How to use the FTC Funeral Rule to your advantage

The six rights the FTC Funeral Rule grants you

• Right to itemized pricing (16 CFR § 453.2(b)). The home must provide the GPL on request, free of charge, before any pricing discussion.
• Right to telephone price quotes (16 CFR § 453.2(b)(1)). The home must give specific prices over the phone if you ask.
• Right to refuse unwanted goods and services (16 CFR § 453.4(b)(2)). The home cannot require purchase of items beyond the basic services fee for any specific arrangement.
• Right to refuse embalming (16 CFR § 453.5). Embalming cannot be required as a condition of providing service except in specific narrow circumstances.
• Right to use an alternative container for cremation (16 CFR § 453.4(b)(1)(i)). The home must offer an alternative cremation container at a lower price than a casket.
• Right to provide your own casket (16 CFR § 453.4(b)(1)(ii)). The home cannot refuse, charge a handling fee, or require you to be present for delivery of an outside-supplied casket.

How to invoke each right

1. Request the GPL by phone before visiting the home. The home must provide it. If they refuse, ask for the home's exact name and address — the refusal itself is reportable to the FTC.
2. If the home gives you a 'package' price without the line items, ask for the line items individually. The Rule requires this disclosure (16 CFR § 453.2(b)(4)(iii)(C)(2)).
3. If the home pressures you to buy a casket for cremation, decline and ask for the alternative cremation container. The home is required to offer one.
4. If the home tries to require embalming for direct cremation or a memorial service without viewing, decline. Embalming is only required in narrow circumstances and direct cremation is not one of them.
5. If you are buying your own casket from Amazon or Costco, inform the home in writing that you are exercising your right under 16 CFR § 453.4(b)(1)(ii) to provide outside merchandise. The home may not refuse and may not charge a handling fee.

What to do if a home violates the Rule

FTC Funeral Rule violations are reportable to the Federal Trade Commission at reportfraud.ftc.gov. The FTC's Funeral Rule Offenders Program (FROP) is the standard enforcement track for first-time minor violations: the home enters a three-year compliance program, pays a fee to the National Funeral Directors Association which administers the program, and submits to periodic reviews. Repeat or serious violations result in formal FTC enforcement action and civil penalties up to $51,744 per violation (the 2026 inflation-adjusted maximum).

Common violations: refusing to provide the GPL by phone, requiring purchase of a casket for cremation, charging a handling fee for outside-supplied merchandise, requiring embalming for direct cremation or refrigerated viewing, failing to disclose that embalming is not required by law.

Pricing source disclosure

Every dollar amount on Cheap Funeral is sourced from each funeral home's published General Price List (GPL) under the FTC Funeral Rule (16 CFR Part 453). The Rule requires every U.S. funeral home to provide an itemized GPL on request — by phone, in person, or in many cases online. Where a home has not published a GPL we mark the listing accordingly rather than estimate.

National benchmarks throughout this article are drawn from the National Funeral Directors Association 2023 Member General Price List Study (NFDA, July 2023), which reports the median U.S. cost of a funeral with viewing and burial at $8,300 and the median direct cremation at $2,495.