No, you cannot bury someone on your property in California. Under Health and Safety Code 7054, depositing whole human remains anywhere outside an established cemetery is a misdemeanor, and no local permit or zoning approval can override that statewide rule.1California Legislative Information. California Health and Safety Code 7054 (2025) What California does allow is keeping cremated remains on private land under specific conditions, which is the closest lawful option for families who want a loved one to rest at home.
What the Law Prohibits
Health and Safety Code 7054 makes it a misdemeanor to deposit or dispose of human remains anywhere other than a cemetery. The prohibition applies to backyards, rural acreage, family farms, and any other private land, no matter how remote or how large the parcel is.1California Legislative Information. California Health and Safety Code 7054 (2025)
Penalties depend on who does the burying. For an ordinary person, it’s a standard misdemeanor. For licensed funeral professionals, or anyone acting in a role that requires a Cemetery and Funeral Bureau license, the punishment climbs to as much as one year in county jail, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.1California Legislative Information. California Health and Safety Code 7054 (2025)
A common misconception is that a county or city can authorize backyard burial through zoning. It cannot. Health and Safety Code 8115 gives local governments authority to establish and regulate cemeteries, but that power does not extend to exempting individual property owners from the statewide prohibition. A county can approve the creation of a new cemetery. It cannot bless a single grave on residential or agricultural land.
The Cremation Exception
The one path that lets a loved one legally rest on your property is cremation. Health and Safety Code 7054.6 allows cremated or hydrolyzed remains to be removed from the place of cremation and kept on property owned or occupied by a person described in Section 7100, or by anyone with permission from the person who has the right to control disposition.2California Legislative Information. California Health and Safety Code 7054.6 (2025) Two conditions attach: the remains must be stored in a durable container, and a disposition permit under Section 103060 must be issued.
Cremated remains can also be divided into keepsake urns. Each keepsake urn is limited to one cubic centimeter of remains, requires its own disposition permit, and must list the home address of each person receiving one.2California Legislative Information. California Health and Safety Code 7054.6 (2025) One detail that surprises people: placing six or more sets of cremated or hydrolyzed remains on one property does not turn that property into a cemetery under California law.
If you plan to bury the container in the yard rather than keep it on a shelf, the disposition permit must describe the exact final place of disposition, and trespass and nuisance laws still apply. Beginning January 1, 2027, amended provisions under Section 103060 will formalize additional permitting requirements for cremated, hydrolyzed, and reduced remains.
Two other narrow exceptions exist to the cemetery-only rule, though neither helps a typical family. Remains processed through natural organic reduction may qualify under newer statutes, with a framework still developing. And the reburial of Native American remains under cultural agreements is specifically exempted.
Who Has the Right to Decide
Before any cremation, burial, or placement can happen, someone must have legal authority to make the call. Health and Safety Code 7100 sets the priority list for who controls disposition of remains:3California Legislative Information. California Health and Safety Code 7100
- An agent under a health care power of attorney who has been granted disposition rights
- Surviving spouse
- Adult children, with majority controlling if there are several
- Surviving parents
- Adult siblings, again with majority controlling
- Next of kin in descending degrees of kinship
This order matters. If a surviving spouse wants cremation and adult children want cemetery burial, the spouse decides. If siblings split, the majority prevails, but they must make reasonable efforts to notify and consider objections from the others. A person can also pre-designate their own wishes under Section 7100.1, which overrides the default list. Putting those wishes in writing and pairing them with a health care directive is the surest way to make them stick.
The Permits You Actually Need
Even the lawful path, cremation followed by placement at home, runs through the local registrar. Health and Safety Code 103050 requires two things before any disposition occurs: a death certificate must be filed with the local registrar, and a disposition permit must be obtained from that registrar.4California Legislative Information. California Health and Safety Code 103050
The death certificate must be registered within eight calendar days after death and before disposition. Once it’s properly executed, the registrar issues the permit, which the crematory will require before accepting the body and which must accompany the remains to their destination.
If the remains need to cross county lines before burial or cremation, Health and Safety Code 7055 requires a separate burial or removal permit from the registrar where the death occurred. Moving remains without it is itself a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of $10 to $500 for a first offense, and up to $500 or 60 days in jail for later offenses.5California Legislative Information. California Health and Safety Code 7055 (2025)
What Families Can Do at Home
California does not require you to hire a funeral home to care for the body of a family member. Families can legally wash, dress, and keep the deceased at home before burial or cremation takes place at a licensed facility. What families cannot do is bury the body on private land.
If a funeral establishment or funeral director holds unembalmed remains for longer than 24 hours, California regulations require refrigeration at an approved facility.6Legal Information Institute (LII) / Cornell Law School. Cal. Code Regs. Tit. 16, 1223 – Embalming, Preparation and Restoration California does not require embalming by law, and it does not require a burial vault or grave liner. Cemeteries can set their own vault policies, but there is no statewide mandate.
Green Burial as the Closest Legal Alternative
Families drawn to home burial usually want something simpler and more natural than a conventional cemetery. Green burial grounds offer that within the law. These facilities allow burial in biodegradable caskets, shrouds, or plant-derived containers, without embalming chemicals or concrete vaults. Land is often managed as a conservation easement, and some grounds mark graves with GPS coordinates rather than headstones.
California has several certified green burial grounds, and the number is growing. Costs are typically lower than conventional burial because you skip embalming, a metal casket, and a vault. For families who feel a standard cemetery is too impersonal but understand that a backyard grave is illegal, a natural burial ground is the closest lawful match.
What Happens If You Bury Someone Anyway
The consequences of an unauthorized burial reach well beyond the initial misdemeanor charge under Section 7054. Health departments and environmental agencies can intervene if a grave creates a public health concern. You may be ordered to exhume and relocate the remains to a licensed cemetery at your own expense, a process that requires court orders, additional permits under Section 103105, and professional handling. It can take months to resolve.
An unauthorized burial also follows the property. California’s Transfer Disclosure Statement requires sellers to disclose known material defects and conditions affecting a property, and human remains on residential land would almost certainly qualify. Undocumented gravesites can trigger land-use restrictions that reduce value, and title insurance companies may refuse to insure the parcel. If a buyer discovers remains after closing, they can pursue the seller for nondisclosure, and the costs of exhumation and relocation typically fall on whoever is found responsible.
Even lawfully placed cremated remains can complicate a future sale. The cleaner approach is to keep any cremated remains on the property documented, easily retrievable, and disclosed as part of any transaction, so the choice you make now doesn’t create a problem for the next owner or the next generation of your family.