Can you pass on your AWS account when you die?
Amazon Web Services reviews requests about an AWS account after a death case by case. While alive, the account holder can use transferring the account.
Protecting AWS accounts while the account is active
No beneficiary designation, lifetime transfer options for accounts, and 9-step plan.
How to protect your AWS account while you are alive →Someone died. Handling AWS accounts after a death
Transfer is handled on a case-by-case basis, 7-step process, and 5 required documents.
What happens to an AWS account when someone dies →Amazon Web Services (AWS) is Amazon's cloud infrastructure platform. An AWS account can hold compute instances, databases, object storage, snapshots, domain registrations and recurring service charges, controlled by the account root user and any IAM users and roles under it.
Amazon Web Services decides what happens to an AWS account after a death case by case; its terms promise no transfer. While the account holder is alive, Amazon Web Services allows transferring the account.
What happens to AWS at death
Naming who acts after a death
- Designation
AWS offers no way to name someone to act on the account after a death. Alternate contacts (billing, operations, security) are a notification list and carry no authority to close, transfer or access the account.1
Other companies and product lines involved1
- Amazon Bereavement Support
The deceased's consumer Amazon account; it does not reach AWS3
Sources3
- 1.Close an AWS account
- 2.AWS Customer Agreement, Last Updated: August 14, 2026
- 3.Bereavement support - Amazon Customer Service
Amazon Web Services publishes no process specific to a deceased person's account; a written request goes in through Amazon Web Services' support ticket system. There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on an AWS account.
Sources
Data sourced from Amazon Web Services, Inc. primary sources (7 pages reviewed). How we research.
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