Step 1 · The first days
Choosing a funeral home is the one real decision of the first hours, and it comes at the worst possible moment for comparing anything. This guide sets out what a funeral home actually does, the ten questions to ask before you sign, funeral costs in Switzerland line by line, and who ends up paying.
Updated on August 12th, 20268 minute read
Our independence
We do not recommend any one funeral home. Funere earns nothing from your choice and points you towards no company in particular. Our cantonal directory lists them all, in the same format.
Families often think they are hiring someone to organise a ceremony. Most of the work is logistics and paperwork, and that is what explains both the price and the relief of handing it over.
Transport and care of the body
The official steps
Coordination
Supplies
Support for the family
What it does not do
One thing worth knowing: nothing obliges you to use the funeral home recommended by the hospital, the care home (EMS / Pflegeheim) or the municipality. The choice belongs to the family, and you can call two or three before deciding, even on the first day.
For comparable services, the gap between two funeral homes can exceed 50%. Ten questions are enough to see clearly, and a serious funeral director answers all of them without hedging. Print the list and take it to the meeting; you will not be in a state to remember it.
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The ten questions to ask
For a cremation with a service, the usual order of magnitude is CHF 4,000 to 8,000. With a burial, a memorial and a large ceremony, CHF 12,000 is passed easily. Large cities sit at the top of these ranges, rural municipalities at the bottom.
| Item | CHF |
|---|---|
| Simple coffin (combustible, and required even when there is a cremation) | 300 to 800 |
| Coffin for burial (solid wood, the line with the widest spread) | 1,500 to 8,000 |
| Urn (plain or biodegradable, through to artist pieces) | 80 to 1,000 |
| Transport and coffining (collection, preparation, transfer to the crematorium or the cemetery) | 600 to 1,500 |
| Fees and formalities (coordination, administrative steps, staff on the day of the service) | 800 to 2,000 |
| Chapel of rest (optional, usually charged per day) | 200 to 700 |
| Municipal cremation fee (free for residents in many municipalities) | 0 to 900 |
| Grave in the cemetery (often provided free for twenty years to residents of the municipality) | 0 to 2,000 |
| Flowers and decoration (spray on the coffin, decoration of the room) | 150 to 800 |
| Announcement cards and thank-you cards (printing and postage; publishing an obituary online is free) | 150 to 600 |
| Memorial and lettering (almost never in the initial quote, billed several months later) | 3,000 to 8,000 |
These are orders of magnitude, collected in French-speaking Switzerland; municipal fees vary widely from canton to canton. They depend on the municipality and on the funeral home. The season plays a part too. None of it replaces a written quote, and most of the spread sits in three lines: the coffin, the chapel of rest and the memorial.
The habit that saves the most
Ask for the written quote before you approve anything, and read the coffin line first. It is the one item where the same service can cost four times as much, and nobody will judge you for choosing the plain one.
Close to nine funerals in ten in Switzerland are now cremations. The choice follows the wishes of the person who died, or failing that the family's, and it has concrete practical consequences.
Cremation
Burial
Two things worth clearing up. A cremation still allows a service with the coffin present; the cremation happens afterwards. And nothing forces you to decide what becomes of the ashes on the day itself. The family has time, and that decision is better taken with a clear head.
Under Swiss law, funeral costs are a debt of the estate. They come out of the deceased's assets first, before any division of the estate. As a rule, then, the children do not pay out of their own pocket.
In practice the bill arrives well before the estate is settled, and the accounts are frozen (blocked). The simplest answer, and one too few people know about: ask the bank to pay the funeral home's invoice directly from the deceased's account, on presentation of that invoice. Most Swiss banks accept this even on a frozen account. It saves you paying several thousand francs up front.
One nuance matters, and it is the classic trap. If you sign the order in your own name, you are contractually bound to the funeral home even if you renounce the inheritance afterwards. When the deceased's debts are uncertain, say so to the funeral home from the start and ask for the invoice to be made out to the estate.
Three other cases. After a fatal accident, the compulsory accident insurance (UVG / LAA) covers part of the costs. If the deceased had a prepaid funeral plan, some or all of it is already paid for — see funeral pre-planning. And when nobody can pay and the estate does not cover it, the municipality of last residence arranges a dignified funeral, on terms that vary from canton to canton.
Yes, though not where most people look. Funeral costs are generally not deductible from income. They come off the assets of the estate, as a debt of that estate, which lowers the base on which inheritance tax is calculated.
The rules are cantonal. Vaud allows customary funeral costs as a deduction from gross assets. Fribourg applies a flat CHF 10,000, raised to CHF 15,000 on production of receipts. The other cantons each have their own practice, a flat amount or the actual costs.
The practical advice fits in one line: keep every invoice, including the florist, the memorial, the obituary and the thank-you cards. They are needed at the inventory stage, often months later, by which time nobody knows where they went.
Our directory lists the funeral homes active in Switzerland, all in the same format, with no paid ranking and no featured slots. Comparing them and making the calls is up to you. If you search online, it helps to know the local word for a funeral home: Bestattungsinstitut in the German-speaking cantons, pompes funèbres in the French-speaking ones, onoranze funebri in Ticino. Many municipal pages and local listings use nothing else.
Every funeral home we list, canton by canton and municipality by municipality. They pay nothing to appear and cannot buy a better position. Do you run a funeral home and want to correct your details? Write to us.
Amounts are orders of magnitude collected in French-speaking Switzerland and vary with the municipality, the funeral home and the services chosen. Cremation and cemetery fees are set by the municipalities. Tax deduction rules are set by the cantons. This page is general information.