The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has approved a new hike in prices for empty burial plots starting in April 2022.

The maximum fee for a burial plot in the city’s famous cemeteries will be 41,140 liras ($2,450), a figure slightly higher than the previous fee of 37,400 liras ($2,250).

The lowest price for a burial plot will be 2,640 liras ($157).

The cost of a plot for a child’s coffin was kept the same, between 1,200 liras ($71) and 6,600 liras ($391), the prices applied last year.

While the fee of plots in cemeteries belonging to non-Muslims remained 500 liras ($30), an empty burial spot next to a specific one – reserved usually for relatives or spouses – went up from 4,800 ($285) liras to 5,280 liras ($313).

Istanbul, a metropolis where 70,000 people die every year on average, hosts 502 Muslim and 67 non-Muslim (Armenian, Greek, Jewish and Latin) cemeteries run by the municipality.

However, since some cemeteries are running out of spaces in the megacity, people have started selling cemetery plots on the black market for astronomic prices.