Riga City Funeral Service
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A call that begins "we have no money for a funeral" is not unusual in our service. It is nothing to be ashamed of and it is far from a dead end: in Latvia a funeral can be arranged within the state benefit, and some of the costs families worry about most do not arise at all. This article sets out how that works in practice and where to begin.
Riga City Funeral Service deals with such cases every week. Advice is free and commits you to nothing, so you can call before deciding anything: +371 2208 4540
This is worth starting with, because it is where families are most often mistaken. Riga municipality makes no charge for the allocation of a plot — this follows the Constitutional Court judgment of 5 March 2019. There is no need to plan for "buying a grave", and the very item of expense families fear most simply does not exist.
The paid services are others, and there are few of them: grave digging, use of the chapel and grave care. Everything else on the bill is services and goods — a coffin or urn, transport, preparation, the ceremony. It is precisely this part that the benefit covers.
The state funeral benefit exists exactly so that a family does not have to find money on the day of the funeral. Among our plans there is one built around the amount of the benefit: it contains everything necessary, and the family holds the funeral within the benefit, without drawing on its own budget. The plans and how to choose between them are on the funeral planning page, and on the benefit itself — who is entitled and how to apply — see the explanation of the funeral benefit.
In practice this means: you call, we establish the situation, we offer a plan within the benefit and we deal with the documents ourselves. The family does not have to go from office to office at a moment when it has neither the strength nor the clarity for it.
| Stage | What happens, and how the cost falls |
|---|---|
| Allocation of the burial plot | The municipality allocates the plot on application. No charge is made — neither for a new plot nor for a burial in an existing family plot |
| Transport and preparation of the deceased | A service included in the plan. Call-out is around the clock, including at night and at weekends |
| Coffin or urn and fittings | Goods from the plan. The basic set is included in the plan built around the amount of the benefit |
| Grave digging and use of the chapel | Paid services — it is these, together with the goods, that make up the bill |
| Preparation of documents | We handle this. No separate charge needs to be budgeted for |
| Grave care later on | A paid service, but not a cost of the funeral day — it is planned separately and later |
If cremation is chosen the structure of costs differs, but the logic is the same: cremation also fits within a plan built around the amount of the benefit.
This is a case little spoken of. If a person has no next of kin, or they cannot be found, the burial does not simply fail to happen: under the Cemeteries Law the municipality has a duty to ensure the burial of unclaimed deceased persons. There is even a dedicated type of plot for such burials — a row plot for unclaimed deceased, 1.5 × 2.5 m, set in Annex 2 to the regulations.
If you are a neighbour, a friend or a distant relative and do not know whom to call, call us — we will say where to turn and what to do next. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
First, a modest funeral is not an undignified one. The order of the farewell, the moment of silence, the flowers and the accompanying do not depend on the size of the bill. Most of what people remember from a farewell costs nothing.
Second, there is no shame in asking the price. A proper conversation with a funeral service begins with what the family can afford, and only then moves to what is possible for that sum. If you are offered the reverse, that is a reason to pause.
Third, if you wish to hand over the funeral arrangement entirely, we do it from the first call to putting the plot in order after the ceremony.
Read about the funeral benefit
