What the FTC Funeral Rule Requires Homes to Disclose
Correction: An earlier version of this article said the FTC's guidelines are uncertain in places about who must be handed a General Price List. It is the provider the FTC addresses there — its guidance says that if you are uncertain whether the Rule applies in a particular situation, it would be sensible to provide the list. Corrected July 26, 2026.
Most people arrange one or two funerals in a lifetime, and both of them land in the worst week of a bad year. The person on the other side of the desk does it every day. The Federal Trade Commission built a rule around that gap, and the rule is mostly about paper.
The FTC Funeral Rule requires funeral providers to hand over a written, itemized General Price List to anyone who asks in person, to show a casket price list before showing caskets, to let buyers purchase items separately rather than only in packages, and to give a written statement of everything selected during the arrangement discussion.
Why the FTC Wrote the Funeral Rule
The Funeral Rule went into effect on April 30, 1984. The Commission revised it early in 1994, and those revisions took effect later that year. Four decades of law — longer than most people assume.
According to the FTC, the Rule requires funeral providers to give consumers accurate, itemized price information along with various other disclosures about funeral goods and services. It also prohibits certain deceptive or unfair practices. Providers who violate it may be subject to penalties of up to $53,088 per violation.
Who counts as a funeral provider is broader than the sign out front suggests. The FTC’s compliance guidelines define a funeral provider as a business that sells or offers to sell both funeral goods and funeral services to the public. No license is required for the Rule to apply, and the business does not have to be a licensed funeral home.
Cemeteries, crematories, and other businesses can be funeral providers too, if they market both goods and services. The guidelines add that splitting the goods into one company and the services into another does not get a provider out from under the Rule. A business that sells only funeral goods — caskets and nothing else — is not covered.
That last line matters more than it looks. The Rule follows the combination of goods and services, not the storefront.
The General Price List and When It Is Handed Over
The General Price List, or GPL, is the document the rest of the Rule turns on. Under the FTC’s guidelines it has to carry identifying information, itemized prices for the various goods and services the provider sells, and other required disclosures.
The stated purpose is plain in the FTC’s own words: the GPL enables consumers to comparison shop and to purchase, on an itemized basis, only the goods and services they want. Not a summary. Not a starting range.
The trigger is narrow. Under the guidelines, a provider must give the General Price List to anyone who asks, in person, about funeral goods, funeral services, or the prices of such goods or services — and must give it to that person to keep.
The FTC is explicit that the request does not have to come from a consumer, or from anyone arranging a funeral now or later. The guidelines list competitors, journalists, and representatives of businesses, religious societies, government agencies, and consumer groups as people who must be given a GPL. Where a provider is unsure whether the Rule applies to a particular situation, the guidelines say it would be sensible to provide the list anyway.
One timing detail the FTC states directly: a provider does not have to hand out the General Price List the moment someone walks in the door. The obligation attaches to the discussion, not to the doormat.
The Casket Price List and Why the Order Matters
The GPL requirement, as the FTC writes it, is keyed to an in-person inquiry. The FTC’s consumer page states the general principle without qualification: the law requires funeral homes to give written price lists for products and services.
The casket list has its own rule, and the sequence inside it is the whole point. When someone visits a funeral home or showroom to shop for a casket, the Funeral Rule requires the funeral director to show a list of the caskets the company sells, with descriptions and prices, before showing the caskets themselves.
The FTC explains why that order exists. Industry research it cites found that the average casket shopper buys one of the first three models shown, generally the middle-priced of the three — so it is in the seller’s interest to start with higher-end models. The FTC also notes that lower-priced models may not be prominently displayed, or may not be on display at all.
On the money involved, the FTC says a casket is often the single most expensive item in a traditional full-service funeral. Its page puts the average casket at slightly more than $2,000, with some mahogany, bronze, or copper caskets selling for as much as $10,000.
Reading a list before walking into the showroom sounds like a small thing. The Rule treats it as a legal requirement, and I think that tells you something about how the room usually goes.
Items Sold Separately Rather Than Only as Packages
Many funeral providers offer packages of goods and services for different kinds of funerals. The FTC’s consumer guidance states the counterweight plainly: when arranging a funeral, you have the right to buy goods and services separately, and you do not have to accept a package that includes items you do not want.
One charge is not optional. The FTC says the Funeral Rule allows funeral providers to charge a basic services fee that customers have to pay. It covers what is common to all funerals — funeral planning, securing the necessary permits and copies of death certificates, preparing the notices, sheltering the remains, and coordinating arrangements with the cemetery, crematory, or other third parties.
Everything past that is itemized. The FTC lists transporting the remains, embalming and other preparation, use of the funeral home for a viewing or ceremony, equipment and staff for a graveside service, a hearse or limousine, a casket or outer burial container, and cremation or interment as charges for other services and merchandise.
Caskets bought elsewhere have their own protection. The FTC states that the Funeral Rule requires funeral homes to agree to use a casket bought from a third-party dealer, and does not allow them to charge a fee for using it.
Embalming shows how far the separability principle reaches. Under the Rule, a funeral provider may not provide embalming services without permission, may not falsely state that embalming is required by law, and must disclose in writing that it is not required by law except in certain special cases.
Two more written disclosures ride along with that one. The provider must disclose in writing that a person usually has the right to choose a disposition, such as direct cremation or immediate burial, that does not require embalming. It must also disclose in writing that some arrangements, such as a funeral with a viewing, may make embalming a practical necessity and therefore a required purchase.
The Written Statement of Goods and Services Selected
At the end of the arrangement conversation, the paperwork closes the loop. The FTC states that the funeral provider must give an itemized statement of the total cost of the funeral goods and services selected, at the time the arrangements are being made.
Some costs are not knowable in the room. Cash advances, in the FTC’s definition, are fees the funeral home charges for goods and services it buys from outside vendors on the family’s behalf — flowers, obituary notices, pallbearers, officiating clergy, organists, and soloists.
Some providers charge their actual cost for those items. Others add a service fee on top. The FTC says the Funeral Rule requires those who charge an extra fee to disclose that fact in writing, though it does not require them to specify the amount of the markup. The Rule also requires providers to say whether there are refunds, discounts, or rebates from the supplier on any cash advance item.
When the cost of a cash advance item is not known at the time, the FTC says the provider is required to give a written good faith estimate.
The statement carries one more disclosure. According to the FTC, it must also disclose any legal cemetery or crematory requirement that specific funeral goods or services be purchased.
There is a soft spot here, and the FTC names it. The Funeral Rule does not require any specific format for this information, and providers may include it in any document they give at the end of the discussion about arrangements. The content is mandatory. The shape of the page is not.
What the Rule Covers and What It Leaves Out
The Funeral Rule is a disclosure law. It governs what has to be written down, handed over, and said out loud, and in what order — not what a funeral costs. Nothing in it sets a ceiling on any price.
Its reach also stops at the edge of the funeral provider definition. A seller of funeral goods alone, with no services relating to the disposition of remains, sits outside it.
State law is the other half of the picture, and the FTC says so directly: laws regarding funerals and burials vary from state to state, which shapes which goods or services a purchase is legally required to include. The federal Rule sits on top of that patchwork rather than replacing it.
The FTC’s guidelines carry a caution about themselves, too. They represent the FTC staff’s view of what the law requires, they do not amend or modify the Rule, and they are not binding on the Commission.
None of this makes the week any lighter. The forms arrive in the middle of a stretch that already includes death certificates, accounts to close, and survivor benefits to sort out. What the Rule does is narrower, and on its own terms it works: prices on paper, itemized, before the decisions get made — and in writing.