Cremation rate

Ask two respected trade groups for the 2025 U.S. cremation rate and you get two answers: 63.4% and 62.8%. Neither is wrong. They measure different things, and knowing the difference is the first step to using the number well. For anyone buying or selling a funeral home, the national figure is background; the firm’s own rate, and how it is changing, is what moves value. This definition supports our overview of the funeral home M&A market.

How is the cremation rate calculated?

Divide the number of cremations by the number of deaths for the same place and period. The result can be measured nationally, by state, or for one funeral home’s own families.

At the firm level, count every cremation family, whether they chose direct cremation or a full service followed by cremation. Then report those two groups separately. A firm at 60% cremation where most families hold a service is a different business from one at 60% where most choose direct cremation.

Newer methods sit at the edges of the definition. CANA’s 2025 statistics preview estimated alkaline hydrolysis and natural organic reduction at 0.1% of deaths nationally. Our guide to water cremation and human composting covers where they are legal and how firms count them.

How do you calculate a funeral home’s own cremation rate?

Use the firm’s retail case register, not its crematory log. A crematory that performs trade work for other funeral homes will make the firm’s rate look far higher than its own families’ choices.

1. Pull retail calls for each of the last three years, excluding trade cremations, ship-outs, and pet cases.
2. Count the retail calls that ended in cremation, whatever the service level.
3. Divide cremation calls by retail calls for each year.
4. Split the cremation calls into direct cremation and cremation with a service, and compute each as a share of retail calls.
5. Note how many cremations were outsourced to a third-party crematory and at what cost per case.

Steps four and five are where buyers find the story. A rising direct-cremation share points to price-shopping families. A large outsourced cost points to savings a buyer with its own crematory could capture, which is part of why such buyers can pay more.

Why do NFDA and CANA report different numbers?

Because one is a projection and the other is compiled from state-reported data. Use either, but say which one, and do not mix their figures in the same calculation.

NFDA’s figures appear on its media center statistics page, and CANA’s on its industry statistics page. NFDA’s interim projections for 2030 and 2035 sit in its paid report, so we do not quote them. Note also that NFDA’s 2025 cremation and burial shares add to 95%, so about one death in twenty falls into other categories in its method.

Why does the cremation rate matter in a funeral home sale?

Because revenue per call depends heavily on disposition. Carriage Services states in its 2025 Form 10-K that its “average cremation service revenue is approximately one-third of the average revenue earned from a traditional burial service.”

With a gap that large, each family that moves from burial to cremation lowers revenue even if the call count holds. Buyers model the firm’s rate forward and convert it into revenue through average revenue per call by disposition. Our guide to rising cremation rates and funeral home values works through the valuation effect in detail.

The large operators track their own rate closely. Service Corporation International’s 2025 Form 10-K reports a total comparable cremation rate of 64.4%, up 50 basis points, while Carriage reported 60.8% at its operating funeral homes, up from 59.9%. Both still grew funeral revenue per service, which shows that a rising cremation rate can be managed with pricing and service offerings rather than simply endured.

How do sellers, buyers, and lenders use it?

All three use it to judge how long today’s revenue will last. They differ in which version of the rate they rely on.

Sellers

A seller should know the firm’s own rate for each of the last three years and how it compares with the regional trend. A firm whose cremation families mostly choose services, memorialization, and merchandise can make a strong case that its revenue per call will hold up better than the market’s. Sellers weighing timing can read our guide to whether to sell now.

Buyers

Buyers project the firm’s rate forward and ask whether its costs fit. A burial-heavy firm in a fast-shifting market needs a plan, perhaps a crematory, a lower-cost cremation offering, or staffing changes. Buyers who already run cremation-ready operations often value that plan more than a local family buyer would. A platform with a regional crematory, centralized transport, and an established memorial-service offering can absorb cremation growth at a lower cost per case. That is one reason the buyers active in today’s funeral home M&A market differ so much in what they will pay for the same burial-heavy firm.

Lenders

Lenders rarely set a rate threshold, but a rising cremation share with no revenue response weakens the coverage case. They want to see that the forecast in the loan request reflects the mix, not just the call count. A short table showing the firm’s rate, its direct-cremation share, and revenue per call by disposition for three years usually answers the question before it is asked.

How fast is the cremation rate still rising?

Still rising, but more slowly than in the last decade. CANA’s 2026 statistics preview says the U.S. annual growth rate fell “from 1.58% to 1.33% per year,” calls the period a deceleration phase, and says the national rate “could exceed 75% as early as 2038.”

Local rates vary widely. In its 2025 report, CANA noted that only six states had cremation rates below 50%. A funeral home’s own trend can run well above or below its state’s, depending on religion, ethnicity, age, and local custom. Our state broker pages note where verified state figures exist.

What mistakes do people make with the cremation rate?

The most common is treating cremation families as a single group. Others are applying the national rate to a local firm, extrapolating the past decade’s pace in a straight line, and quoting projections without naming their source.

The lesson is not that cremation is bad for funeral homes. It is that the rate has to be read alongside what cremation families buy. A firm that moves even a third of those 13 families into cremation with a full service recovers a meaningful share of the gap. Buyers who see that a seller already tracks the split, and has acted on it, tend to treat the cremation trend as a managed risk rather than a reason to cut the multiple.