How to read a General Price List
A General Price List, or GPL, is the itemised list of every funeral good and service a provider sells. Under the Funeral Rule at 16 CFR 453.2(b)(4)(i)(A), a funeral provider has to give you a printed copy to keep as soon as an in-person conversation turns to prices, to the overall type of service or disposition, or to specific goods and services it offers. You do not have to ask for it, and the conversation does not have to happen at the funeral home. You can also telephone and ask about prices, and under 16 CFR 453.2(b)(1) the provider has to answer from its price lists. Rule text and Federal Trade Commission guidance read on 6 August 2026.
What the list is, and who has to give you one
The Funeral Rule defines a funeral provider at 16 CFR 453.1(i) as "any person, partnership or corporation that sells or offers to sell funeral goods and funeral services to the public". The Federal Trade Commission's own guidance puts the same point in plainer words: you are a funeral provider if you sell or offer to sell funeral goods and both types of funeral service, and you do not have to be a licensed funeral director, or your business a licensed funeral home, to be covered.
That definition is deliberately wider than an Ohio licence. Cemeteries, crematories and other businesses can be funeral providers if they market both goods and services, and a business cannot escape the Rule by selling goods through one company and services through another. A business that sells only goods, such as caskets, and no services relating to the disposition of remains, is not covered. So the right question to ask is not whether you are standing in a licensed funeral home, but whether the person across the table is selling you both goods and services.
The trigger is a conversation, not a request
The rule text is specific about the moment the obligation bites. A provider must give a printed or typewritten price list for retention to people who inquire in person, "upon beginning discussion of any of the following: (1) The prices of funeral goods or funeral services; (2) The overall type of funeral service or disposition; or (3) Specific funeral goods or funeral services offered by the funeral provider". The next sentence of the rule, 16 CFR 453.2(b)(4)(i)(B), adds that this applies whether the discussion takes place in the funeral home or elsewhere.
Elsewhere really means elsewhere. The FTC's guidance gives the examples of a discussion in the family's home, or while the deceased is being removed from a hospital or a nursing home. Nothing about the setting changes the obligation. The list is also free: a provider cannot charge for it or attach conditions, and the request does not have to come from someone arranging a funeral now or ever, which is why competitors, journalists and researchers can walk in and collect one.
Two details are easy to get wrong. A verbal offer is not compliance: telling you that a price list is available for inspection does not satisfy the Rule, because you are entitled to a physical copy you can keep and take home. And there is exactly one narrow exception in the guidance, for a provider who removes the deceased for transportation to the funeral home and at that moment asks only for authorisation to embalm. The Rule applies to arrangements made in advance as much as to arrangements made after a death, so a preneed meeting produces a GPL too.
What you can get over the telephone
16 CFR 453.2(b)(1) requires a provider to tell people who ask by telephone "any accurate information from the price lists" and any other readily available information that reasonably answers the question. The FTC's guidance adds the part that matters when you are ringing round: a provider cannot require your name, address or phone number before answering, and cannot require you to come in person to get price information. You can be asked to identify yourself and still decline, and the questions must be answered anyway.
What the Rule does not do is make a provider post or send the list. It does not require a GPL to be mailed or emailed in response to a telephone or mail inquiry. If that inquiry is followed by a meeting, at the funeral home or anywhere else, the printed list has to be handed over at that point. Some states require a price list to be mailed on request; we could not establish whether Ohio is one of them, and we would rather say so than guess.
What the list itself has to tell you
The Rule writes some of the GPL's wording for the provider. The right-of-selection disclosure has to say that "You may choose only the items you desire", subject to a charge for basic services and overhead, and that anything you are required to buy will be explained in writing on the statement describing what you selected. That is not sales copy; it is a legal disclosure the Rule dictates.
The embalming disclosure has to say that embalming is not required by law, that it may be necessary if you choose certain arrangements such as a funeral with viewing, and that if you do not want it you usually have the right to choose an arrangement that does not require you to pay for it, such as direct cremation or immediate burial. The FTC states outright that federal law does not require embalming under any circumstances, and a provider may not tell you that state or local law requires it when that is untrue. The third dictated disclosure covers alternative containers for direct cremation, which encase the body and can be made of materials such as fibreboard.
Underneath the disclosures sits the charging rule. The Rule permits only three kinds of charge as a condition of supplying goods or services: the one non-declinable fee for the basic services of the funeral director and staff, the goods and services you actually selected, and anything required to be bought by law or by the cemetery or crematory and explained on the itemised statement. A second non-declinable fee, whether it is called a basic facilities fee or a casket handling fee, is not permitted, and a provider cannot add a surcharge because you bought a casket somewhere else.
What the Rule does not require, as of this reading
The Funeral Rule does not require prices to be published online. The FTC's own words are that the rule "requires funeral providers to furnish consumers who visit funeral homes in-person with itemized price information" but, because it was first issued in the 1980s, "it does not require them to provide price information online and via other electronic means like email or text messages". That is why a Columbus funeral home with no prices on its website is not thereby breaking the Rule.
The FTC has been reviewing this since 2020. In October 2022 the Commission voted to retain the Rule and issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking covering online price display, and held a workshop in 2023 and an undercover phone sweep whose staff report was published in November 2024. On 6 August 2026, when we read the FTC's own listings, the proceeding was still at the advance-notice stage: no notice of proposed rulemaking and no amended Funeral Rule had issued. If that changes, the paragraph above is the first thing on this page that stops being true.
This guide is general information about a federal rule, not legal advice, and it describes the rule rather than any business listed on this site. Questions about the Funeral Rule itself go to the Federal Trade Commission; questions about an Ohio licence go to the Ohio Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors, 77 South High Street, 16th Floor, Columbus, OH 43215-6108, (614) 466-4252. Confirm anything here with them before you rely on it.
Browse the directory of funeral homes. Each listing shows its verification status and the date it was last checked, so you can see how current the information is before you reach out.