Estate planning as a Netflix account holder

Netflix is a streaming entertainment service. A Netflix account holds viewing history, personalized recommendations, ratings, profiles, My List, game saves, and in some cases a prepaid "Netflix Balance" funded by redeemed gift cards. Netflix publishes a dedicated help article for cancelling a deceased member's account, and a Profile Transfer feature that can copy individual profiles (with viewing history and preferences) to a family member's own account. The Terms of Use grant only a non-transferable right to access the service, so the account itself does not pass to an estate.

Netflix accounts are forfeited at death under the program's terms. The terms explicitly state that accounts are not the account holder's property and cannot be inherited, transferred by will, or assigned through any estate planning mechanism.

What happens at death

Netflix is a paid streaming subscription with no owned media library. Section 1.8 of the Terms of Use grants "a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access the Netflix service," and the Terms do not address death, inheritance, or account succession, so the account cannot pass to an estate or a named beneficiary. Section 2.8 ("No Refunds") states that "Payments are nonrefundable and there are no refunds or credits for partially used subscription periods," while reserving to Netflix the ability to "provide a refund, discount, or other consideration to some or all of our members" at its "sole and absolute discretion." In practice the account ends at death: Netflix publishes a dedicated help article for cancelling a deceased member's account, which splits by whether the survivor already has access to the account (cancel from the Account page) or does not (gather the account email or phone number and the full current payment information, then contact Netflix). No death certificate is documented as a requirement. Account data is preserved for 24 months after cancellation, during which the account can be restarted, and individual profiles can be copied to a family member's own account using Profile Transfer while the source account is still active; neither is a transfer of the account itself. Where a gift card has been redeemed, the resulting Netflix Balance does not expire and stays on the account, but the Gift Card and Balance Terms state it is "not refundable and may not be redeemed for cash or any cash equivalent, except if you are entitled to receive a refund for cancellations or nonconformity under the mandatory laws of your country of residence." Classified forfeited because the subscription terminates at death and nothing transfers to the estate as of right.