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Who can be buried in a national cemetery
The grave, the opening and closing, perpetual care, the headstone and the certificate all come at no cost to the family. The question is who qualifies — and the answer is broader than most people assume.
Burial in a VA national cemetery is free and includes the gravesite, opening and closing of the grave, perpetual care, a government headstone or marker, a burial flag and a Presidential Memorial Certificate. Veterans discharged under conditions other than dishonorable who met the minimum active duty requirement qualify, along with spouses and certain dependent children.
What is actually included
- The gravesite, in any national cemetery with space available
- Opening and closing of the grave
- Perpetual care of the site
- A government headstone or marker, with the inscription
- A burial flag
- A Presidential Memorial Certificate
Cremated remains are buried or inurned in national cemeteries in the same manner and with the same honors as casketed remains. This matters more every year: cremation now accounts for the majority of US dispositions, and families sometimes assume it disqualifies them. It does not.
The one thing the family arranges and pays for is the funeral itself. Any item or service obtained from a funeral home or cremation office is at the family's expense.
Spouses and children
| Spouse or surviving spouse | Eligible, including a surviving spouse who later remarried. A spouse divorced from the veteran by court order is not eligible. |
|---|---|
| Minor dependent children | Eligible. |
| Unmarried adult child | Eligible where permanently disabled and incapable of self-support before age 21, or before 23 if in full-time education. Requires physician and family statements. |
| Predeceasing the veteran | Eligible spouses and children may be buried even if they die first. |
When a spouse or dependent is buried with the veteran, their name and dates of birth and death are inscribed on the veteran's headstone at no cost to the family.
Two married veterans
If both spouses served and both are eligible, the family can ask for side-by-side gravesites with separate headstones rather than a shared marker. It is not the default, so it has to be requested.
Guard and Reserve
Members of the reserve components who die while on active duty, or while on training duty, or who were eligible for retired pay, may be eligible for burial.
This is narrower than the general rule and wider than most families expect. A Guard member with twenty years of service entitled to retired pay is in. A member whose only service was weekend training and who died decades later, in civilian life, generally is not.
What disqualifies
- A dishonorable discharge.
- Conviction of a capital crime or a serious sex offence under federal or state law. This bar is checked at the time of need even where the VA has already issued a favourable pre-need determination.
You cannot reserve a plot
This is the most common misunderstanding in the whole programme. Gravesites are assigned at the time of need. A pre-need eligibility determination confirms that the person qualifies — it does not hold a space at a particular cemetery, and it does not guarantee that the cemetery of choice will still be open for casketed burial when the time comes.
Many older national cemeteries are closed to new casketed interments and accept only cremated remains or subsequent interments in existing family plots. If a specific cemetery matters to the family, check its current status rather than assuming.
Decide it now, not then
The VA will determine eligibility while the veteran is alive and hold the decision on file. It is free, it needs one form, and it turns a week of paperwork into a phone call.
How pre-need determination worksEligibility rules follow National Cemetery Administration guidance and 38 U.S.C. This is general information, not an official determination. To schedule a burial after a death, call the National Cemetery Scheduling Office at 1-800-535-1117.