FTC Funeral Rule: Price Lists, Itemization, and Your Rights

The FTC Funeral Rule requires any funeral home that sells both funeral goods and funeral services to give you itemized prices before you commit to anything, and it protects your right to buy only the items you actually want. It applies nationwide, covers both at-need and pre-need arrangements, and carries civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation.¹ Knowing what the rule requires is your strongest tool at a moment when comparison shopping is hardest.

The Price Lists You Must Be Given

Three separate printed documents anchor the rule.

The General Price List, or GPL, is the central one. The funeral provider must hand you a printed copy as soon as you begin discussing prices, arrangements, or the type of funeral or disposition you’re considering in person. The copy is yours to keep.² The GPL has to include retail prices for at least 16 categories of goods and services, among them:¹

Forwarding and receiving remains from another funeral home
Direct cremation, with prices shown for options with and without a provider-supplied container
Immediate burial, with similar breakdowns
Basic services of funeral director and staff
Transfer of remains to the funeral home
Embalming and other body preparation
Use of facilities and staff for viewing, funeral ceremony, memorial service, and graveside service
Hearse and limousine
Casket prices and outer burial container prices, individually or as a range

Watch the basic services fee. It covers the provider’s overhead, and it is the only fee the rule lets the provider make non-declinable. The GPL has to include a statement telling you that this fee will be added to whatever else you select.³

Before showing you any caskets, the provider must give you a separate Casket Price List. Same rule for outer burial containers like vaults and grave liners: you get a printed price list before you see any merchandise.³ Both are yours to keep. The sequencing is deliberate: you see the numbers before you’re standing in the showroom.

Getting Prices by Phone

You don’t have to walk into a funeral home to get pricing. Anyone who calls and asks about offerings or prices is entitled to accurate information from the price lists.⁴ A few things providers sometimes get wrong:

They cannot make you give your name before answering price questions.
They cannot tell you that you need to come in to get pricing.
They aren’t required to answer after-hours calls if that isn’t their normal practice, but any information they do give must be accurate.

The FTC has run undercover phone sweeps and found this is one of the most commonly violated provisions.⁵

One boundary worth knowing: the rule does not currently require funeral providers to post the GPL on their website.¹ Some states require it, and the FTC has proposed modernizing the rule to add an online-posting requirement, but the federal obligation today covers in-person and telephone disclosures. If you’re shopping from home, calling several providers is still the reliable approach.

Your Right to Buy Only What You Want

The GPL itself has to include a disclosure telling you that you may choose only the items you want.⁶ Packages are allowed for convenience, but a provider cannot make them mandatory. Telling you that a memorial ceremony requires buying their casket is a prohibited practice called tying. You can decline anything on the GPL unless an actual law or regulation requires it, and if the provider claims something is legally required, that reason has to appear in writing on your final statement.

Bringing in a Casket or Urn From Outside

You can buy a casket, urn, or other merchandise from an outside source and bring it to the funeral home. The provider cannot charge a handling fee, refuse to use it, or treat it differently from something you bought there.⁶ This is often where families save the most, because online casket retailers frequently sell the same product for a fraction of the funeral home’s price.

The Itemized Statement at the End

When your arrangements conference is finished, the provider must give you an itemized written statement listing every good and service you selected, the price of each, and the total.⁷ This is your receipt and your proof of what you agreed to pay.

The statement has to include specific disclosures. It must say that you’re being charged only for items you selected or that are required, and if something is required by law, a cemetery, or a crematory, the provider has to explain the reason in writing on the statement. It must also include an embalming disclosure: if you chose direct cremation or immediate burial, you cannot be charged for embalming you didn’t authorize.⁷

Cash advance items — third-party charges the funeral home pays on your behalf, like flowers, obituary notices, clergy fees, or death certificates — must be listed separately. If the funeral home marks them up or gets a commission or volume discount, that has to be disclosed too.⁸ When the exact price isn’t known during the arrangement, the provider has to give you a good faith estimate and then the actual charge before the final bill is paid.

Claims Providers Are Not Allowed to Make

Embalming Is Not Required by Law in Most Cases

The GPL must state that embalming is not required by law except in certain special cases, along with language explaining that if you choose direct cremation or immediate burial, you can skip embalming entirely.⁹ A provider who tells you embalming is required for a direct cremation or immediate burial is violating the rule. Some states do require it when remains cross state lines or when burial is delayed, but outside those situations it’s your call.

“Protective” or “Sealer” Caskets

A provider cannot claim that any casket, including one marketed as “protective” or a “sealer,” will preserve remains indefinitely. No casket prevents natural decomposition underground, and marketing that suggests otherwise is prohibited.

Invented Legal Requirements

A provider cannot falsely tell you a good or service is required by state or local law to push you into buying it. Every time they claim something is legally mandated, the specific legal requirement has to be written on your itemized statement. No citation, no claim. Violations of the disclosure and misrepresentation provisions can each carry civil penalties of up to $53,088.¹

Cremation-Specific Protections

If you’re choosing cremation, the provider cannot tell you a casket is required. They have to offer an alternative container, which the regulation defines as an unfinished wood box or other non-metal receptacle made of fiberboard, pressed wood, or similar materials, without ornamentation or a fixed interior lining.⁸ These typically cost a small fraction of a casket, and the GPL has to disclose that they’re available.

The GPL must show a price range for direct cremation, with a separate price for when you provide your own container and separate prices for each option that includes a provider-supplied alternative container.³ Immediate burial gets similar treatment: a price range including a separate price when you supply the casket, and no representation that embalming is required.⁷

Pre-Need Arrangements

The rule applies to pre-need funeral plans with the same force as at-need arrangements. You must receive a GPL during the pre-need planning process, and the provider has to offer goods and services on an itemized basis. Offering pre-need customers only bundled packages violates the rule.¹

Survivors are covered too. When family members ask about goods or services, change the pre-planned arrangements, or owe additional money because prices went up after the original contract, they must receive all the relevant disclosures and current price lists.¹⁰

How State Law Fits In

The Funeral Rule is a federal floor, not a ceiling. If your state has stricter requirements, the provider has to follow both. A state can apply to the FTC for an exemption from the federal rule, but only if its own regulations are at least as protective.¹ In practice, most states also regulate funeral homes through a licensing board that handles complaints about professional conduct and business practices, and those boards can impose their own penalties or suspend licenses independent of any FTC action.

Reporting a Violation

If a provider refuses to give you a price list, pressures you into unwanted services, or makes claims the rule prohibits, start by raising it with the funeral director. If that doesn’t fix it, you have several paths:¹¹

File a complaint with the FTC online or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP (382-4357). The FTC won’t resolve your individual case, but it tracks patterns and brings enforcement actions against repeat violators.
Contact your state funeral licensing board. These agencies investigate and can impose penalties including license suspension.
Reach out to your state attorney general’s consumer protection office.
Seek informal mediation through the National Funeral Directors Association’s help line or the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association’s Cemetery Consumer Service Council.

Hang on to every document the funeral home gave you: the GPL, the Casket Price List, the outer burial container list, the itemized statement, and any written communication. Those records are your strongest evidence if the dispute escalates.

1
Federal Trade Commission. Complying with the Funeral Rule
2
Federal Trade Commission. The FTC Funeral Rule
3
eCFR. 16 CFR 453.2 – Price Disclosures
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eCFR. 16 CFR 453.2 – Price Disclosures
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Federal Trade Commission. When Consumers Call Funeral Homes: FTC Undercover Sweep Suggests Seven Compliance Points for Industry Members
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eCFR. 16 CFR 453.4 – Required Purchase of Funeral Goods or Funeral Services
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eCFR. 16 CFR Part 453 – Funeral Industry Practices
8
Federal Trade Commission. 16 CFR Part 453 – Funeral Industry Practices
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eCFR. 16 CFR 453.3
10
Federal Trade Commission. Complying with the Funeral Rule
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Federal Trade Commission. Funeral Terms and Contact Information