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Veterans’ Burial Allowance — Up to $4,000, Paid by Your City or Town
Where the estate cannot pay for the funeral and burial, the burial agent of the city or town expends not more than $4,000 towards it, provided the whole cost of the funeral and burial is not more than $5,000. The Commonwealth reimburses the municipality part of what it pays out.
Verified August 23, 2026
What this benefit is
Where the estate cannot pay for the funeral and burial, the burial agent of the city or town expends not more than $4,000 towards it, provided the whole cost of the funeral and burial is not more than $5,000. The Commonwealth reimburses the municipality part of what it pays out.
What it's worth: Not more than $4,000 towards the funeral and burial, where the whole cost is not more than $5,000
- §8 as amended by St. 2024, c.178, §124 directs that the burial agent "shall expend not more than $4,000 for the funeral and burial; provided, however, that the cost of the funeral and burial shall be not more than $5,000".
- Any resources of the deceased person are deducted from that maximum, and the difference is what the burial agent pays. This is a top-up against a ceiling, not a flat cheque.
- §8 also caps what the Commonwealth reimburses the municipality: no city or town is reimbursed for a single burial where the total expense, exclusive of the purchase price of the grave, the cost of the grave opening and the cost of a cement vault liner required by cemetery regulations, exceeded $500 for a child under seven or $900 for any other person.
- The figure is a municipal payment, separate from anything the federal VA pays and separate from the fees at the Commonwealth’s own cemeteries.
Who is entitled to it
- The section covers the funeral and burial of the veteran.
- The section also covers an adult dependant, and a dependent child of a veteran.
- The discharge is of a character these benefits are written around.
- The estate does not have enough to pay for the funeral and burial, which is the test §8 sets.
- You live in Massachusetts, and the money is paid by the city or town of residence.
- Your home is in Massachusetts.
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
Deadline: Within 60 days of death if the interment already happened without the burial agent’s knowledge- 1Call the veterans’ services office of the city or town before you sign anything with a funeral home. §8 sets a ceiling on the whole cost of the funeral and burial, so a contract signed first can put the family outside the section rather than merely over its limit.
- 2Ask for the burial agent by name. §7 makes the veterans’ agent the burial agent in every city except Boston and in every town; in Boston the soldiers’ relief commission designates one, and that person must be a veteran.
- 3If the burial has already taken place without the agent knowing, apply within 60 days of the date of death — or of final interment, where the veteran died in the service. That window is short and it is easy to miss while a family is grieving.
- 4Expect the agent to investigate. §7 says the agent may certify the case only after finding that the deceased was within the section and the rules of the secretary.
- 5Have the service detail ready for the certificate: the regiment, company, station, organization or vessel, the date of death and the place of interment, and — where the deceased was a spouse or widowed person — the veteran’s name and the date of marriage.
- 6Know the two exclusions in §7 before you assume the answer. It does not apply to a person designated on discharge as a conscientious objector, nor to a person who was a subject or citizen of a neutral country at the time of entering federal service, filed an intention to become a United States citizen and afterwards withdrew it under the act of congress approved 9 July 1918.
- 7Ask about the state guard route if it fits. §7 extends to a person who served in the military service of the Commonwealth as a state guardsman between 5 April 1917 and 21 December 1919, or in the state guard established during World War II, and was honorably discharged — but not to that person’s adult dependant or dependent child.
- 8If the veteran died in Massachusetts while indigent and did not live here, ask anyway. §8 lets the secretary authorise a burial agent to arrange proper interment of the body of an indigent veteran who dies within the Commonwealth, notwithstanding the residence requirements of §5.
- 9Ask the agent, in writing, which cost figure their office works to. The section carries both a $4,000 expenditure limit and $500 and $900 reimbursement limits, and the two do not read consistently.
- Form
- Application to the veterans’ burial agent, then certification on oath by the burial agent and the municipal treasurer
- File with
- The veterans’ burial agent of your city or town — in every city except Boston this is the veterans’ agent; in Boston the soldiers’ relief commission designates a burial agent who is a veteran
- Documents you will need
- dd214
- No renewal
- Once granted it does not need renewing.
CorrectionThe figure is $4,000. A $2,000 burial allowance is still repeated widely for Massachusetts; the section as amended by the HERO Act, St. 2024, c.178, §124, effective 8 August 2024, says not more than $4,000.
CorrectionThe $5,000 sentence is a condition, not a cap on the payment. If the whole cost of the funeral and burial exceeds $5,000, the section’s own terms are not met — so the funeral is the decision to take before the paperwork, not after it.
Worth knowingAn indigent veteran who dies inside the Commonwealth can be interred by a burial agent even where the residence test of §5 is not met, on the secretary’s authorisation. That is the provision that keeps a veteran who died away from home out of a pauper’s grave.
Known gapThe $500 and $900 reimbursement limits sit unamended in the same section as the $4,000 expenditure limit and read as a contradiction. 108 CMR 9.00, Annuities and burials, is the regulation that would settle how the office applies them, and it is published only as a PDF download that refused direct retrieval this session.
Sources
- authority · statuteM.G.L. c.115 §8, Payment and reimbursement of burial expenses; certificate, as amended by St. 2022, c.144, §41 and St. 2024, c.178, §124 (burial agent under §7 shall expend not more than $4,000 for the funeral and burial where the estate has insufficient resources, provided the cost of the funeral and burial shall be not more than $5,000; resources of the person deducted from that maximum; no municipal reimbursement for a single burial whose total expense, exclusive of the purchase price of the grave, the grave opening and a required cement vault liner, exceeded $500 for a child under seven or $900 for any other person; relatives unable to bear the expense may be allowed to conduct the funeral; certification on oath by the burial agent and municipal treasurer within three months after the burial; 75 per cent of amounts paid and allowed reimbursed by the commonwealth on or before November 10 in the year after the expenditure; the secretary may authorise a burial agent to arrange interment of an indigent veteran who dies within the commonwealth notwithstanding the residence requirements of §5)
- operating · statuteM.G.L. c.115 §7, Veterans’ burial agent; appointment; powers and duties, as amended by St. 2024, c.178, §§119-123 (in each city except Boston and in each town the veterans’ agent is the burial agent, and in Boston the soldiers’ relief commission designates a burial agent who shall be a veteran; the agent causes proper interment of any veteran or adult dependant who dies without sufficient means to defray funeral expenses, and of a dependent child where the veteran and spouse are without such means; where interment took place without the agent’s knowledge, application may be made within 60 days after the date of death or after final interment where the veteran dies in the service; the section does not apply to a person designated on discharge as a conscientious objector, nor to a neutral-country subject or citizen who filed and then withdrew an intention to naturalise under the act of congress approved 9 July 1918; it does apply to state guardsmen serving between 5 April 1917 and 21 December 1919 and to the World War II state guard, honorably discharged, but not to their dependants)
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