What happens to Instacart Shopper earnings when the owner dies

Unpaid earnings are money Instacart owes for completed Services, so they are a debt the estate may seek to recover. Section 3.1 of the Independent Contractor Agreement commits Instacart to transmit payment for completed Services within 30 days of performance. Instacart documents no procedure for a deceased shopper, so the estate makes the request in writing with proof of death and proof of authority over the estate and follows Instacart's case-by-case review. Earnings are normally paid by weekly direct deposit between Wednesday and Friday for the prior Monday-to-Sunday week, so the most recent week may still be owed at the time of death.

No. Section 11 of the Independent Contractor Agreement provides that the contractor may not assign rights or delegate duties without Instacart's prior written consent, and the Shopper Application Terms state the shopper may not rent, lease, sell, transfer, redistribute, or sublicense the Shopper App and grant only a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable licence. There is no beneficiary designation and no self-service transfer, so an estate recovers what is owed and closes the account rather than continuing to operate it.

Not through the app. Every published route to a shopper's earnings and payment records — the Shopper app Earnings section, the shopper help center, and the income-verification page at shoppers.instacart.com/income_verifications — requires the shopper's own sign-in, and Instacart's Help Center tells shoppers to reach out through the Shopper app for account help. An executor should not use the decedent's credentials. The request goes to Instacart in writing instead, asking for the earnings history, the batch history, the amount owed as of the date of death, and any information return issued to the decedent.

Section 5.1 of the Independent Contractor Agreement provides that the Agreement may be terminated immediately at any time upon written, including email, notice to Instacart, and Section 10 designates the address for notices to Instacart: Maplebear Inc. d/b/a Instacart, c/o Legal Team, 50 Beale Street, Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94105, by certified mail with return receipt requested, deemed given three days after mailing. Section 5.3 separately provides that the Agreement terminates on its own if no Services are provided for 75 consecutive days, so an untouched account can lapse during probate.

Earnings already paid out are no longer at Instacart — they went to the destination on file, which is the shopper's bank account, an enrolled debit card, or a Shopper Rewards account powered by Branch. The estate should identify that destination to locate deposited funds, and raise with Instacart only the earnings still owed for completed Services that have not yet been paid out.

No. The Instacart Shopper account is the earner side, where an independent contractor shops and delivers orders and accrues earnings. Instacart+ is a separate consumer subscription for placing orders. A deceased person could have one or both. Owed shopper earnings and the contractor account are handled with Instacart as a shopper matter; a consumer Instacart+ subscription is handled separately through Instacart customer support.