Cremation has crossed sixty-two percent. According to the Cremation Association of North America's 2026 Annual Report, 62.8% of Americans who died in the most recent measured year were cremated. That is a new high. It is also a number growing more slowly than anyone expected.
CANA describes the current trend as a "deceleration phase." The year-over-year increase is narrowing. The steep climb that defined the last two decades, when cremation rates rose by a full percentage point or more annually, has flattened. The curve has not reversed. The steep ascent that once added a full percentage point or more each year is over.
That single word, deceleration, carries more weight than CANA's press materials acknowledge. If cremation growth is genuinely slowing, then the business models built on aggressive expansion, direct-cremation chains, preneed insurance products tied to cremation rates, and private equity roll-ups depend on a trend that may have already peaked. The companies most exposed to that risk are the same companies sitting on CANA's board of directors.
This is not an accusation of data manipulation. CANA's methodology, which combines state vital statistics records with member surveys, has been consistent for decades. The 62.8% figure is real. The deceleration is real. The conflict is in who gets to frame what those numbers mean.
The numbers
62.8% | National cremation rate, CANA 2026 Annual Report
2015 | The year CANA's projected curve began diverging from actual results, with real growth trailing projections
1960 | Cremation rate was approximately 3-4%. It took 35 years to reach 20%.
2015 | Cremation rate crossed 45%. By 2020, it exceeded 56%.
2026 | Rate reaches 62.8%, but year-over-year growth has narrowed significantly
What "deceleration" means for the industry
When a growth curve flattens, companies that borrowed against future expansion face a math problem. SCI, the largest deathcare provider in North America, controls 1,487 funeral homes and 503 cemeteries. Its Q1 2026 results showed declining comparable funeral volume. Revenue held because prices rose. But you cannot raise prices forever to offset falling volume in a market where the cheaper option, direct cremation, is what consumers are choosing.
Park Lawn Corporation, which operated 282 properties across North America before agreeing to be taken private in a $1.2 billion deal last month, placed its CANA board representative, John Goobeck, on the association's governing body. Park Lawn is now being acquired by Homesteaders Life Company, a preneed insurer, and Birch Hill Equity Partners, a private equity firm. The deal is expected to close in August.
Foundation Partners Group, a private equity-backed cemetery and funeral home operator with over 450 locations, had its vice president Jason Widing on the CANA board, with a term extending to August 2025.
These are not passive members. These are officers and directors of the association that publishes the single most cited cremation statistic in the industry. When a reporter, a regulator, or a family reads that 62.8% of Americans choose cremation, that number originates from an organization whose leadership includes executives from the three largest consolidators in the deathcare market.
The boardroom
The 2022-2023 CANA Board of Directors, verified through the association's own website before its 2026 redesign removed the page, included:
President: Caressa Hughes, Service Corporation International, Houston, Texas. SCI's representative held the top officer position.
Board Member: Dirk Bearden, Service Corporation International, Houston, Texas. A second SCI executive on the board, with a term extending to August 2024.
Board Member: John Goobeck, Park Lawn Corporation, Kennedale, Texas. Term to August 2024.
Board Member: Jason Widing, Foundation Partners Group, Orlando, Florida. Term to August 2025.
Board Member: Stephen Bassett, Legacy Funeral Group, Houston, Texas. Term to August 2025.
Five board members, out of approximately fourteen total, represented consolidation companies. Two came from the same corporation. The president of the association was an SCI employee.
CANA restructured its website in 2026. The board of directors page no longer resolves at its previous URL. The current board composition cannot be independently verified through the association's public-facing site. CANA's 108th Annual Convention is scheduled for August 12-14, 2026, in Minneapolis, where new board elections typically occur.
Why the deceleration matters more than the rate
The 62.8% number will be repeated in NFDA materials, in state regulatory hearings, in private equity pitch decks, and in consumer guides for years. It is the industry's headline figure. But the deceleration is the story CANA's press releases bury.
Here is why. Cremation is cheaper than traditional burial. The average direct cremation costs between $1,000 and $3,000. A traditional funeral with burial typically runs $7,000 to $12,000. Every family that switches from burial to cremation represents a revenue loss for the funeral home. The industry's strategy for bridging that gap has been upselling, adding merchandise, memorial services, and technology products to cremation packages to recover the margin.
That strategy works when cremation is growing rapidly and new families are entering the cremation market. If growth is decelerating, the pool of new cremation families shrinks. The upselling strategy depends on volume growth that CANA's own data now says is tapering.
SCI has acknowledged this in its SEC filings. The company's strategy explicitly cites "merchandising" and "personalization" as revenue drivers to offset what it calls "the shift in the mix of services toward cremation." Translation: cremation pays less, so we sell more stuff around it.
If the shift itself is slowing, the companies that bet hardest on cremation volume growth are the most exposed. Those are the same companies whose executives govern CANA.
The response that has not come
CANA has not, in any public filing, press release, or conference session, addressed the conflict of interest inherent in having consolidation-company executives oversee the publication of industry statistics that directly affect their employers' market positioning. This is not unusual. Trade associations routinely have industry executives on their boards. The National Funeral Directors Association has funeral home owners on its board. State associations are the same.
What makes CANA different is that its statistics are treated as authoritative by regulators, journalists, and investors. When the Federal Trade Commission reviews the Funeral Rule, CANA's cremation rate is in the record. When a private equity firm values a funeral home acquisition, CANA's projections are in the model. When a state legislator considers crematory regulations, CANA's data is cited in committee testimony.
No comparable alternative source exists. The NFDA publishes some data, but CANA owns the cremation rate the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics owns the unemployment rate. It is the reference point.
That makes governance of the organization publishing the data a matter of public interest, not just industry politics.
What to watch
CANA's 108th Convention runs August 12-14, 2026, in Minneapolis. Board elections are on the agenda. The association will release updated statistics and projections. The key question is whether CANA will publicly address the deceleration trend and its implications, or whether the flattening curve will be treated as a minor footnote in a press release celebrating 62.8%.
Watch the projections. If CANA's forward curve shows cremation rates resuming their steep climb despite current deceleration, ask what assumptions drive that projection. Ask whether the companies whose executives sit on the board benefit from projections showing continued growth.
Watch SCI's Q2 2026 earnings, expected in late July or early August. If comparable funeral volume continues declining while revenue rises, the company is raising prices on a shrinking customer base. That is the deceleration made visible in a single earnings table.
Watch the Park Lawn deal close. When Homesteaders Life and Birch Hill take Park Lawn private, one of CANA's board companies disappears from public disclosure. The conflict does not disappear. It becomes harder to see.
The question CANA should answer
The cremation rate is not in dispute. CANA's methodology is sound. The 62.8% figure is the best available measurement of how Americans are choosing to handle their dead.
But when the organization that publishes that number is governed by executives from the companies whose business models depend on what the number does next, the public deserves to know how conflicts are managed. Not in a generic ethics policy. In specific, disclosed, enforceable terms.
CANA's board conflict of interest policy is not publicly available. A request for comment was sent to CANA on July 21, 2026, with a response deadline of July 24. This article will be updated if CANA responds.
Sixty-two point eight percent of Americans chose cremation. One hundred percent of the public deserves to know whether the organization counting them is counting straight.
*Sources: Cremation Association of North America, 2026 Annual Report (cremationassociation.org); CANA Board of Directors page, captured via Internet Archive Wayback Machine, November 13, 2022 (web.archive.org); Service Corporation International, 2025 Form 10-K and Q1 2026 earnings release (sec.gov); Park Lawn Corporation going-private transaction announcement, June 3, 2026 (ACCESSWIRE); Foundation Partners Group company information (foundationpartnersgroup.com); CANA 108th Annual Convention program (cremationassociation.org). CANA's website was restructured in 2026, and the board of directors page was removed from public access. Board composition data reflects the most recent archived version.*
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