Funeral Costs in Illinois

What a funeral costs in Illinois

Nationally, the median cost of an adult funeral with viewing and burial was $8,300 in 2023, and a funeral with viewing and cremation was $6,280, according to the National Funeral Directors Association's General Price List study. Those figures cover the funeral home's goods and services only. The cemetery plot, interment, a marker, flowers, and the obituary are all extra.

NFDA publishes medians by census division, not by state. Illinois sits in the East North Central division, where the 2023 median was $8,280 for a funeral with viewing and burial and $6,120 for a funeral with viewing and cremation. Any page quoting a precise Illinois statewide average is estimating; no credible body publishes one.

Prices vary widely between funeral homes, even in the same neighborhood, so the itemized national medians below are most useful as a benchmark while you read a price list.

Key itemized national medians (NFDA, 2023)

• Nondeclinable basic services fee, $2,495
• Metal burial casket, $2,500
• Vault, $1,695
• Embalming, $845
• Third-party cremation fee, $400

Illinois's own rules

Illinois has no laws requiring embalming. If a funeral home presents it as mandatory, it is not.

A licensed funeral director, however, is legally required to oversee final disposition in Illinois. The director must file the death certificate, and only a licensed funeral director may be issued, or may issue, the permit to move the body for final disposition (410 ILCS 535/18, 410 ILCS 535/21, and 77 Ill. Adm. Code 500.50). The Funeral Consumers Alliance counts Illinois among the nine states with this requirement.

Home burial is not prohibited by Illinois law. A disposition permit is required (410 ILCS 535/21), local zoning applies, and because of the rule above, a funeral director must still be involved in the disposition.

Illinois also has a 24-hour waiting period before cremation (410 ILCS 18/20 and 18/35). Cremated remains may be scattered in any manner on the private property of a consenting owner (410 ILCS 18/40).

Your rights under the Funeral Rule

The FTC's Funeral Rule applies in Illinois as it does everywhere in the country. A funeral home must give you a written, itemized General Price List that is yours to keep, and must give prices over the phone without asking who you are. You can decline packages and buy only what you want, supply a casket or urn from anywhere without a handling fee, and choose cremation with no casket at all. Embalming is not required by federal law, and the price list must say so next to the embalming price.

Ways families keep costs kind

Even in a state where a funeral director must be involved, a few honest levers make the largest difference, and none of them make the goodbye smaller.

• Direct cremation, followed by a memorial you hold yourself, had a national median of $2,455 to $2,550 in the NFDA's 2021 study, depending on who provides the container.
• For cremation, an alternative container (fiberboard, cardboard, or unfinished wood) can stand in for a casket. The national median was $160 in 2023, next to $2,500 for a metal casket.
• Call two or three funeral homes and ask for prices by phone. The Funeral Rule requires them to answer, and medians hide wide local ranges.
• Make the printed program yourself. Our free program maker replaces the printed package line on the price list, which had a national median of $195 in 2023.