Closing a Facebook account after a death
When someone dies, their Facebook profile stays up until someone asks Meta to change it. Friends keep seeing it. Birthday reminders keep arriving. This page explains what Meta offers, what it asks for, and what to decide before you ask.
What Facebook can do
Meta offers two things for a deceased person's account.
Memorialize. The profile stays, with "Remembering" shown next to the name. No one can log in to it again. Friends can still see what was shared and, depending on the settings, post memories on the timeline.
Remove. The profile and everything on it is deleted. This cannot be undone.
Decide this first
A memorialized profile can never be edited again. Posts, tags and friends are frozen as they are. If there is anything the family wants taken off the page, or photos they want to keep, that has to happen before either request is made.
If your loved one had named a Legacy Contact in their Facebook settings, Meta's form states that only that person can ask for the profile to be removed. It is worth asking whether one was named.
What Meta asks for
- To memorialize: proof of death. Meta accepts a death certificate, a link to an obituary, or a memorial card. An obituary link is often the simplest, because it is already public.
- To remove: proof of death, plus proof that you are immediate family or have legal authority, such as executor paperwork.
Meta does not ask for the person's password, and no one should ever ask you for it. The request is made through a form, without logging in to the account.
How to do it yourself
Meta's form is here: Special Request for a Deceased Person's Account. You give your name and email, the person's name, their profile link if you have it, the date of death, and your relationship. You attach the documents above and choose memorialize or remove.
Meta's response has tended to arrive within about a week. If nothing comes, the form can be submitted again.
If you would rather not do this twenty times
Facebook is usually one of many. Email, photo storage, shopping, streaming, subscriptions still charging a card. Most families do not know what accounts exist until the statements arrive.
We check your loved one's identifiers against the platforms people actually use, confirm what each one requires, and submit the closure or memorialization requests through each platform's official process, including Facebook. We work from a death certificate and proof of authority. We never ask for a password. When the last platform has replied, you receive one closure report covering every platform we checked, including where no account was found.
Standard Closure is $300. Custom Closure, which adds the accounts you name, is $400. The fee is agreed before we begin.
We are not affiliated with Meta. Meta's process and timing are Meta's, and can change. Financial, investment and government accounts are outside what we handle; the executor deals with those directly.