Is pet cremation regulated in the United States?

Barely. In our 50-state review, only nine states have any pet-cremation consumer law, and there is no federal rule at all — the FTC Funeral Rule that protects human funeral buyers covers human remains only. Maryland became the newest state to act, enacting a pet-cremation consumer-protection law in 2026. Everywhere else, a pet crematory answers, if to anything, only to an air-quality permit.

Which states regulate pet cremation?

Nine, and they do it differently. Arizona, New York, and Texas license pet crematories. Illinois, Tennessee, and New Jersey require written records or receipts. Nevada and Wyoming set facility rules. And in 2026 Maryland enacted a law requiring registration, animal identification, a cremation certificate, and five years of records. The other 41 states have no pet-specific rule.

Why isn't pet cremation regulated like human cremation?

Mostly history. The FTC Funeral Rule has protected human funeral buyers since 1984, and human cremation is licensed in every state. Pet aftercare grew up outside that framework — historically treated like agricultural animal disposal, not funeral service — so the licensing, identification, and recordkeeping rules never followed. Legislators are only now catching up, usually after a local scandal.

What would good pet cremation regulation require?

Four things, all of which reputable providers already do: a licensed or registered operator; a documented chain of custody (a numbered ID tag that stays with the pet from intake to return); records and a cremation certificate the family can verify; and real enforcement, usually through the state Attorney General. These are the elements Arizona, New York, and Maryland's laws use — and the same ones the industry's own IAOPCC/CANA certification already teaches.

Does the pet cremation industry oppose regulation?

Not uniformly — and that's the point. The reputable operators already run a documented chain of custody and keep records voluntarily, because their accreditation requires it. Sensible regulation mostly binds the operators who refuse to. The recent state bills have drawn bipartisan support precisely because the ask is modest: codify what good providers already do.

Is Pet Cremation Regulated? The Case for Change

When a person is cremated in the United States, federal law guarantees their family an itemized price list, the right to refuse a bundled package, and a regulated, licensed provider. When a pet is cremated, in 41 of 50 states, the family is guaranteed nothing — no license, no required identification, no records, no certificate. We think that gap is indefensible, and the good news is that it’s starting to close. Here’s the case for finishing the job.

This is a position piece from Hallowed Paws — a resource built for pet owners, not the cremation industry. The facts below are sourced and linked; the opinion is labeled as such and kept separate. Our 50-state law map is the data underneath it.

What protects you when a person dies — and what doesn’t when a pet does

The contrast is the whole argument. Since April 30, 1984, the FTC’s Funeral Rule has required funeral providers to hand consumers an itemized price list, barred them from forcing you to buy a casket for a direct cremation, and given you the right to choose only the goods and services you want. That’s been the law for forty years. It applies to the disposition of human remains. It does not reach pet cremation.

There is no pet equivalent — no federal rule of any kind. Whatever protection exists, exists only because a particular state legislature created it.

The same act, two standards

Cremating a person

Federally regulated since 1984

FTC Funeral Rule applies in all 50 states
Itemized price list required by law
No forced bundles; you choose the services
Licensed crematory operators in every state
Records and identification are standard

Cremating a pet

The gap

No federal rule; 9 states act

No federal rule at all
No required price list (our study found 48% publish none)
No required identification or chain of custody
Licensed or registered operators in only a handful of states
Records optional in 41 states

The Funeral Rule (FTC) covers human remains. Pet-cremation protection exists only where a state has legislated it. Price-opacity figure: Hallowed Paws 2026 study of 118 providers.

This isn’t a small or fringe market. Americans own roughly 89.7 million dogs and 73.8 million cats, and by the AVMA’s own measure, the large majority of owners consider their pet a member of the family. Cremation is now the majority choice for pet aftercare — and the U.S. pet-cremation market runs to roughly $1.3 billion a year (per IBISWorld, 2024). A vast, emotional, growing industry operates with almost no consumer floor under it.

The cost of no rules

The gap isn’t theoretical; it produces a recurring kind of harm. In Pennsylvania, the owner of a Pittsburgh funeral home was charged after investigators found he had disposed of some 6,500 pets in a landfill while charging families for private cremations and handing them fake ashes — roughly $657,000 taken over three years. In Maryland, a Baltimore-area operator was convicted in a strikingly similar scheme. In California, an owner went public after coming to believe she’d been given the wrong dog’s ashes — and her state still has no law that would have prevented it. In Florida, a bill was named for a cat whose returned “ashes” were found to contain a human tooth, glass, and metal.

The common thread in every case is the same, and it’s mundane: no required identification, no chain of custody, no records anyone had to keep. The fixes are equally mundane — which is exactly why the absence of them is so hard to justify.

What good looks like — and the industry already knows it

Here’s the part that should end the debate: the standard already exists. The industry’s own bodies have written it down. The IAOPCC accredits pet crematories against a detailed set of operating standards, and the joint IAOPCC/CANA Certified Pet Crematory Operator program trains operators on exactly the thing that fails in every fraud case — a documented chain of custody, with forms for receiving, tracking, and returning each pet’s remains.

In other words, the reputable operators already tag every pet, track it from intake to return, and keep records — because their own profession tells them to. Regulation doesn’t invent a new burden. It takes the practice the good providers already follow and makes it binding on the ones who don’t.

The tide is turning

This is not a lost cause — it’s a live one, and it’s moving. In 2026, Maryland enacted the Pet Cremation and Burial Services Consumer Protection Act (signed into law, effective that October), requiring registration, animal identification, a cremation certificate, and five years of records — all enforced by the Attorney General. It became the newest of the nine states with a real pet-cremation law.

It won’t be the last. In Pennsylvania, companion bills (HB 1750 and SB 950) to require service descriptions, identification, and recordkeeping are advancing with bipartisan support after the Pittsburgh scandal — Republican and Democratic legislators alike on the record. “Pet owners deserve consumer protection as they are coping with the loss of their companions,” is how one sponsor, Rep. Brandon Markosek, put it. In California, advocates and an attorney are pushing to license crematories under the state veterinary board; as one of them, attorney Jill Ryther, framed it: “mirroring what crematories do with humans is exactly what we should be doing.” Even where bills have stalled — Florida’s died in committee in 2026 — they keep coming back.

The direction is clear. The only question is how many more families get the call before their state acts.

What we’re doing about it

We’re an advocacy resource, not a lobby, so our job is to make the case and arm the people who can act on it. Three things we’re doing:

We hold our own providers to this standard. We only route pet owners to a local provider we’d trust with our own pets — which means the chain-of-custody, identification, and records described above, whether or not the state requires them. The law catching up just means everyone else has to meet the bar our partners already clear.
We’ve built the tools. The 50-state law map shows exactly where each state stands. The crematory trust checklist gives owners the questions that close the gap themselves, today, in the 41 states that won’t.
We keep the receipts. Every figure here is sourced and linked, and our underlying research is open.

If you’re a journalist or a legislator working on this: our data is yours to use. The state-by-state map, the price-transparency study, and the case record are all public — our press & data page pulls them together — and we’re glad to be a source at editor@hallowedpaws.com. The more this gets covered, the faster the remaining 41 states close the gap.

Sources

FTC — Complying with the Funeral Rule (effective 1984; covers human remains).
Maryland General Assembly — HB 564 / Chapter 547 (2026).
Pennsylvania Senate — “Dignity in Death”: legislators act after the pet-cremation scandal.
NBC Los Angeles — California pet-cremation legislation effort.
WUFT — “Sevilla’s Law” pet-cremation bill.
ABC News — Pittsburgh case: ~6,500 pets, fake ashes; CBS — Baltimore case.
AVMA — U.S. pet ownership statistics. Market size: IBISWorld, Pet Cremation Services (2024).
IAOPCC — accreditation; CANA — Certified Pet Crematory Operator.
Hallowed Paws — 50-state pet after-death law map and 2026 cost study of 118 providers.

This piece states an opinion — that pet cremation should be regulated — clearly separated from the sourced facts above. Bill statuses are current to June 2026 and will change; the law map is dated and updated. Found an error? Tell us.

Pet Cremation Is Barely Regulated. Here's the Case for Change.