burialstate

State Veterans’ Cemeteries — Guard and Reserve Members Are In By Name Since 1 January 2026

The department shall establish and maintain state veterans’ cemeteries for the interment of veterans and their eligible next of kin. Eligibility runs on the federal national cemetery test, and the version effective 1 January 2026 adds a second route for a reserve component, Army National Guard or Air National Guard member who completed the initial period of service and was discharged under conditions other than dishonorable, or who died on state active duty or serving under Title 32. Conviction of a capital offence is an absolute bar.

Verified August 23, 2026

What this benefit is

What it's worth: Interment in a state veterans’ cemetery; the section itself sets no fee

No figure is claimed. KRS 40.315 names no charge at all — it points interment service at 38 U.S.C. §§2404 and 2408 and leaves operating detail to administrative regulations the department may promulgate.
The weight reflects a plot, opening and closing, and perpetual care avoided in a commercial cemetery, not a sum anyone receives.
Whether a spouse or dependent child is charged, and how much, is not in the statute and was not established this session.

Who is entitled to it

Both routes into the cemeteries turn on a discharge other than dishonorable.
You are 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

1Work out which of the two routes you are on, because they have different tests. Subsection (2)(a) is the federal route: persons eligible for interment in a veterans’ national cemetery under 38 U.S.C. §2402 and the regulations under it.
2Subsection (2)(b) is the state route and it is the new part. A member of a RESERVE COMPONENT of the Armed Forces, the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard who is not otherwise qualified under (a) is eligible if the member completed the initial period of service required by 10 U.S.C. §651(a) and was discharged under conditions other than dishonorable.
3There is a second limb to the state route with no service-length requirement at all: an Army or Air National Guard member who DIED while on state active duty, or while serving under Title 32 of the United States Code.
4Family eligibility follows the route you came in on. For a person eligible under (2)(b), the eligibility of the spouse, surviving spouse, minor child and dependent incapacitated child is determined under 38 U.S.C. §2402(a)(5) — so the federal family test is imported rather than restated.
5Check the bar before anything else. Subsection (6) states that no person convicted of a state or federal criminal capital offence shall be eligible for interment in a Kentucky state veterans’ cemetery.
6Settle eligibility while there is time to correct a record. The department determines who the eligible next of kin are, and a pre-need determination avoids doing that in the days after a death.
7Bring the discharge document. The county clerk records a veteran’s discharge under KRS 422.090, which is the local place that record usually sits.
8Ask what the family is charged and get it in writing. The section is silent on fees; the answer lives in the department’s administrative regulations and its published schedule, not in the statute.
9If the estate has no means, the Indigent Veterans’ Burial Program under KRS 40.355 is the neighbouring route — and it requires burial in a state or federal veterans cemetery to be sought first, which makes these two records halves of one process.

Form: Pre-need eligibility determination or an at-need application, usually through the funeral director
File with: Kentucky Department of Veterans’ Affairs
Documents you will need: dd214
No renewal: Once granted it does not need renewing.

CorrectionThis corpus carried the cemeteries as an unresolved candidate because the department’s own site is edge-blocked. The statute was reachable the whole time under a different id. The lesson is specific to this state: a stale statute id on apps.legislature.ky.gov redirects to InvalidStatute.aspx, and the statuteRsn in that redirect is the CURRENT id — 40.315 lives at 56650, not at the 21847 the old sequence implies.

CorrectionThe Guard and Reserve route is new and is routinely missing from write-ups, which still describe eligibility as simply "the same as a national cemetery". The version effective 1 January 2026 adds a whole second path for reserve component and National Guard members who would not clear 38 U.S.C. §2402, and a further limb for those who died on state active duty or under Title 32.

Worth knowingThe section was formerly codified as KRS 36.340 and was repealed and reenacted in 2000. A search on the old number, or on a pre-2023 version, returns text without the reserve component route.

Known gapThe number and location of the cemeteries, the fee schedule, and the department’s administrative regulations under subsection (4) could not be read this session — veterans.ky.gov returned an edge-level block on every path tried. The statute names no cemetery and no charge, so neither is stated here.

Sources

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