How to protect your Steam account while you are alive
There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a Steam account. While the account holder is alive, Valve allows family pooling.
Because Valve's terms close a Steam account at death, anything kept from it is exported, moved or handed over while the holder is alive. There is no way to name a beneficiary or successor on a Steam account. While the account holder is alive, Valve allows family pooling.
How to protect your Steam accounts
Naming who acts after a death
- Designation
Steam has no way to name a beneficiary or successor for an account; the Subscriber Agreement makes the account strictly personal and bars transferring it.1
What Valve Corporation's terms say about sharing and transfers4
- Family plans and household sharing
Steam Families is for a household of up to 6 close family members, who get access to the games owned by family members with their own saved games, achievements and workshop access; ownership of the games stays with the purchaser.2
An adult can leave a family at any time but waits 1 year from joining it before creating or joining another, and each family slot has a one-year cooldown. Children are removed by an adult in the family or by Steam Support.2
- Transferring the account or registration
The account is strictly personal: it may not be sold or otherwise transferred, nor may any Subscription, except as the agreement or Valve permits.1
Steam Support states that Steam account ownership cannot be transferred, and that buying, selling, trading or gifting an account violates the Subscriber Agreement.3
- Gifting and purchases for others
Steam Wallet funds cannot be moved or gifted to another Steam account; a Steam Digital Gift Card can be bought for a friend or family member.4
- Redeeming points and using a balance
Community Market sales are paid into the Steam Wallet; the funds cannot be withdrawn or transferred to another account or a bank, but can buy Steam gifts for other users.5
Sources5
- 1.Steam Subscriber Agreement, last updated on September 10, 2026
- 2.Steam Families User Guide & FAQ
- 3.Contested Steam account ownership
- 4.Steam Wallet
- 5.Community Market FAQ
Should you save your passwords for your family?
Some people store account passwords so a family member can sign in later. The practice has three practical limits:
- Two-factor authentication often blocks it. Most accounts require a second factor — a code sent to a phone, an authenticator app, a passkey, or a physical key. A saved password alone frequently does not grant access, and the recovery codes that would are easy to lose or let go stale.
- It usually conflicts with the platform's terms. Most operators prohibit account sharing and signing in as another person, including after a death. Stored credentials are not the operator's recognized access path, and using them can violate the terms of service.
- Operators provide other paths. Where an operator offers a designation tool — Apple's Legacy Contact, Google's Inactive Account Manager, a beneficiary designation — that mechanism grants access the operator recognizes. A password manager's own emergency-access or legacy feature passes credentials through a controlled process. Digital assets named in a will or trust give a fiduciary authority under each state's Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA).
Sources
Data sourced from Valve Corporation primary sources (8 pages reviewed). How we research.
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