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Honour Guard at the Funeral — $50 Paid to the Post That Renders It

The commissioner pays $50 for each honour guard detail a local veterans organisation provides at a deceased veteran’s funeral, and the post may pass some or all of it to a student who plays Taps.

Verified August 23, 2026

What this benefit is

The commissioner pays $50 for each honour guard detail a local veterans organisation provides at a deceased veteran’s funeral, and the post may pass some or all of it to a student who plays Taps.

What it's worth: An honour guard detail — the $50 goes to the post, not to the family

  • The $50 in the statute is paid to a local unit of a congressionally chartered veterans organisation or its auxiliary, on that unit’s request. No money reaches the estate or the next of kin, so we publish no family-facing value.
  • The payment is made "within available funds", which is a condition on the State rather than on the family.

Who is entitled to it

  • You are the veteran, or a family member arranging the funeral.
  • Your home is in Minnesota.

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. 1Ask the funeral director to request an honour guard from a local post. The statute is written around a local unit providing the detail, so the post is the body that has to agree.
  2. 2Understand where the money goes. The $50 is paid by the commissioner to the local unit that provided the detail, on that unit’s request — it is not a reimbursement to the family.
  3. 3If you want Taps played live, say so. The statute expressly lets the local unit allocate some or all of the $50 to a student who plays Taps at the funeral, which is the lever that makes a live bugler possible.
  4. 4Do not treat this as a substitute for federal military funeral honours, which are a separate entitlement arranged through the funeral director.
  5. 5If no local post can field a detail, ask the county veterans service officer which neighbouring units cover the area.
File with
A local unit of a congressionally chartered veterans organisation, through your funeral director
Documents you will need
dd214
No renewal
Once granted it does not need renewing.
CorrectionThe $50 is not a family benefit and it is not a funeral allowance. It is a stipend to the veterans organisation that turns out. A family reading a benefits list that shows "$50 honour guard" should not expect a cheque.
Worth knowingThe Taps clause is the useful part. Because the post may pass the whole $50 to a student bugler, asking for live Taps costs the post nothing — which makes it a reasonable thing to ask for rather than an imposition.
Known gapThe statute does not say how quickly a post is reimbursed, whether more than one detail per funeral is payable, or what happens when funds run out in a year. Ask the post rather than assuming.

Sources

Why only one source type: The statute carries the whole of this benefit — who is paid, how much, on what request, and the Taps allocation. The department publishes no separate operating page for it that we could read this session, and we would rather publish the statute alone than pad the record.

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