Paris Cemetery Lottery: Locals Can Rest Beside Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde
It’s not every day that Paris opens its most famous cemeteries to new residents – especially eternal ones. But the city just launched a unique initiative allowing Parisians to apply for burial plots beside some of history’s most celebrated names.
The program, which sounds like a surreal mix of heritage preservation and urban planning, gives locals the chance to “win” the right to restore and occupy an old funerary monument in one of three legendary Paris cemeteries: Père-Lachaise, Montmartre, and Montparnasse.
This is no ordinary lottery. It’s a rare window into how Paris handles its limited burial space, and how the city keeps its funerary art alive.
How the Cemetery Lottery Works
The initiative was officially announced in early November 2025 by the Ville de Paris. Applications are open until December 31, 2025, and the draw will take place on January 19, 2026.
The process is simple in principle but deeply Parisian in spirit. Thirty old family monuments, many of them beautiful but crumbling, have been selected across the city’s three major cemeteries. Interested residents can apply for the chance to restore one of them.
Winners will buy the monument, commit to its full restoration, and then acquire the burial concession beneath it for a fixed duration: 10, 30, or 50 years, or even in perpetuity.
Once the restoration is approved by city officials, the monument becomes the property of the winner, and their family’s final home.
But there’s a catch: only people who live in Paris as their principal residence can apply. That rule is strict, verified through tax records and utility bills. Those living abroad or in the suburbs aren’t eligible.
The Motivation Behind the Project
Parisian cemeteries are full. Space is so scarce that many older concessions, especially those left untended or abandoned, eventually revert to the city’s ownership.
Traditionally, these old monuments were destroyed to make way for new graves. But in a city as steeped in art and memory as Paris, that approach began to feel wasteful.
The new lottery program aims to solve two problems at once: preserving heritage while freeing up space. Instead of demolishing aging stonework, the city is selling it under strict restoration rules.
The monuments stay where they are, their architecture saved, and new families can once again occupy them.
It’s also a statement about sustainability. The city encourages the use of locally sourced stone for repairs rather than imported granite, a subtle nod to reducing the carbon footprint of death.
The Cemeteries Involved
1. Père-Lachaise (20è)
Père-Lachaise needs no introduction. It’s the final resting place of Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Frédéric Chopin, and countless others.
It’s also one of the most visited cemeteries in the world as nearly two million visitors walk its cobblestone paths every year.
The lottery includes ten plots here. Each corresponds to a precise division within the cemetery. Some are located near sections that attract constant visitors – areas filled with sculpted angels, wrought-iron gates, and 19th-century funerary art.
While the city hasn’t revealed which celebrity tombs these monuments are closest to, a quick look at the cemetery map shows that many of these plot numbers lie in the upper divisions – leafy terraces overlooking Paris, not far from the tombs of poets and musicians who continue to draw quiet crowds.
Restoring one of these monuments means preserving a piece of a UNESCO-worthy landscape of memory – and becoming part of its story.
2. Montmartre (18è)
Ten more monuments are located in Montmartre Cemetery, under the overpass of Rue Caulaincourt. It’s the least visited of the three but arguably the most atmospheric.
Here lie Dalida, François Truffaut, Hector Berlioz, and other icons of art and cinema.
Some of the plots belong to narrow lanes shaded by chestnut trees and lined with 19th-century sculpture.
The cemetery feels like a city within a city – steep, uneven, and full of unexpected details: tiny chapels, stained glass, rusted gates, ivy climbing over family names long forgotten.
Owning a monument here isn’t just about proximity to famous neighbors, it means becoming part of Montmartre’s past. The same hill that inspired painters like Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec, just a short walk from the cafés and studios that shaped Paris’s creative soul.
3. Montparnasse (14è)
The remaining ten plots are found in the vast and open Montparnasse Cemetery, known for its ordered avenues and modernist tombs.
Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir share a grave here, alongside Serge Gainsbourg, Samuel Beckett, and Charles Garnier.
The Montparnasse monuments available reflect the cemetery’s calmer, more contemporary character where Art Deco and minimalist stone coexist with elaborate 19th-century family vaults.
Restoring one of these sites would mean joining a lineage of writers, philosophers, and architects, people who shaped the intellectual face of Paris.
The Cost of Eternity
Paris’s approach to burial is as regulated as its urban planning. In this case, the purchase of a monument and its restoration come with precise conditions.
Each tomb is sold under a “clause résolutoire”, meaning the sale is canceled if the restoration isn’t completed on time or doesn’t follow the approved plan.
The restoration must respect the original design “à l’identique,” preserving materials, inscriptions, and proportions.
Typical restoration costs run between €4,000 and €10,000, depending on the condition and materials. The buyer must provide two independent estimates from certified artisans or funeral stonemasons.
Once restored, the monument becomes eligible for a funeral concession, which can be purchased for a fixed duration:
- 10 years (about €1,000–1,200)
- 30 years (around €3,000–4,000)
- 50 years (up to €6,000)
- In perpetuity (about €17,600)
The city also requires a brief waiting period between restoration completion and concession acquisition, ensuring that all work meets heritage standards.
A Matter of Heritage and Identity
The Père-Lachaise, Montmartre, and Montparnasse cemeteries are more than burial grounds, they’re open-air museums of sculpture, architecture, and collective memory.
By allowing locals to buy and restore abandoned monuments, Paris is transforming its cemeteries into living archives where every new restoration becomes a contribution to the city’s artistic continuity.
For residents, it’s also a deeply symbolic gesture. To be buried in these places is to join the city’s history in stone.
And unlike in most cities, where cemeteries are quiet corners, in Paris they’re part of daily life – walked, mapped, photographed, and visited like galleries of eternity.
How to Apply
Applications are open through paris.fr, where the city has published detailed guidelines, downloadable forms, and even the “fiches descriptives” for each monument, complete with photos and restoration requirements.
Each applicant can choose up to two monuments to compete for. The process involves submitting identity and residence proof, tax records, and two detailed restoration quotes. Submissions must be mailed – no digital entries, no exceptions.
The draw will be supervised by a commissaire de justice to ensure transparency. Once the winners are drawn, they’ll have one month to confirm their intent to purchase and begin the restoration process after the city’s approval.
Future of Parisian Afterlife
Thirty Parisians will win a chance to to rest near Jim Morrison’s graffitied tomb, Oscar Wilde’s angel-winged mausoleum, or the quiet stone marking Edith Piaf’s name.
If this first edition succeeds, more lotteries are expected to follow. There are thousands of aging monuments scattered across Paris’s 20 cemeteries – some crumbling, some forgotten, all part of the city’s memory.
While the lottery is limited to those officially living within city limits, it has sparked global curiosity. Few cities treat their dead with such architectural elegance, or offer living citizens the chance to become part of that legacy.