cremate a body before 48 hours after death (Fla. Stat. 872.03). Other states set their own waiting periods and permit rules. The provider you hire handles the paperwork and will tell you how long your state requires.
07Can life insurance cover these costs?
A life insurance death benefit is paid in cash to the person you name, who can spend it on a funeral or cremation in any state. A final expense policy (a small whole life policy built for end-of-life bills) is designed for this. Before buying anything, check what coverage you already have through work or an older policy.