Estate planning as a Vercel account holder
Vercel Inc. reviews transfer requests for accounts individually upon receipt of documentation
Vercel Support (web contact form only; ticket submission requires a paid plan)
Vercel Support (no dedicated estate or bereavement team)
Vercel is a leading cloud platform for deploying web applications, used by millions of developers. It powers Next.js and hosts production websites for companies of all sizes. A Vercel account holds deployed applications (websites, APIs), custom domains, environment variables, and deployment history. Vercel has no published bereavement policy, but offers strong estate planning tools: team ownership can be transferred, projects can be moved between accounts, and custom domains can be transferred. The key estate risk is that personal (Hobby) accounts cannot be transferred -- only team-based projects can be reassigned to new Owners.
Vercel Inc. reviews transfer requests for Vercel accounts on a case-by-case basis after the account holder's death. Approval is at the company's sole discretion, and documentation requirements must be met before any transfer is considered.
Vercel supports transferring accounts to another person during the account holder's lifetime.
What happens at death
Vercel has no published bereavement or deceased user policy. The Terms of Service state: "You may not assign, transfer or sublicense without the prior written consent of Vercel, but Vercel may assign or transfer this Agreement, in whole or in part, without restriction." No provisions in the Terms address death, succession, or inheritance, and the Terms warn that "All of Your Content on the Services (if any) may be permanently deleted by Vercel upon any termination of your account." Vercel does, however, provide significant continuity mechanisms through teams: team ownership can be transferred to another Owner, projects can be moved between teams, and custom domains can be moved or transferred out. Vercel's documentation states: "Teams can have more than one owner. For continuity, we recommend that at least two individuals have owner permissions." Upon account deletion, all projects and deployments are permanently removed. Source code remains in the connected Git repository (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket).
Planning your estate
Protecting Vercel accounts while the account is active
No beneficiary designation, lifetime transfer options for accounts, and 8-step plan.
View details →When someone dies
Handling Vercel accounts after a death
Transfer is handled on a case-by-case basis, 9-step process, and 5 required documents.
View details →There is no beneficiary designation option for Vercel. This means accounts cannot be directed to a specific person through the program itself, unlike traditional financial accounts.
Frequently asked questions
No. Vercel deploys from Git repositories (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket). The source code lives in the Git provider, not Vercel. However, environment variables, secrets, and Vercel-specific configurations are permanently lost when the account or team is deleted. There is no bulk export mechanism for environment variables.
Move projects from a personal Hobby account to a team and add at least one additional Owner. Vercel's documentation states it recommends "that at least two individuals have owner permissions" for continuity. Keep source code in an accessible Git repository. Document environment variables externally. Consider giving a trusted person the Billing role so an executor can manage payments without project access. Decide whether important domains should stay on a multi-Owner team or move to an external registrar.
Vercel's team-level roles include Owner, Member, Developer, Security, Billing, Pro Viewer, Enterprise Viewer, and Contributor. For estate planning, Owner is the role that controls the team itself (settings, members, billing, all projects), and Billing is the role best suited to an executor who needs financial oversight without project changes. The Billing role has read-only access to every project and is limited to one member on Pro teams (multiple members allowed on Enterprise). Project-level roles (Project Administrator, Project Developer, Project Viewer) scope access to specific projects.
Sources
Data sourced from Vercel Inc. primary sources (11 pages reviewed). How we research.
Vercel Support (web contact form only; ticket submission requires a paid plan)
Vercel Support (no dedicated estate or bereavement team)
