Cremation and Cremation Jewelry Trends: 2026 Report

2026 edition · Updated September 6, 2026 · Written by Jordan Colton, founder of Cherished Emblems · Refreshed every year

What are the biggest cremation and cremation jewelry trends in 2026?

In 2026, cremation is the choice for roughly 63 percent of American deaths and 77 percent of Canadian deaths, and both figures are still rising. The Cremation Association of North America (CANA) reports a 2025 US cremation rate of 62.8 percent, and the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) projects 63.4 percent for 2025 and 82.3 percent by 2045. Alongside that shift, families are keeping ashes closer to home, personalizing memorials, and turning to cremation jewelry, green disposition, and pet aftercare in growing numbers.

The story of 2026 is less about whether cremation will win and more about what families do next. The national rate is climbing more slowly than it did five years ago, the South is where the remaining growth is, and the question families bring to funeral homes has moved from "burial or cremation" to "what do we do with the ashes, and how do we keep this person close." This report gathers the most current published numbers in one place, adds what we see as one small cremation jewelry retailer, and is refreshed every year.

Key statistics at a glance

• 62.8 percent of US deaths were cremated in 2025, up from 57.2 percent in 2021, with 69.1 percent projected for 2030 (CANA 2026 Annual Statistics Report).
• 63.4 percent cremation and 31.6 percent burial in 2025, rising to 82.3 percent cremation and 13.0 percent burial by 2045 (NFDA 2025 Cremation and Burial Report).
• 77.4 percent of Canadian deaths were cremated in 2025, projected to reach 81.1 percent by 2030 (CANA) and 91.2 percent by 2045 (NFDA).
• Every US state and Washington, DC is projected to pass 50 percent cremation by 2035 (NFDA 2025).
• Mississippi was the only state still below 40 percent cremation in 2025, while Nevada, Maine, Washington, and New Hampshire were above 80 percent (CANA 2026, as reported by Cremation.Green).
• $6,280 was the median cost of a funeral with viewing and cremation, against $8,300 for a funeral with viewing and burial, in NFDA's most recent published General Price List study (2023 data).
• 62 percent of US adults identify as Christian and 29 percent as religiously unaffiliated, compared with 78 percent and 16 percent in 2007 (Pew Research Center, 2023 to 2024 Religious Landscape Study, published February 2025).
• 61.4 percent of consumers say they want to explore green funeral options (NFDA 2025 Consumer Awareness and Preferences Study).
• 26 states and 5 Canadian provinces or territories permit alkaline hydrolysis (water cremation) as of March 2026 (CANA), and 14 states have legalized human composting (Order of the Good Death legislative tracker).
• About 15 percent year over year growth in cremation necklace orders at Cherished Emblems, January through August 2026 versus the same months of 2025 (our own Shopify data, one retailer).

On this page

• A note from Jordan
• Cremation rates in the United States and Canada
• What cremation costs compared with burial
• Who chooses cremation: age, religion, and region
• Water cremation, human composting, and green disposition
• Cremation jewelry trends in 2026
• Pet cremation and pet memorial jewelry
• What to expect in 2027
• Common questions
• Update history
• Sources

A note from Jordan

Every year I sit down and take stock of how families across North America are handling loss and the quiet work of carrying someone forward. It started as a work habit. It has become more personal than that.

Cremation used to be a practical decision. For many families it is now part of how they hold on to a person: a portion of ashes scattered somewhere loved, a portion buried, a portion kept close in a pendant that gets touched a hundred times a day without anyone noticing. Cremation jewelry has grown because of the comfort it offers, not because of anything clever about it.

My hope is that this page gives you current, well sourced information, and a little company. Whether you lost someone this week or years ago, or you are planning ahead for someone you love, you are not alone in figuring this out. There is no right or wrong way to carry a loss.

I promise I'll always remember.

Jordan Colton
Founder, Cherished Emblems

Cremation rates in the United States and Canada

The national picture

Two organizations publish the numbers the industry relies on, and in 2026 they agree closely. CANA's 2026 Annual Statistics Report, built from state and provincial vital statistics, puts the actual 2025 US cremation rate at 62.8 percent, up from 57.2 percent in 2021, and projects 69.1 percent by 2030. NFDA's 2025 Cremation and Burial Report projects 63.4 percent cremation and 31.6 percent burial for 2025, and 82.3 percent against 13.0 percent by 2045, when cremations would outnumber burials more than six to one.

Canada is further along: 77.4 percent in 2025, up from 74.0 percent in 2021, with 81.1 percent projected for 2030 (CANA) and 91.2 percent by 2045 (NFDA).

One new detail deserves attention: growth is slowing. According to FuneralVision's summary of the CANA report (May 2026), average annual growth in the US rate over the last five years fell to 1.33 percentage points from 1.58, and Canada now adds less than a point a year. CANA expects growth to plateau once a state or country passes about 80 percent. Cremation is not fading; it is maturing.

The rate by year, 2010 to 2030

Fifteen years of CANA data tell the whole story in one line. The rate climbed about a point and a half a year through the 2010s, crossed 50 percent in 2016, and has added a little over a point a year since 2021. The dashed segment is CANA's own projection, not ours. For the full series back to 1958 and the history behind it, see Cremation in America: A History and the Rates by Decade.

Regional and state highlights

The West and Northeast reached majority cremation long ago and are near the ceiling. Per a July 2026 Cremation.Green breakdown of the CANA report, Nevada and Maine have been above 80 percent since 2021, Washington and New Hampshire joined them by 2025, and all five Northwest states sit at 71 percent or higher. Mississippi was the only state still below 40 percent, with Alabama and Kentucky having just crossed that line. Cremation.Green's reading of the NFDA report names Louisiana as a state that still favors burial.

The South is where the change is happening now. CANA notes that seven of the eleven Historic South states moved into a higher cremation bracket this cycle, the largest regional shift in the report, and NFDA expects the South to grow fastest. NFDA projects that by 2035 cremation will exceed 50 percent in every state and the District of Columbia; only three states still had majority burial in 2025.

Why it keeps rising

NFDA's 2025 report names the same drivers every year: affordability, environmental considerations, fewer religious barriers, simpler ceremonies, rising cost of living, and families spread across the country. That last one matters most for jewelry. When the people who loved someone live in four states, a single grave serves one of them; a portion of ashes can be with each. If you are still weighing the choice, our guide on choosing between cremation and burial walks through it without pressure.

What people are searching for

Search interest follows the same line as the cremation rate. Google Trends puts interest in the term "cremation" at its highest level ever in 2026: every month this year sits at 88 or above on Google's 0 to 100 scale, and September 2026 is the peak month of the entire record back to 2004. Interest roughly quadrupled between 2004 and 2026, with visible jumps in 2017, in the spring of 2020, and again in 2026. Trends measures relative interest, not the number of searches, so read the line as the shape of attention rather than a count (Google Trends, exported September 6, 2026).

What cremation costs compared with burial

NFDA's most recent published General Price List study, released in December 2023, found a median cost of $8,300 for a funeral with viewing and burial and $6,280 for a funeral with viewing and cremation. Those figures cover the funeral home's services; burial typically adds a plot, opening and closing fees, and a vault, so the real gap is usually wider than $2,000. NFDA noted that between 2021 and 2023 funeral costs rose more slowly than inflation. A MassMutual summary from October 2025 still cites these medians as the latest available, so treat them as a 2023 baseline rather than a 2026 price.

Direct cremation, with no viewing or service, remains the lowest cost option by a wide margin. US Funerals Online (March 2026) reports a national average of about $2,202 using Funeralocity data, with a range from under $500 in discount networks to several thousand dollars at full service homes. NFDA adds that 36.3 percent of member funeral homes now offer online cremation arrangements and another 25 percent plan to within four years.

Cheaper is not the same as better or worse. A direct cremation followed by a backyard gathering, a scattering, and a small keepsake can be every bit as meaningful as a full funeral. What matters is that the people left behind get a moment to mark the loss; NFDA's 2025 consumer study found 84.7 percent of people agree "a funeral is for the living."

Who chooses cremation: age, religion, and region

Age. NFDA's consumer research keeps finding the pattern we see at the counter: older adults preplanning today choose cremation at high rates, and younger, less affiliated generations expect more flexibility and personalization. NFDA's 2025 Consumer Awareness and Preferences Study, as summarized by Legacy of Love, found nearly 20 percent of respondents had prepaid for services and 57.4 percent want to know more about their end of life options.

Religion. This driver gets the least attention and explains the most. Pew Research Center's 2023 to 2024 Religious Landscape Study, published in February 2025, found 62 percent of US adults identify as Christian, down from 78 percent in 2007, while the religiously unaffiliated grew from 16 percent to 29 percent. Fewer people carry a religious objection to cremation, and most traditions that once objected have loosened their rules: the Catholic Church has permitted it since 1963 (with firm guidance that ashes stay whole in a sacred place), most Protestant denominations leave it to the family, and Latter-day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses allow it. Judaism, Islam, and Eastern Orthodoxy still teach burial; Hinduism and most Buddhist traditions expect cremation. NFDA found more than three quarters of people still base funeral decisions partly on religious belief. The full, sourced detail, including what each tradition says about keeping ashes at home or in jewelry, is on our religious views on cremation hub and its Christian views on cremation page.

Region. Religion and region overlap. The lowest cremation states (Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana) are among the most religiously observant, and the states above 80 percent (Nevada, Maine, Washington, New Hampshire) are among the least. As the South's rate climbs, expect families who choose cremation to look for ways to honor their faith within it, often a burial of ashes in consecrated ground alongside a small keepsake.

Water cremation, human composting, and green disposition

Interest in greener options is broad: 61.4 percent of consumers in NFDA's 2025 study said they wanted to explore green funeral options. Two alternatives to flame cremation are now legal across much of the continent.

Alkaline hydrolysis (water cremation or aquamation) uses warm water and an alkaline solution instead of flame and leaves a fine white mineral remainder that families receive just as they would ashes. According to CANA's legal status page, as of March 2026 it is permitted for human use in 26 US states and five Canadian provinces or territories, though CANA cautions that legal does not always mean available; several states have no operating provider yet. The remains work in cremation jewelry exactly as flame cremated ashes do, as our guide on water cremation and where it is legal explains.

Natural organic reduction (human composting) turns the body into soil over several weeks. The Order of the Good Death's legislative tracker lists 14 states where it is legal: Washington (first, in 2019), Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, California, New York, Nevada, Arizona, Maryland, Delaware, Minnesota, Maine, Georgia (May 2025), and New Jersey (2025), with bills introduced in more than a dozen more states, including Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Virginia. Families who choose composting do not receive ashes, so keepsakes for them tend to be engraved pieces without an ash chamber, a lock of hair, or a small vial of the finished soil.

Cremation jewelry trends in 2026

There is no authoritative national statistic on how many families keep ashes in jewelry. What we can say with sources: NFDA's 2025 Cremation and Burial Report, as summarized by Cremation.Green, found about 38 percent of families plan to bury cremated remains, 37 percent to keep them in an urn at home, 33.5 percent to scatter, and more than 10 percent to divide them among family (people could pick more than one). That last group, plus part of the "keep at home" group, is where cremation jewelry lives. Market size reports for the category exist and tend to show growth near 10 percent a year, but they come from research mills and we treat them as rough industry estimates. If you are new to the category, start with what cremation jewelry is.

What follows is what we see in our own store: one retailer, mostly American, mostly women, skewing older. Read it as a window, not a census. Comparisons are January through August 2026 against the same months of 2025, from our Shopify data.

How people search for it

The words families use are changing faster than their interest is. The phrase "cremation jewelry" peaked in 2018 and has eased since, while "ashes jewelry" and "jewelry for ashes" rose later and are holding near their peaks; "jewelry for ashes" had its strongest month on record in February 2026. Google's own related searches for the category now rank "ashes jewelry" and "jewelry for ashes" above "cremation jewelry" itself, with "pet cremation" the fastest riser. The three lines below are each indexed to their own peak, so they show how each phrase has moved over time, not how big one is against another. Read together, they say the same thing our orders say: the category is mature, the interest is steady, and the language is drifting toward plainer words (Google Trends, exported September 6, 2026).

What families are choosing

Necklaces are still the heart of the category. Our cremation necklace orders grew about 15 percent year over year, while cremation bracelet orders were flat after strong growth in 2024 and 2025. Keychains and rings remain a small but growing share: the person who will not wear a necklace still wants something in a pocket or on a keyring. The 2024 edition of this report predicted bracelets would lead; in 2026 they hold a steady second place.

Personalization and engraving

Personalization is where the industry data and ours agree most. NFDA's 2026 Consumer Awareness and Preferences Study (June 2026) found 48 percent of consumers open to a certified celebrant, up from 36.3 percent a year earlier, and 62.1 percent had attended a service led by someone other than clergy. Families want the memorial to sound like the person. In our store, about one in four jewelry orders adds laser engraving (a name, a date, a handwriting sample, a short phrase), a share that slipped a few points from 2025, partly because more of our best sellers now come with a phrase already engraved. About six in ten orders add our jewelry sealant, and that share held. Every engraved piece we sell is laser engraved in Oregon.

Materials and styles

Heart shaped pendants were the fastest growing style of 2026 by a wide margin; items sold for our heart engraved "Forever In My Heart" roughly tripled. The piece photographed at the top of this page, our memorial heart necklace with a rhinestone edge, is part of that same pull toward the simplest possible symbol. Faith symbols held their place near the top: the cross with angel wings, the classic cross, and the bullet engraved with the Lord's Prayer all stayed in our top sellers, which matches Pew's finding that six in ten Americans remain Christian. Natural stone and lava stone bracelets both grew more than 50 percent, the bright spot in an otherwise flat bracelet category, and we read that as part of the wider pull toward earthy materials that also shows up in interest in green disposition.

Men and dads

The fishing hook necklace and the rifle bullet necklace both stayed in our top ten. Hobby and identity pieces for men, and for sons and daughters remembering a dad, have been reliable for years. A pendant that looks like something he loved is easier to wear every day than a pendant that looks like grief.

What has cooled off

Bracelets have plateaued for us, engraving as an add on lost a little ground to designs with the phrase built in, and ornate pendants have given way to simple shapes with a single line. Fifty seven percent of our store sessions came from mobile phones, and small, clean designs read better on a phone, which is where most families are looking at three in the morning.

Pet cremation and pet memorial jewelry

Pet aftercare is the fastest growing corner of this field. The American Pet Products Association's 2025 National Pet Owners Survey counts 95 million US households with a pet, and Americans spent $158 billion on pets in 2024. CANA's pet aftercare page calls pet cremation and memorialization "one of the fastest growing death care markets in the United States and Canada." On the market side, Grand View Research estimates cremation made up 79.49 percent of North American pet funeral services in 2024 and projects growth near 9.7 percent a year through 2033; that is an industry estimate, not a vital statistic.

What we see: pet cremation jewelry orders arrive with the same tenderness as orders for a parent, often with the same engraving, a paw print and a name. Families sometimes divide a pet's ashes into two pieces, one for each person who walked the dog. There is no wrong way to grieve an animal who slept at the foot of your bed for fourteen years.

What to expect in 2027

Grounded in the projections above, not in guesses:

• The US cremation rate should land near 64 to 65 percent for 2026 and keep moving toward CANA's 69.1 percent projection for 2030, with annual gains closer to 1.3 points than the 1.6 of the early 2020s. Canada should cross 80 percent around 2030 and then flatten.
• Mississippi is likely to be the last state past 40 percent, and NFDA still expects every state above 50 percent by 2035. Watch Louisiana, Alabama, and Kentucky for the biggest single year gains.
• More states will legalize water cremation and human composting; bills were active in more than a dozen legislatures in 2026.
• Personalization will keep growing. Openness to celebrants jumped nearly 12 points in one year, and we expect engraved phrases, handwriting, and simple heart and faith shapes to lead cremation jewelry again.

We will update this page when the 2027 CANA and NFDA reports publish.

Common questions

Is cremation jewelry a good idea?

For many families, yes, as long as it fits your beliefs and your grief. A pendant holds a small, symbolic portion of ashes and lets you keep someone close through ordinary days. Some traditions, notably the Catholic Church, ask that ashes stay together in a sacred place, so check our religious views on cremation guide if faith matters to your family. There is no right or wrong way to carry a loss.

How much ashes does cremation jewelry hold?

Most cremation pendants hold a small, symbolic portion of ashes, typically a fraction of a teaspoon. An adult cremation produces several pounds of ashes, so filling a pendant, or several for several family members, uses only a tiny amount, and the rest can still be buried, scattered, or kept in an urn. Our cremation jewelry questions page covers filling and sealing step by step.

Can you shower with cremation jewelry?

It is best to take it off. Most cremation jewelry is sealed with a small screw and, if you choose, a sealant, but repeated water, soap, and steam can loosen the threads and wear the finish. Remove it for showers, swimming, and hot tubs and it will last for years.

Is cremation cheaper than burial?

Yes. NFDA's most recent General Price List study found a median cost of $6,280 for a funeral with viewing and cremation and $8,300 for a funeral with viewing and burial (2023 data), and burial usually adds a plot, vault, and cemetery fees on top. Direct cremation with no service averaged about $2,202 nationally in 2025 to 2026 according to US Funerals Online.

What percentage of Americans choose cremation?

About 63 percent. CANA reports the actual 2025 US cremation rate at 62.8 percent and NFDA projects 63.4 percent for 2025, rising to roughly 69 percent by 2030 and 82.3 percent by 2045.

What do families do with ashes after cremation?

Most do more than one thing. NFDA's 2025 Cremation and Burial Report, as summarized by Cremation.Green, found about 38 percent plan to bury the ashes, 37 percent plan to keep them at home in an urn, 33.5 percent plan to scatter, and more than 10 percent plan to divide them among family, which often includes a small portion in jewelry. Our guide on what to do with ashes after cremation walks through the options.

What is the cremation rate in Canada?

77.4 percent of Canadian deaths were cremated in 2025, according to CANA's 2026 Annual Statistics Report, with 81.1 percent projected for 2030. NFDA projects Canada's rate will reach 91.2 percent by 2045.

Is water cremation legal, and can the remains go in jewelry?

Alkaline hydrolysis is legal for human use in 26 US states and five Canadian provinces or territories as of March 2026, per CANA, though not every legal state has a provider yet. The remains are a fine white mineral powder that families receive like ashes, and they can be placed in cremation jewelry the same way.

Update history

September 6, 2026: Added two Google Trends charts with data tables: search interest in "cremation" (at an all time high in 2026) and the three phrasings families use for cremation jewelry, showing the shift toward "ashes jewelry" and "jewelry for ashes." (source)

September 6, 2026: Added a chart and table of the US cremation rate from 2010 to 2025 with the CANA 2030 projection, drawn from the same series as our history of cremation page, and shortened the outlook section to the four expectations the sources support. (source)

September 6, 2026: Replaced the dated 2025 hero image with an undated photograph of the memorial heart necklace with rhinestones so the page reads as evergreen, pointed the water cremation link at the new evergreen guide, and moved the shared page styles to the theme. (source)

September 4, 2026: 2026 edition published as an evergreen page. It replaces the May 2025 blog post "Cremation and Cremation Jewelry Trends in 2025" and the January 2024 post "Exploring the Evolving Trends of Cremation Jewelry in 2024," both of which now redirect here. This edition adds the CANA 2026 Annual Statistics Report (62.8 percent US, 77.4 percent Canada) and NFDA 2025 Cremation and Burial Report (63.4 percent, 82.3 percent by 2045) figures, Pew's 2023 to 2024 Religious Landscape Study, the March 2026 legal status of alkaline hydrolysis and human composting, NFDA's 2026 consumer study on personalization, and Cherished Emblems first party sales observations for January through August 2026. Religion detail moved to the religious views on cremation hub. (source)

Sources

1. Industry Statistical Information, 2026 Annual Statistics Report, Cremation Association of North America, 2026
2. CANA Annual Statistics Report 2021, Historical Cremation Data table, Cremation Association of North America, 2021
3. Google Trends: cremation, cremation jewelry, ashes jewelry, jewelry for ashes (United States, 2004 to present), Google, exported September 6, 2026
4. CANA Publishes Eagerly Awaited 2026 Cremation Statistics Report, FuneralVision, May 2026
5. Biggest Takeaways From the CANA 2026 Annual Statistics Report, Cremation.Green, July 2026
6. NFDA Releases 2025 Cremation and Burial Report, National Funeral Directors Association, October 2025
7. Americans Choosing Cremation at Historic Rates, NFDA Report Finds, NFDA via PRWeb, September 2025
8. Dissecting the NFDA 2025 Cremation and Burial Report Stats, Cremation.Green, October 2025
9. 2023 NFDA General Price List Study, National Funeral Directors Association, December 2023
10. The Costs of Funerals and the Rights of Consumers, MassMutual, October 2025
11. What Was the Cremation Rate in the US in 2025?, US Funerals Online, March 2026
12. Biggest Takeaways From the NFDA 2025 Consumer Awareness and Preferences Study, Cremation.Green, 2025
13. What the 2025 NFDA Consumer Study Reveals About Funeral Planning, Legacy of Love, 2025
14. NFDA Study Finds Families Seek More Personalized, Transparent End of Life Services, NFDA via National Law Review, June 2026
15. Decline of Christianity in the US Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off, Pew Research Center, February 2025
16. Alkaline Hydrolysis, Cremation Association of North America, March 2026
17. Support Composting Legislation, The Order of the Good Death, 2026
18. Pet Aftercare, Cremation Association of North America
19. Pet Industry Market Size, Trends and Statistics, American Pet Products Association, 2025
20. North America Pet Funeral Services Market Report, Grand View Research, 2025 (industry estimate)

This page is educational. Cherished Emblems sells cremation jewelry, and the first party figures above come from one retailer's Shopify data for January through August 2026 compared with the same months of 2025; they describe our customers, not the whole market. National statistics are quoted from the named sources as published at the time of the update.