Veterans Alliance is privately owned and operated to serve veterans. We are not affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Veterans Alliance — Veterans Alliance
← All Delaware benefits
burialstate

The Indigent Burial Payment Was Repealed in 2008 — What Remains Is the Free Plot

Title 20, chapter 9 once carried three sections on burial of indigent service members, the conditions for burial payments, and military funerals for remains returned from overseas. All three were repealed effective 30 June 2008.

Verified August 23, 2026

What this benefit is

Title 20, chapter 9 once carried three sections on burial of indigent service members, the conditions for burial payments, and military funerals for remains returned from overseas. All three were repealed effective 30 June 2008.

What it's worth: No state indigent-burial payment — repealed effective 30 June 2008

  • The chapter index prints §§901-903 as "Repealed by 76 Del. Laws, c. 269, § 1, effective June 30, 2008." Their headings were: burial of indigent service members; procedure and conditions for burial payments; and military funerals for service members brought from overseas.
  • What survives in chapter 9 is §904, on unlawful use of veterans’ organisation insignia, and §905, on leaves of absence for reservists on temporary active duty.
  • The state burial provision that does still operate is 20 Del. C. §1204(b) — no fee for the plot and interment of an eligible veteran at the state cemeteries — which is published separately here.

Who is entitled to it

  • The provision is written for the person who served.
  • Your home is in this state.

Not sure whether that describes you?

Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.

How to claim it

  1. 1Do not budget a funeral against a state indigent-burial payment. The sections that authorised it were repealed in 2008 and nothing in chapter 9 replaced them.
  2. 2Use what does exist: pre-qualify for the free plot and interment at the state veterans cemetery, and check the federal VA burial allowance separately.
  3. 3If a printed guide or a funeral home cites 20 Del. C. §§901 to 903 at you, ask them to show you the current text of the chapter.
File with
Nothing to claim — this record exists to correct a benefit list
No renewal
Once granted it does not need renewing.
CorrectionAn absence is worth publishing when the thing removed was once real and is still being cited. Three burial sections disappearing on one day in 2008 is exactly that: a family reading an older benefits summary would plan around a payment the code no longer authorises.
Worth knowingThe repealing act, 76 Del. Laws, c. 269, was not read this session. What was read is the chapter index carrying the repeal note and its effective date.

Sources

This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.