Burial Benefits in a VA National Cemetery include the gravesite, the headstone or marker, opening and closing of the grave, and maintenance of the grounds.

• National Cemeteries maintained as national shrines
• Symbolic expressions of remembrance (headstones and markers)
• Presidential Memorial Certificates
• Burial flags
• Burial of veterans and eligible family members in a VA National Cemetery

Reimbursement of Burial Expenses

Veterans who, at time of death, were entitled to receive pension of compensation or who would have been entitled to compensation but for receipt of military retirement pay.  Eligibility also maybe established when death occurs in a VA facility, a nursing home under VA contract or a state veterans nursing home.  Additional costs of transportation of the remains may be paid.

VA Will Pay:

• Up to $2,000 if the veteran's death is service-connected.
• $300 burial and funeral expense allowance if the veterans death is non-service-connected.
• $300 plot allowance when a veteran is not buried in a cemetery that is under U.S. government jurisdiction.

Indigent Veterans' Burials

The Veterans Service Agency will pay up to $2,000 if the decedent is a discharged veteran (other than dishonorable) and declared to be indigent.

For more information about this topic please email your questions.