China Moves to End Ash Storage in Residential Flats
Chinese authorities have moved to outlaw the practice of using residential apartments as makeshift burial spaces for cremated remains, as rising funeral costs and a struggling property market drove grieving families toward an unconventional and increasingly popular alternative.
New regulations that came into force on Monday explicitly ban “the use of residential dwellings specifically for the interment of ashes,” according to China’s State Council, the country’s cabinet. Under the new rules, human remains are permitted only in designated areas such as public cemeteries.
The practice had quietly taken root across China, with mourners purchasing units in remote, barely occupied residential complexes — sometimes at prices cheaper than a single public cemetery plot — to store the ashes of deceased relatives. These units, dubbed “bone-ash apartments” in local media, became identifiable by sealed-off windows and drawn curtains.
A resident quoted by the Communist Party-run Legal Daily newspaper described looking into an apartment within his estate to find two candlesticks arranged around a black box and a black-and-white portrait — a typical commemorative arrangement in Chinese mourning culture.
The trend reflects deepening pressures on China’s funeral industry. Demand for cemetery plots has grown sharply as the country’s population ages and deaths outpace births. A 2020 survey by British insurance firm SunLife found that funeral costs in China consumed nearly half of the country’s average annual salary — a financial burden that has pushed many families to seek cheaper alternatives.
On Tuesday, China’s market watchdog announced additional measures targeting fraud and pricing opacity in the funeral sector, stating the new rules were designed to “reduce the burden of funerals on the masses.”
The affordability of residential property, meanwhile, has worked in the opposite direction. Apartment prices across China have continued to decline as consumer confidence remains low, a consequence of a prolonged crisis in the country’s property sector. Leading real estate firms have been weighed down by debt and stalled construction projects since 2020, when Beijing introduced curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation that sharply restricted access to credit for developers.
The combination of soaring funeral costs and depressed property values created the conditions in which bone-ash apartments flourished a loophole the new regulations now seek to close.
China’s civil affairs authorities have not publicly specified the penalties for violations, but the regulatory move signals a broader government effort to bring structure and oversight to a funeral industry increasingly strained by demographic and economic pressures.
Agency Report