The State Death Grant Has Been Gone for Decades

There is no universal government death grant in the UK, and there has not been one for decades. The National Insurance death grant — a flat lump sum once paid out on almost every death to help with the funeral — was abolished in 1987 and never replaced by anything paid to everyone. If you are budgeting for a funeral on the assumption that the state will send a cheque simply because someone has died, that assumption is out of date by a generation.

What exists in its place is much narrower and means-tested. There is help, but you have to qualify for it, usually by being on a low income and receiving a particular benefit. For a working household with ordinary savings, the honest position is that the state contributes nothing towards a funeral, and the family is expected to fund it.

This page explains what the old death grant was, why so many people still half-expect it, what actually replaced it, and where the few genuine pockets of help now sit — including the pension and employment "death grants" that keep the phrase alive and cause much of the confusion in the first place.

The short answer: no universal death grant since 1987

For much of the twentieth century, the death grant was a standard part of the National Insurance system. You paid in during your working life, and when you died a set lump sum was paid out to help meet funeral costs. It was not means-tested and it was not something you had to qualify for beyond the contribution record: it simply arrived.

That ended in 1987. The death grant was withdrawn and replaced with a targeted, low-income scheme, and the universal payment has never returned in any form. Every proposal to bring back a general death grant since then has come to nothing, so the position today is straightforward even if it is unwelcome: there is no government payment that lands automatically on a death to help with the funeral.

Understanding that is the first step to a realistic funeral budget. The money has to come from the estate, from savings, from insurance, or from a means-tested payment you may or may not qualify for — and not from a universal state grant, because that grant no longer exists.

What the old death grant actually was

The death grant was a one-off, flat-rate payment made under National Insurance on almost every death. Its purpose was modest from the start: to make a contribution towards a funeral, not to pay for the whole thing. And by the time it was abolished, that contribution had become very small indeed.

The reason is simple. The amount was a fixed cash sum that was not raised in line with the rising cost of funerals for many years, so its real value was steadily eroded. What might once have covered a meaningful share of a funeral had, by the 1980s, dwindled to a token amount that met only a fraction of the bill. That erosion was part of the argument for replacing it with a scheme aimed at the people who most needed help, rather than a shrinking flat payment spread across everyone.

It is worth being clear about this, because people who remember the death grant sometimes remember it as more generous than it was. Even at its peak it was a contribution, and at its end it was a small one.

Why people still expect it

If the death grant vanished in 1987, why do families still ask about it at the funeral director's? The answer is memory, passed down. Anyone whose parents or grandparents died before the late 1980s saw a death grant paid, and the idea that "the government helps with the funeral" became part of the family's understanding of how death and money work. That understanding was handed on to children who never saw the grant themselves but absorbed the expectation.

The confusion is reinforced by the language still in circulation. Pension schemes pay something called a "death grant". Employers talk about death-in-service benefits. The words death and grant and benefit float around the subject, and it is entirely reasonable for a grieving person to assume they all point back to a single government payment. They do not, but the vocabulary keeps the ghost of the old grant alive.

The practical harm is that people budget as though the payment is coming. They arrange a funeral, sign for it, and only afterwards discover there is no state cheque on its way to cover it. Knowing in advance that the universal grant is gone is what lets you plan for the cost honestly rather than being caught out by its absence.

What replaced it: a means-tested payment

In 1987 the universal grant was replaced by a Social Fund funeral payment for people on low incomes. That scheme has evolved into today's Funeral Expenses Payment, which covers England and Wales and is administered by the Department for Work and Pensions.

It differs from the old grant in three important ways. First, it is not paid to everyone — you or your partner must be receiving a qualifying benefit such as a means-tested one, so a household with ordinary income and savings will not get it. Second, it does not pay for the whole funeral: it typically meets necessary burial or cremation fees together with a capped contribution towards everything else, so a gap usually remains for the family to cover. Third, and often overlooked, it is recoverable from the estate — if the person left money or property, the payment can be reclaimed from it. You can check the current rules and qualifying benefits on the GOV.UK Funeral Expenses Payment pages.

The capped contribution towards "everything else" is the part that surprises claimants, because so much of a funeral falls into that category. It is worth understanding what those extra costs are before assuming a payment will stretch to cover them, which we set out in our guide to what a wake costs on top of the funeral bill.

The devolved picture

Since welfare in this area has been partly devolved, the means-tested help now differs across the UK, so where the person lived matters.

In Scotland, the DWP payment has been replaced by a Funeral Support Payment, introduced in 2019 and administered by Social Security Scotland, with its own rules on who qualifies and what it covers. In Northern Ireland, help with funeral costs is delivered through a separate Funeral Expenses Payment run by the Department for Communities. All of these share the essential feature of the scheme that replaced the death grant: they are for people on qualifying benefits, they do not pay the whole cost, and they are nothing like the universal payment the old grant provided.

The "death grants" that do still exist

Part of the reason the belief persists is that death grants genuinely do still exist — just not from the government as a universal right. They live inside pensions and employment instead, and it is worth knowing about them, because if the person who died had a job or a pension, real money may be available.

• Pension scheme death grants. Many workplace and public-sector pension schemes pay a lump sum if a member dies, often several times their salary. In some schemes this is paid entirely at the trustees' discretion, which affects who receives it and how long it takes — a point we explain in our guide to the local government pension scheme death grant and absolute discretion.
• Death in service through an employer. If the person was employed, their employer may provide a lump sum on death, entirely separate from anything the state does or does not pay.
• Veterans and war pensioners. There is targeted help towards the funeral of some ex-service personnel, which we cover in our guide to what Veterans UK pays towards a funeral.

Two further payments are often mistaken for a death grant but are not. Bereavement Support Payment helps a surviving spouse or civil partner — and, more recently, some cohabiting partners with dependent children — but it is a bereavement benefit for the survivor, not a grant tied to the funeral, and it is paid regardless of what the funeral costs. And the Children's Funeral Fund for England meets burial or cremation fees for under-18s, which is real help but specific to children.

Will a universal death grant ever come back?

It is a fair question, given how much funerals now cost, and it comes up whenever funeral poverty is in the news. Campaigners, charities and some politicians have argued at various points for a return to a payment that helps every bereaved family rather than only those on qualifying benefits. So far, none of it has become law, and there is no scheme in prospect that would restore a universal grant.

The direction of policy since 1987 has been the opposite one: help with funerals has been steadily narrowed and targeted at low-income households, and responsibility for those schemes has been handed to the devolved governments rather than expanded across the whole population. That is a poor basis on which to assume a universal payment is coming back. The sensible planning position is that it will not, and that a working household should treat the funeral as a cost it must meet from its own resources.

Hoping for a policy change is not a funeral plan. If the cost worries you, the thing within your control is to set money aside for it now, so that whatever governments decide, your family is not left waiting on a grant that may never exist.

What to do if you are not on benefits

If you are not receiving a qualifying benefit, the plain truth is that the state will not contribute to the funeral, and you need a plan that does not rely on it. The realistic options are the estate, savings, insurance, or, in the last resort, the safety net of a council-arranged funeral where genuinely no one can pay — which is a bare, no-frills service with real trade-offs, described in our guide to what a public health funeral actually looks like.

Most people who want to avoid leaving the cost to a grieving relative set money aside for it deliberately. An over-50s life policy or other life cover pays a cash sum to whoever you nominate, which the family can put straight towards the funeral without waiting for probate or qualifying for anything. Whether a claim is paid still depends on the policy terms, so it is not a guarantee, but it is designed to put money in the family's hands quickly. If you would rather your family did not discover the death grant is gone at the worst possible moment, you can get life insurance quotes and have an FCA-authorised broker help you size the cover against a realistic funeral cost.

For the wider picture of who becomes liable for a funeral and how it gets paid, see our guide to funeral costs and who pays them. Independent, free guidance on state help is also available from MoneyHelper.

Frequently asked questions

Is there still a government death grant in the UK?

No. The National Insurance death grant was abolished in 1987 and has never been replaced by a universal payment. What exists now is means-tested: the Funeral Expenses Payment in England and Wales, Scotland's Funeral Support Payment and the Northern Ireland equivalent, all of which require the claimant or their partner to be receiving a qualifying benefit.

What replaced the death grant?

The Social Fund funeral payment, introduced in 1987 for people on low incomes, which has become today's Funeral Expenses Payment. Unlike the old grant it is not paid to everyone, it is capped for most expenses so a gap usually remains, and it is recoverable from the deceased's estate if there is money or property to reclaim it from.

Is there any help with funeral costs if you are not on benefits?

Not from the state. Bereavement Support Payment helps a surviving spouse or civil partner but is a benefit for the survivor rather than a funeral grant, and the Children's Funeral Fund covers under-18s in England. A pension scheme or employer may pay a lump sum, but a working household with savings is generally expected to fund the funeral itself.