What to do when someone dies: a calm, step-by-step checklist

A short note before you start

This guide covers deaths in the United States and is general information, not legal, tax, financial or medical advice. Many details depend on your state, so where a rule varies we say so and point you to the right office.

What should you do in the first hours after someone dies?

In the first hours, get the death legally pronounced, call close family and the funeral home, and decide on organ or tissue donation if the person was a registered donor. Do not worry about moving the body right away; you can sit with the person and make calls first. Who pronounces the death depends on where it happens: a hospice nurse or doctor at home, or staff if the person was already in a hospital, nursing home or hospice facility.

If the death happens at home

• With hospice: call the hospice number. The nurse will come, pronounce the death and help with next steps. NIA notes that "a plan for what happens after death will already be in place"¹.
• Without hospice, expected death: call the person's doctor or the local medical examiner to arrange the pronouncement. If you cannot reach anyone, call 911 and say the death was expected. Have any do-not-resuscitate order ready to show.
• Unexpected death: call 911. Police or the medical examiner may need to be involved before the body can be moved.
• There is no need to move the body right away. You can sit with the person, call family, and follow religious or cultural customs¹.

If the death happens in a hospital, nursing home or hospice facility

Staff will pronounce the death and complete the forms. Ask how long the body can stay and tell them which funeral home to call and any customs that matter to your family.

Organ, eye and tissue donation

If the person was a registered donor, the hospital notifies the organ procurement organization. Organ donation almost always requires a hospital ventilator. Tissue donation is possible after most deaths but must happen within 24 hours³. If you are unsure of the person's wishes, check the driver's license or the state donor registry and ask the hospital right away.

Who to call in the first hours

1. Close family, and the named executor if you know who that is.
2. The funeral home, or whoever will make those calls for you.
3. The employer, if the person was working.
4. A faith leader, if wanted.

What should you do in the first days after a death?

In the first days, choose a funeral home, order certified death certificates, and find the will and other important papers. Secure the home, the car and any pets, and start handling mail and social media accounts. None of this requires a lawyer or a court appointment yet.

Choose a funeral home and know your rights

Under the FTC Funeral Rule you can get prices over the phone, you must be handed an itemized General Price List, you may buy only what you want, and you can supply a casket or urn bought elsewhere⁸. In most states a family can even handle a death without a funeral director¹⁰. Check for a letter of instruction or prepaid plan first.

Order death certificates

The funeral home usually orders certified copies from the vital records office. You need one for nearly every account, claim and title. AARP recommends "up to 10 or more copies," because most institutions keep the copy you send¹¹. Each state sets its own fee per copy; USA.gov links to the CDC's state-by-state vital records list⁴.

Find the will and other papers

Look for the original will, any trust, insurance policies, deeds, account statements and a list of online accounts. Check the home office, a safe, a safe deposit box, the drafting attorney and the county court. A family guide, if the person made one, puts all of this in one place; see our how to organize important documents for family guide for a system to set one up.

Secure the home, the car and the pets

Lock the house, collect valuables and papers, clear the fridge, stop deliveries and have someone check on the property. Move pets to a relative or boarding until a permanent home is settled¹¹. Keep the heat, insurance and alarm running.

Mail and social media

• Mail: if you shared the address you may open and manage the mail. To forward all of it, the executor must visit a Post Office in person with proof of appointment; a death certificate alone is not enough¹². Register the name with the Deceased Do Not Contact list at DMAchoice.org to cut advertising mail.
• Facebook: ask for the profile to be memorialized. It then shows "Remembering" next to the name and drops out of birthday reminders. A legacy contact can manage the memorial page but cannot log in or read messages¹³. Other platforms have similar forms.

What should you do in the first weeks after a death?

In the first weeks, report the death to Social Security if the funeral home has not already, and check on survivor benefits, pension and life insurance. Notify banks and card issuers, place a deceased notice with a credit bureau, and contact the VA if the person was a veteran. This is also when you cancel subscriptions and government IDs that are no longer needed.

A timeline at a glance

This table is a planning range, not a promise: creditor windows and court reporting deadlines set by each state usually control the pace more than any single fixed rule²⁸.

Social Security and Medicare

Give the funeral director the Social Security number so they can report the death. If they did not, call SSA at 1-800-772-1213⁴. Return any payment received for the month of death or later. A surviving spouse, and sometimes children or dependent parents, may qualify for survivor benefits. Ask about the $255 lump-sum death payment, which must be claimed within 2 years and is paid only to a surviving spouse living with the worker at death, or an eligible dependent child if there is no qualifying spouse⁷. SSA notifies Medicare for you.

Pension, employer and retirement accounts

Ask HR about final pay, unused leave, group life insurance and the 401(k). For a pension, contact the plan; if PBGC took the plan over, call 1-800-400-7242 and PBGC will check whether survivor benefits are due¹⁸. Retirement accounts pass by beneficiary designation, not by the will, so the named beneficiary contacts the custodian directly.

Life insurance

File a claim with each insurer using a death certificate and the policy number. For a policy you cannot find, submit a free request to the NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator; participating insurers search their records and contact you if they find a match¹⁹.

Banks, credit cards and debts

Tell each bank and card issuer. Joint accounts stay open for the surviving owner; accounts in the person's name alone are frozen until an executor is appointed. Do not pay the person's debts from your own money. The CFPB says debts "should be paid from any money or property they left behind," and you are generally not responsible unless you co-signed, hold a joint account, or live in a community property state¹⁴. Collectors may not claim you personally owe the money⁸.

Credit bureaus: protect against identity theft

Thieves use obituaries to open credit in a deceased person's name. Send a copy of the death certificate, the person's name, Social Security number, dates of birth and death, and proof that you are the spouse or legal representative to one bureau. Equifax states that when one bureau adds a deceased notice it "will notify the other two"¹⁶. SSA or creditors usually inform the bureaus eventually, but reporting directly closes the gap¹⁷. Request the credit report at the same time to find unknown accounts.

VA benefits if the person was a veteran

Ask the funeral home to request the burial flag and a Presidential Memorial Certificate. Veterans discharged under other than dishonorable conditions may be buried in a national cemetery²⁰. For a private cemetery, a VA burial allowance may help: for a death on or after October 1, 2025, the VA pays up to $1,002 toward burial and funeral costs plus a separate $1,002 plot or interment allowance for a non-service-connected death, and claims must be filed within 2 years of the burial²⁰. A surviving spouse or child may also qualify for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation or a Survivors Pension.

Subscriptions, services and government IDs

Cancel phone, streaming, memberships and auto-renewing charges. Ask the DMV to cancel the license and transfer titles, return the passport to the State Department, cancel voter registration, and stop benefits such as SNAP or Medicaid⁴.

What should you do in the first months after a death?

In the first months, start probate or a small-estate procedure if the estate needs one, and file the final tax returns once you know what is owed. Retitle real estate, vehicles and accounts once the court has appointed an executor, and check whether a Medicaid estate recovery claim applies. Digital accounts such as email, photos and cloud storage often take the longest, since each platform has its own process.

Probate basics

Probate is the court process that confirms the will, appoints the executor and supervises paying debts and distributing property. Assets with a named beneficiary, joint property and anything in a living trust usually skip it. Most states offer a simplified procedure for small estates, with dollar limits that differ by state²⁸. Search "[your state] courts self-help probate" for the forms, and see our executor checklist for the full workflow.

How this varies by state

Whether probate is required at all, and how simple it can be, depends on the state and the size of what is left in the person's name alone. Here are the simplified, lighter-court paths in twelve states; each also has a separate rule for real estate that these personal-property limits usually do not cover.

Nine states also layer community property rules on top of these thresholds: Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin²³. In those states, property acquired during the marriage is generally treated as owned equally by both spouses, which can change what counts as the deceased person's share for probate and for a surviving spouse's responsibility for debt.

California also has a separate, larger shortcut just for a primary residence: a 2025 law (Assembly Bill 2016) raised the threshold for the court petition to succeed to real property to $750,000 and limited the procedure to the decedent's California primary residence⁴⁵. These are only the personal-property dollar shortcuts, and many states also have separate rules for a small bank balance or a car title.

A worked example: the Kim family

David Kim dies unexpectedly of a heart attack at 61, at home in North Carolina, survived by his wife Grace and two adult children.

Immediately: Grace calls 911. Because the death is unexpected, the county medical examiner's office gets involved before the funeral home can move the body. Grace calls her older son, Daniel, who drives over and starts calling close family.

First days: Daniel finds a folder in his father's desk with the number for a prepaid cremation plan, which saves the family from choosing a funeral home under pressure. The funeral home orders 12 certified death certificates and reports the death to Social Security using David's Social Security number.

First weeks: Grace calls Social Security about survivor benefits, files a life insurance claim using the policy Daniel found in the folder, and asks one credit bureau to place a deceased notice, which the family learns will notify the other two automatically¹⁶.

First months: Because David and Grace owned their home and most accounts jointly, those pass to Grace without probate. The one asset in David's name alone, a small business bank account with about $18,000, needs North Carolina's collection by affidavit process, since it falls under the state's $30,000 threshold that applies when a surviving spouse is the sole heir³⁷. Daniel handles that filing while Grace focuses on the funeral and the first weeks of grief. He also cancels David's cell phone plan and returns his driver's license to the DMV, the kind of small task the checklist above is easy to forget under stress.

Taxes

The final federal income tax return is due on the normal deadline, usually April 15 of the next year, and a surviving spouse can still file jointly for that year²³. The estate needs its own tax ID and a Form 1041 if it earns $600 or more²³. A federal estate tax return is required only above the filing threshold, $15,000,000 for deaths in 2026²³. Beyond that federal threshold, twelve states and the District of Columbia levy their own estate tax with lower exemption thresholds, and five states, Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, tax the heir instead through a separate inheritance tax⁴⁷.

Retitling and Medicaid recovery

Real estate, vehicles and investment accounts are retitled once the executor has the court's letters. The tax basis of inherited property is generally its fair market value on the date of death, not what the person originally paid⁴⁴. If the person received Medicaid long-term care after age 55, the state may claim against the estate, but not while a spouse, a child under 21, or a blind or disabled child survives²⁷.

Digital accounts

Email, photos, cloud storage, crypto and online banking are often the hardest to reach. Look for a written list of accounts. Most platforms have a deceased-user process that asks for a death certificate and proof of authority; see our digital legacy checklist guide for a platform-by-platform rundown.

What should you do if you are the surviving spouse?

You can usually keep using joint accounts and stay in the home. Ask SSA about survivor benefits before you claim your own, because timing changes what you receive over your lifetime. File jointly for the year of death, and check whether you qualify for the "Qualifying Surviving Spouse" status for the two following years if you have a dependent child²³. If you inherit an IRA, you can treat it as your own or stay a beneficiary; the choice affects required withdrawals²³. Do not rush big decisions about the house or investments in the first year.

What should you do if you are the adult child?

Find out whether you or a sibling is named executor before anyone acts. Until the court appoints someone, your job is to protect, not to distribute. Non-spouse beneficiaries of an inherited IRA generally must empty the account within 10 years²³, so talk to a CPA before taking money out. Share the workload: one person handles the funeral, another the paperwork, another the house, and ask employers about bereavement leave so the workload does not fall on whoever can least afford to miss work. Keep a shared log of every call and every dollar.

How do you cope with grief after a death?

It is normal to feel sad, numb or lost for a while. The National Institute on Aging suggests eating well, sleeping, moving, talking with caring friends, and joining a grief support group. If everyday activities stay hard or the pain is not easing after many months, talk with your doctor; NIA describes "complicated grief" as a real condition that can be treated². Hospices often run free bereavement groups open to the public.

Printable checklist: the first two weeks

Print this section or save it as a reference for the hardest, busiest days.

• Death legally pronounced

• Close family and the funeral home called

• Funeral home engaged; prepaid plan or letter of instruction checked

• Organ, eye or tissue donation decision made, if relevant, within 24 hours

• 10 or more certified death certificates ordered

• Home, car, pets and valuables secured

• Original will and other papers located

• Mail forwarding started at the Post Office

• Social Security notified; survivor benefits asked about

• Employer, pension and life insurers notified

• Banks and credit card issuers told

• A deceased notice placed with one credit bureau

• VA notified, if the person was a veteran

• Subscriptions and services reviewed for cancellation

• Probate or a small-estate procedure started, if needed

When to get professional help

Call a probate attorney if there is no will, the will is contested, property sits in more than one state, the estate may not cover its debts, or a business is involved. Call a CPA for the final return, an estate income tax return, or any estate near the federal threshold. Talk to a financial advisor before rolling over retirement money. Attorney and CPA fees are normally paid by the estate.