§5742 Transportation of Remains, Dependents, and Effects; Death Occurring Away From Official Station or Abroad

Summary

An agency can pay certain funeral and travel costs when an employee or the employee’s dependent dies. “Agency” here means an Executive agency (one that runs government programs), a military department, an agency in Congress, or an agency in the courts. Under rules the President sets, and using money available for the work the employee was doing (unless another law says otherwise), the agency head may pay to prepare and send the body to the employee’s home, official station, or another burial place if the death happened while the employee was traveling away from their station in the United States or while on duty outside the continental United States or traveling to or from such duty. The agency may also pay to move the employee’s dependents and household goods home if the death happened while on duty outside the continental United States, or in certain cases for employees under a mandatory mobility agreement who died overseas in the U.S. Central Command area while supporting a military operation and whose dependents lived either inside or outside the continental United States. The agency can pay travel for up to 2 people to escort the remains in the same travel or overseas-duty situations. If a dependent dies while living with the employee who is on duty outside the continental United States or in Alaska or traveling to or from those places, the agency may pay to send the dependent’s body home or to another burial place. If local mortuary services are not available or are too costly, the agency may provide those services and then be reimbursed; that reimbursement must go back to the current appropriations used to pay the costs. These benefits cannot be denied just because the person was temporarily away from duty. Employees reassigned away from their home under a mandatory mobility agreement are covered.