Legal regulations for Home Funerals
This really depends on where you live. A home funeral guide will be able to help you navigate this.
Though home funerals are legal in most places, it's important to understand the different laws. In certain states it's mandated that a funeral director is hired to transport the body and file the death certificate.
To learn more about the requirements around burial, cremation, and embalming read your consumer rights listed by state.
To learn more about the home funeral requirements where you live, you can find more detailed information here.
The Home Funeral Guide Alliance does a great job at outlining the laws by state. I've included the legalities for Oregon, Washington, California, and Idaho below. You can view the full list here.
California
- No preservation time requirements for home funeral families
- Reporting of contagious or communicable disease to attending physician is recommended
- Required to be embalmed OR shipped in airtight container by common carrier and when forwarding
- Funeral homes must embalm or refrigerate with 24 hours by regulation, not statute – applies to FDs only
Idaho
- No preservation time requirements for home funeral families
- Physician should be consulted for death by contagious or communicable disease
- Embalming is required with use of common carrier
- Funeral homes must embalm or refrigerate with 24 hours by regulation, not statute – applies to FDs only
Oregon
- No preservation time requirements for home funeral families
- Dispositions not occurring within 10 days must be reported to the Mortuary Board
- Embalming is required for bodies with specific communicable diseases in order to be viewed publicly. Funeral homes must embalm, refrigerate, or place in a sealed casket if body is not expected to reach destination within 24 hours, by regulation, not statute – applies to FDs only. Sealed casket may substitute for embalming when shipping by common carrier.
Washington
- State Board of Health determines restrictions, if any
- Reporting of contagious or communicable disease to attending physician is recommended
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