Kentucky State Veterans Cemeteries

Kentucky operates five state veterans cemeteries: Kentucky Veterans Cemetery West at Hopkinsville, Central at Radcliff, North at Williamstown, Southeast at Hyden, and Northeast in Greenup County at Grayson. Two facts about this benefit are unusual enough to lead with. Kentucky residency is not required. KDVA states plainly that under Kentucky state law you do not have to be a resident of Kentucky to be eligible for burial in one of the five state veterans cemeteries. Most state veterans cemeteries impose a residency test. Kentucky does not, which matters for a veteran who left the state, for a family with plots already here, and for anyone comparing state against national cemetery options. Accepting the federal commemorative urn or plaque destroys eligibility. KDVA carries this as a disclaimer, and it is the sharpest trap in the entry: if you apply for and receive the National Cemetery Administration's Commemorative Urn and Plaque, you lose your eligibility for interment in any of Kentucky's five state veterans cemeteries. A family choosing the federal memorial item is choosing against the Kentucky cemetery, usually without being told so. Costs. Cemetery services are free to the veteran. There is a five hundred dollar spousal fee, and KDVA specifies that it is not payable until the time of death, so no prearrangement payment is required. Services covered are furnishing the grave or columbarium space, opening and closing the grave, perpetual care of the interment site, a suitable marker or headstone, and an optional concrete grave liner for casketed burials. A burial flag and a Presidential Memorial Certificate come at no cost to the family. Cremated remains are buried or inurned with the same honors as casketed remains. For spouses and dependents interred in a state veterans cemetery, burial with the veteran, perpetual care, and inscription of the name and dates on the veteran's headstone are at no cost to the family beyond the spousal fee. Eligible spouses and dependents may be buried even if they predecease the veteran. Eligibility under KRS 40.315(2) has two branches, and the second was broadened recently. Paragraph (a) covers persons eligible for interment in a national cemetery under 38 U.S.C. sec. 2402. Paragraph (b), amended by 2025 Ky. Acts ch. 20 effective January 1, 2026, adds any member of a reserve component, the Army National Guard, or the Air National Guard not otherwise qualified, if the member completed the initial period of service required by 10 U.S.C. sec. 651(a) and was discharged under conditions other than dishonorable, or if an Army or Air National Guard member died on state active duty or while serving under Title 32. That is a real expansion: a Guard member who completed initial service now qualifies without meeting the federal test. For those qualifying under paragraph (b), the eligibility of the spouse, surviving spouse, minor child, and dependent incapacitated child is determined under 38 U.S.C. sec. 2402(a)(5). One disqualification is absolute. KRS 40.315(6) provides that no person convicted of a state or federal criminal capital offense shall be eligible for interment in a Kentucky state veterans cemetery. Apply on the Kentucky Veterans Cemeteries Eligibility Application, and doing it before need is encouraged. The cemeteries are open to the public sun-up to sundown seven days a week; interments take place on non-holiday weekdays only, with weekends and holidays reserved for families to visit.