In Germany, Berlin-based Mymoria has been acquiring traditional funeral homes since 2021, backed by €15 million from venture capital. Its founder Björn Wolff has described the German market as fragmented and ripe for consolidation: “Family owners are retiring and their children no longer want to run the business,” he said.

Europe's funeral services market is expected to grow to €20 billion by 2030, as more people in Europe's ageing populations die. For investors, the logic is simple: demand is guaranteed, and it's growing.

But as private capital moves in, a question emerges that no European government has yet answered clearly. Who bears the cost of the services that aren't profitable?

From burial to cremation

Cremation is overtaking burial as the dominant way of handling the dead. The average cremation rate across Europe now sits between 55% and 60%, and is rising steadily. Slovenia leads at 86.7%, followed by Denmark at 86.5%, and Czechia at 85.6%.

Even historically Catholic Southern Europe is changing its tradition – Italy has gone from under 3% cremation in 1995 to nearly 39% today, while Spain stands at nearly 45%.

Part of the shift is explained by the fact that cremation is much cheaper than traditional burials. In Italy, cremation itself costs between €500-600 while a full funeral with cremation averages €2,500-5,000, compared to €3,500-7,000 for a traditional burial.

In most of Europe, crematoria and cemeteries have historically been managed as public services. Cemeteries are mostly run by municipalities, which depend on issuing long-term leases on burial plots and niches to fund their maintenance.

While a traditional burial requires a full-sized plot for decades, a cremation requires a smaller niche, or increasingly no cemetery space at all. According to Italian funeral sector association SEFIT, the shift to cremation is already causing a measurable decline in income for local governments.

Italy: A preview of what comes next?

Italy faced the danger of privatised end-of-life services during the Covid-19 pandemic. Crematoria – most of them still publicly managed – were overwhelmed, so the government temporarily allowed cadavers to be transported across regional borders to facilities with spare capacity. It was a practical solution to an emergency, but when the emergency ended, the rule was never reversed.

After the pandemic, crematoria began offering discounted prices to attract cadavers from other regions: in Bologna, for example, bodies from Bergamo were being cremated for around €300, less than half the standard rate of €650.

In late 2025, Italy passed a law to hand price control back to municipalities and prevent crematoria from behaving like commercial operators, offering bulk discounts and competing for cadavers across regional borders.