How to Plan a Funeral Budget in 2026: A Line-by-Line Worksheet

A funeral budget is built from the arrangement up. The National Funeral Directors Association’s most recent study put the 2023 national median for a funeral with viewing and burial at $8,300, and that figure leaves out the cemetery, the grave marker, and cash advance items such as flowers and the obituary.^[1] So the budget has two parts: the funeral home’s lines, and everything around them.

Here’s how to build it, step by step. The worksheet at the end puts every line in one place.

The arrangement sets the size of the budget more than any other choice. The national reference points:

The direct cremation figure comes from Funeralocity price data reported by US Funerals Online, which puts state averages between $1,264 in Oregon and $3,183 in North Dakota.^[2] The NFDA figures are medians from its survey of member funeral homes.^[1] Immediate burial skips the viewing too, but the cemetery’s charges still apply.

Every funeral home has to answer price questions by phone and give you an itemized General Price List when you ask in person.^[3] Write down each line you want next to the national median, then replace the median with that funeral home’s price.

NFDA’s burial table prints the basic services fee as $2,459. Its cremation table prints $2,495 with the same 8.5 percent change from 2021, and the burial lines add up to the $8,300 median only with $2,495, so this guide uses $2,495.^[1]

Three rules change the math. The basic services fee is the only charge a funeral home can make non-declinable.^[3] Except in certain special cases, embalming isn’t required by law, and you usually have the right to choose an arrangement without it, such as direct cremation or immediate burial.^[3]

And a funeral home can’t charge any fee beyond the basic services fee, the items you choose, and items a law, cemetery or crematory requires, so a handling fee for a casket or urn you bought somewhere else is off the table.^[3]

The NFDA medians don’t include the cemetery, a monument or marker, or cash advance items.^[1] Budget each one on its own line:

• The cemetery. The plot and the charge to open and close the grave come from the cemetery. Get both in writing. What a burial plot costs has the ranges.
• A vault or grave liner, if the cemetery requires one. Funeral homes have to tell you that in most areas no state or local law requires one, and that many cemeteries do.^[3]
• The marker. See what headstones and grave markers cost.
• Cash advance items. Things the funeral home pays someone else for on your behalf, such as cemetery or crematory services, clergy honoraria, flowers, musicians, obituary notices, gratuities and death certificates.^[3] If the funeral home adds its own charge to any of them, its written statement has to say so.^[3]
• Death certificates. Each state sets its own fee. Every state’s first-copy price is listed here.
• The gathering. Food, a venue, and travel for family. Get those prices in writing too.

• Social Security. If the person who died had worked long enough to be insured, a one-time payment of up to $255 goes to a surviving spouse who lived with them. If there isn’t one, it can go to a widow, widower or child who qualifies for survivor benefits on the person’s record. The application has to be filed within two years of the death, unless the spouse was already getting spouse’s benefits on that record.^[6]
• Veterans benefits. For an eligible veteran who died on or after October 1, 2026, the VA pays up to a $1,032 burial allowance, plus $1,032 toward a plot in some cases, and up to $2,000 when a death on or after September 11, 2001 was service connected.^[5] An eligible veteran can also be buried in a national cemetery with no charge for the grave or the headstone.^[4] Who qualifies, and what the family still pays.
• An employer or a union. Some pay survivor or funeral benefits. Ask.^[4]
• State and county programs. Some states help with funeral costs for homicide victims and some accident victims through their victim compensation programs. Some states and counties help with funeral costs for people with no money or on Medicaid or SSI, though the amount is usually small.^[4]

The Funeral Consumers Alliance strongly advises against taking out a loan for a funeral and calls borrowing a last resort.^[4]

The national medians are 2023 figures. Between 2021 and 2023, the NFDA’s burial median rose 5.8 percent and its cremation median 8.1 percent.^[1] Build the budget from current price lists, and if you’re planning years ahead, leave room for prices to rise.

• A payable-on-death bank account. The money stays yours while you’re alive, and the bank releases it to the person you name after your death without waiting for probate.^[4] How payable-on-death accounts work.
• Life insurance. Pays your named beneficiaries soon after death, outside probate. The Funeral Consumers Alliance cautions against burial and preneed insurance, because buyers usually pay as much in premiums as the policy pays out, or more.^[4]
• A prepaid funeral contract. You pay the funeral home now. Read prepaid funeral plans for the protections and the risks before you sign.

Then tell the person who’ll handle the arrangements where the money is. How to pre-plan a funeral covers naming that person.

Copy this into a notebook or a spreadsheet and fill in the right-hand column from real price lists.

The Funeral Rule requires a funeral home to give you a General Price List, its casket and outer burial container prices on separate lists or in full on the General Price List, and, at the end of the arrangement conference, an itemized written statement of everything you chose and its price.^[3] If you choose direct cremation or immediate burial, the funeral home’s price for it already includes the basic services fee, so don’t count the fee twice.^[3]

The free funeral cost planner prices a funeral item by item, in the categories the Funeral Rule requires funeral homes to quote, with no account. Check its total against real price lists with how to compare funeral homes, and see the full national picture in how much a funeral costs in 2026.