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End-of-Life Checklist
Free, and no account required. 31 items across 5 categories: the documents, medical wishes, accounts, funeral preferences, digital life, and family instructions people need. Make an account and your progress follows you to any device.
Need a plan built around your situation? Use the personalized end-of-life planner → Wondering what the paperwork itself looks like? The documents your family will need →
The fridge versionSaved in this browser. Make a free account and it follows you to any device.
The short answer
A free end-of-life planning checklist that needs no account: 31 items covering the will, the advance directive, the financial power of attorney, beneficiary checks, an account inventory, funeral wishes, and the letter telling your family where it all lives. Tick an item and the page saves your place. There's a one-page printable if you'd rather work on paper.
Reviewed August 2026
The Paperwork
These documents record your wishes and name people who can act for you. State law, medical standards, and court procedures may fill gaps when valid documents are unavailable.
Need Professional Help?
Wills, trusts, advance directives, and estate planning all benefit from a licensed attorney. We've compiled a directory of funeral directors, grief counselors, hospice providers, and financial advisors. Sorted by state. Before a listing appears, we check the provider's phone and address against the provider's own website.
Find Help Near You →Funeral Planning
Three items above do the funeral planning work: your funeral and memorial wishes under Personal & Family, your body disposition decision under Medical & Health, and the funding plan under Financial & Accounts. Finish those three and your family won't have to guess about the service, the burial-or-cremation decision, or the bill. If you're arranging a funeral right now, the step-by-step funeral guide covers the whole sequence, with current costs.
Checklist Questions
It's an organized record of documents, decisions, people, accounts, property, debts, and preferences that may matter during incapacity or after death. It should tell an authorized person what exists and where to find the separate records without exposing passwords, private keys, or full financial details in an ordinary checklist.
The useful set depends on your state and circumstances. It may include a will, trust, advance directive, healthcare appointment, financial power of attorney, insurance records, deeds, titles, beneficiary designations, account inventory, and funeral or disposition preferences. Keep legal authority and secure access instructions separate from the inventory when appropriate.
No. The funeral planning items are built in: document your funeral and memorial wishes, record your body disposition decision, and work out how the funeral would be paid. Those three cover what most standalone funeral checklists ask for. If you're arranging a service right now, start with the step-by-step guide instead.
How to arrange a funeral →Use secure storage that protects the original and can be reached by an authorized person when needed. Home storage, professional custody, court filing where available, and safe deposit boxes each have risks and access rules. Tell the people named in the documents where current originals are kept and what lawful process they should use to obtain them.
Review it after a marriage, divorce, birth, death, change in health or relationships, major property change, business change, or move to another state, and on a regular schedule that works for you. Check each beneficiary form directly. The effect of divorce and a conflicting will varies by account, governing law, and plan terms.
You can organize records and questions yourself. Whether legal advice is useful depends on state rules, family structure, property, taxes, disability planning, business interests, conflict risk, and the documents involved. A state-qualified lawyer can provide full or limited-scope review when a form, authority, or signing requirement is unclear.
Check your state's requirements →