---
slug: starting-a-funeral-directors-business-uk
title: Starting a funeral directors business in the UK | Funeral Casework
description: No licence exists in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. The medical examiner step, the CMA price rules and the FCA perimeter on plans are what bind.
published: 2026-08-13
---

Token estimate: ~3,500

# Starting a funeral directors business in the UK - what is regulated and what is not

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland no licence or qualification is required to trade as a funeral director; Scotland has had a statutory code and inspection regime since 1 March 2025.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland there is no licence to apply for, no qualification to hold and no regulator to register with before trading as a funeral director. The House of Commons Library briefing on regulation of the funeral industry, CBP-10475, published on 2 March 2026, puts it plainly: there is no specific regulatory regime for funeral directors in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland is different, and has been since 1 March 2025.

That absence surprises people, and it is the right frame for everything else. The constraints that actually bind a new funeral director in the rest of the UK are not sector regulation at all. They are a Competition and Markets Authority order about prices, a Financial Conduct Authority perimeter around pre-paid plans, and a death certification process that decides when a funeral can be held.

## Scotland has the regime the rest of the UK does not

The Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016 provides for a statutory code and a statutory inspectorate. [Section 97 of the Act](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2016/20/section/97) states that a funeral director must comply with any code of practice issued by the Scottish Ministers about the carrying out of a funeral director's functions.

The Funeral Director Code of Practice came into force on 1 March 2025, alongside the Burial and Cremation (Inspection) (Scotland) Regulations 2025. The Scottish Government's own [update on that commencement](https://blogs.gov.scot/funeral-industry/2025/02/14/update-on-commencement-of-regulations-on-1-march-2025-and-associated-work/) records that the Code applies to all funeral directors carrying out the functions of a funeral director in Scotland regardless of where their business is based, that inspectors can report findings, identify remedial action with reasonable timescales and take enforcement action, and that a public register of inspections and enforcement notices was to follow.

A licensing scheme for Scottish funeral directors is provided for in the 2016 Act but has not been implemented. The Scottish Government describes the work to draft licensing regulations as ongoing, with no date attached.

So a firm opening in Berwick and a firm opening in Eyemouth face materially different starting positions, and a firm operating on both sides of the border is inside the Scottish Code for the Scottish work regardless of where it is registered.

## Every death now passes a medical examiner, and that is what sets funeral dates

The single largest operational change to this business in a generation landed on 9 September 2024.

Since that date every death in England and Wales is independently reviewed, either by a coroner or, in non-coronial cases, by a medical examiner. GOV.UK's [overview of the death certification reforms](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-the-death-certification-process/an-overview-of-the-death-certification-reforms) describes the reforms as requiring independent review for all deaths in England and Wales without exception. Once scrutiny is complete, the medical certificate of cause of death is sent to the registrar by the medical examiner rather than by the attending practitioner, and that notification starts the five-day statutory period for registering the death.

For a funeral director the consequence is structural rather than procedural. The date a family can be given depends on a queue inside an NHS medical examiner office, not on the firm's diary. A new firm quoting dates the way a caterer quotes dates will be wrong, and the first year is largely spent learning how the local medical examiner office and register office actually behave. [What that office does to a case timeline](https://funeralcasework.co.uk/articles/working-with-a-medical-examiner) is the detail behind it.

It also removed work. Forms Cremation 4 and Cremation 5, the medical certificate and the confirmatory medical certificate, were permanently removed in England and Wales on the same date, so a cremation case no longer waits on two doctors' signatures. What replaced that wait is the medical examiner's scrutiny, and that is a wait with a different owner.

## The CMA price display rules apply from the first branch and the first day

There is no small-firm exemption. The [Funerals Market Investigation Order 2021](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/funerals-market-investigation-order-2021), made by the CMA under the Enterprise Act 2002 with its price-display obligations in force from 16 September 2021, binds a one-branch firm on the day it opens exactly as it binds a national chain.

The Order applies across the whole United Kingdom, so it is the one obligation here that does not vary by nation.

What it requires, per the CMA's [guidance for funeral directors and crematorium operators](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-with-the-funerals-market-investigation-order/funeral-directors-and-crematorium-operators-guidance), updated 21 January 2025, is a Standardised Price List in the fixed CMA format displayed in the branch window at A4 minimum, that list plus an Additional Options Price List, crematorium prices, terms of business and a disclosure of interests displayed inside the premises where customers frequent, and all of it published on the website as named PDFs, with the Standardised Price List reachable in one link from the home page. The CMA publishes the template in English and Welsh alongside the Order.

Two details catch new firms. The Additional Options Price List covers everything the firm offers that is not on the Standardised Price List, and the CMA's guidance says that expressly includes services traditionally treated as disbursements, such as flower arrangement, coffin and transportation. And the branch thresholds in the Order do not create an exemption below them: five or more branches makes a firm a large funeral director for the purpose of supplying the CMA with price and volume information, and ten or more triggers an annual compliance statement, but the display obligations start at one. [What has to be on the Standardised Price List, and what has to happen when a crematorium raises its fee](https://funeralcasework.co.uk/articles/cma-standardised-price-list), is the detail behind that.

Firms told the CMA, in evidence for its [2025 review of market outcomes](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/annual-review-of-funerals-sector-2025), that a crematorium changing its prices meant reprinting the lists and updating the website each time. That is the recurring cost of the Order, not the initial drafting.

## Selling a pre-paid funeral plan needs FCA permission or an authorised principal

Pre-paid funeral plans came inside the Financial Conduct Authority's perimeter on 29 July 2022. The FCA's [announcement that day](https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/fca-regulation-boosts-consumer-protection-funeral-plans-market) records that it authorised 26 providers holding around 1.6 million plans, roughly 87 per cent of the market, and that thirteen firms which had applied but were not authorised had until 31 October 2022 to transfer plans to authorised firms or refund customers.

The part that matters to a new funeral director is the intermediary side. The FCA's page on [regulating the funeral plans sector](https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/regulating-funeral-plans) says any funeral plan provider or intermediary must be authorised, that intermediaries are firms selling plans on behalf of providers, and that to sell pre-paid funeral plans without appropriate authorisation, unless you are an exempt person such as a solicitor, is a criminal offence. A funeral director selling plans is either directly authorised or an appointed representative of an authorised principal.

This is the one item on the list with a criminal sanction attached, and it is the one most likely to arrive as an assumption rather than a decision, because taking plan business is normal in the trade and the paperwork looks like ordinary selling.

## Trade association membership is voluntary, and neither code has statutory force

The National Association of Funeral Directors and the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors both operate codes of practice. The Commons Library briefing is explicit that membership of these organisations is voluntary and that neither code has statutory force outside Scotland.

That cuts both ways for a new firm. Nothing compels membership, and nothing about membership discharges the CMA or FCA obligations above. What membership buys is inspection against a code, a complaints route the family recognises, and the sector's own guidance flow, which is where practitioner-facing clarifications tend to appear first.

## The average simple attended funeral cost £4,285 in 2024

The CMA's 2025 review put the weighted average cost of a simple attended funeral at £4,285 in 2024, up 8.4 per cent from £3,953 in 2022. That is the figure a new firm prices against, and it is the reason the Standardised Price List exists in a fixed format.

The same review recorded branch counts for the three largest operators: Co-op at 811 branches in 2023, Dignity at 725 in 2022, and Funeral Partners at 240. A new independent is not competing with those on scale; it is competing on the local funeral, which is why the display obligations and the arrangement experience carry more weight than they look like they should.

## The software decision arrives when the waits stop fitting in one head

A first-year firm does not need a system to hold ten cases. It needs one at the point where the outstanding waits stop fitting in one person's head: the medical examiner, the registrar, the crematorium slot, the certified copies, each with a different owner outside the firm and a different clock.

The thresholds that make that decision concrete are in [case management software in the first year](https://funeralcasework.co.uk/articles/case-management-software-first-year), and the product fit question for a single branch is in [funeral software for a one-branch funeral director](https://funeralcasework.co.uk/articles/funeral-software-one-branch).

Funeral Casework is being built for exactly that firm. One record per death will carry a case from the first call to the final invoice, the family will enter their own details through a link with no account, every outstanding wait will show who is being chased and how many days it has been open, and the price list will be entered once in the structure the CMA requires and then drive the estimate and the invoice. The first 3 cases will be free on signup, with no card.

## Q&A

### Do you need a licence to be a funeral director in the UK?

Not in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. The House of Commons Library briefing on regulation of the funeral industry states that there is no specific regulatory regime for funeral directors in those three nations. In Scotland, funeral directors must comply with the statutory Funeral Director Code of Practice issued under section 97 of the Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016, and have been subject to statutory inspection since 1 March 2025. A Scottish licensing scheme is provided for in the 2016 Act but has not been implemented.

### What qualifications does a funeral director need?

None are required by law in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Qualifications and codes of practice are administered by trade associations whose membership is voluntary and whose codes have no statutory force outside Scotland.

### What does a new funeral director have to display about prices?

A Standardised Price List in the CMA's fixed format, in the branch window at A4 minimum and inside the premises, plus an Additional Options Price List, crematorium prices, terms of business and a disclosure of interests, all also published on the website as named PDFs with the Standardised Price List one link from the home page. The obligations apply from the first branch, under the Funerals Market Investigation Order 2021.

### Can a new funeral director sell pre-paid funeral plans?

Only as an authorised firm or as an appointed representative of an authorised principal. Pre-paid funeral plans came under FCA regulation on 29 July 2022, and the FCA states that selling them without appropriate authorisation is a criminal offence unless the seller is an exempt person such as a solicitor.

### How has the medical examiner system changed funeral arranging?

Since 9 September 2024 every death in England and Wales is reviewed independently, by a coroner or a medical examiner. The medical certificate of cause of death now reaches the registrar from the medical examiner, and that notification starts the five-day registration period. Funeral dates therefore depend on the progress of scrutiny in an NHS medical examiner office rather than on the funeral director's diary.

### Is the funeral industry regulated differently in Scotland?

Yes. The Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016 provides for a code of practice and an inspectorate. The Funeral Director Code of Practice and the Burial and Cremation (Inspection) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 both came into force on 1 March 2025, and the Code applies to funeral directors carrying out funeral director functions in Scotland regardless of where the business is based.

### How much does an average UK funeral cost?

The CMA's 2025 annual review of market outcomes put the weighted average cost of a simple attended funeral at £4,285 in 2024, an increase of 8.4 per cent on the £3,953 recorded for 2022.