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State Veterans Cemeteries — Free for the Veteran, a Fee for the Family
Four state veterans cemeteries provide the burial plot, grave opening and closing, a government headstone with installation and perpetual maintenance at no cost to a qualified veteran. A spouse or eligible family member may be buried there, but a burial fee applies to them.
Verified August 22, 2026
What this benefit is
Four state veterans cemeteries provide the burial plot, grave opening and closing, a government headstone with installation and perpetual maintenance at no cost to a qualified veteran. A spouse or eligible family member may be buried there, but a burial fee applies to them.
What it's worth: Plot, opening and closing, government headstone and installation, and perpetual maintenance — no charge to the veteran
- The division states there is no charge for the gravesite or necessary interment services for a qualified veteran.
- It also states there is a burial fee for an eligible spouse or family member, and does not publish the amount on the page we read. Treat the family side as a real and unquantified cost.
- No dollar figure is claimed for the veteran’s side. The saving is whatever a plot, an interment and a marker would have cost privately.
Who is entitled to it
- Interment runs to the qualified veteran.
- Spouses, widows and widowers, and eligible children may be buried there.
- Your discharge is of the character the cemetery programme asks for.
- You live in North Carolina.
- Your home is in North Carolina.
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
- 1Choose the cemetery first. Four are open: Coastal Carolina, Eastern Carolina, Sandhills and Western Carolina.
- 2Establish the veteran’s qualification. It is active duty service discharged under honorable conditions; reserve and National Guard members may also qualify where they earned, or would have earned but for age, retired pay for non-regular service.
- 3Check the children’s ages against the rule, which is more generous than most: unmarried children under 21, or under 23 where enrolled in college, and adult children with a disability of onset before age 18.
- 4Ask the cemetery for the family burial fee in writing before you commit. The division confirms a fee exists for a spouse or family member but does not publish the figure.
- 5Gather the documentary evidence yourself. The burden of furnishing evidence of service, residence, marriage, children and any dependency disability sits with the veteran, the survivors or the legal representative.
- 6Settle eligibility ahead of need rather than at the funeral home. The determination is the slow part.
- Form
- Interment application to the cemetery, with documentary evidence of service
- File with
- The state veterans cemetery you have chosen, or the Director of State Veterans Cemeteries
- Documents you will need
- dd214
- No renewal
- Once granted it does not need renewing.
CorrectionThe word "free" attaches to the veteran, not to the family. The division says plainly that there is a burial fee for an eligible spouse or family member. Get the figure from the cemetery before you plan around it.
Worth knowingThe reserve and guard route does not require the retired pay to have started. A member who would have been entitled to retired pay for non-regular service but for being under 60 qualifies.
Worth knowingThe evidence burden is expressly on the family. Where a marriage, a dependency or a disability of onset before 18 is part of the claim, assemble the documents before the application rather than after.
Known gapN.C.G.S. ch. 65 art. 8A governs these cemeteries and could not be read this session: ncleg.gov refused retrieval, including its statute PDF, and the division’s own general policy guide is published as a PDF whose text could not be extracted. The statutory residency test — which may be narrower than simply living here now — is recorded as a candidate rather than stated here.
Known gapThe residency element in the rule above is our own conservative reading that these are the state’s cemeteries for its own veterans. The programme page we read does not state a residency requirement, and the statute may frame it quite differently. A veteran with a North Carolina connection who lives elsewhere should ask the cemetery directly rather than rely on this.
Sources
- authority · published policyNC Department of Military and Veterans Affairs — NC Veterans Cemetery Program (four cemeteries; qualified veteran and reserve/guard retired-pay routes; spouse, widow or widower and children under 21, or 23 if enrolled in college, and adult children with disabilities of onset before 18; no charge for gravesite or necessary interment services for a qualified veteran; a burial fee for an eligible spouse or family member; plot, opening and closing, government headstone, installation and perpetual maintenance)
- operating · published policyNC Department of Military and Veterans Affairs — State Veterans Cemeteries division page (Coastal Carolina, Eastern Carolina, Sandhills and Western Carolina; free burial plot for veterans at four sites; Director of State Veterans Cemeteries as the contact)
This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.