Updated August 6, 2026. Quick answer: nearly every state has adopted the same law, and it sets a strict order of priority. The setting you clicked inside the platform beats what your will says. Your will only governs if you never used the platform’s tool. And if you did neither, the terms of service you agreed to without reading decide it.
The three-tier hierarchy, in the statute’s own words
This is the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act — RUFADAA — and because it is a uniform act the enacted text is close to identical from state to state. Florida’s version, quoted in full:
Tier 1 — the platform’s own tool wins. “A user may use an online tool to direct the custodian to disclose to a designated recipient or not to disclose some or all of the user’s digital assets, including the content of electronic communications. If the online tool allows the user to modify or delete a direction at all times, a direction regarding disclosure using an online tool overrides a contrary direction by the user in a will, trust, power of attorney, or other record.” (Fla. Stat. §740.003(1).)
Tier 2 — your estate documents, but only if you skipped tier 1. “If a user has not used an online tool… or if the custodian has not provided an online tool, the user may allow or prohibit disclosure to a fiduciary of some or all of the user’s digital assets… in a will, trust, power of attorney, or other record.” (§740.003(2).)
Tier 3 — otherwise, the terms of service. A user’s direction under tier 1 or tier 2 “overrides a contrary provision in a terms-of-service agreement that does not require the user to act affirmatively and distinctly from the user’s assent to the terms of service” (§740.003(3)) — which is to say: say nothing, and the contract you never read governs.
Minnesota’s enactment is the same rule in the uniform act’s own words, down to the phrase “overrides a contrary direction by the user in a will, trust, power of attorney, or other record” (Minn. Stat. §521A.04). California enacted it at Probate Code §§870-884. The states differ in section numbers, not in substance — which is why this is one page rather than fifty.
What that actually means for your plan
A will clause about digital assets is a fallback, not a plan. If you set an Apple Legacy Contact or a Google Inactive Account Manager plan, that setting governs and your will does not. If your will says one thing and the platform setting says another, the platform setting wins. So the two must agree, and the platform tools are where the work actually happens: Apple’s Legacy Contact and Google’s Inactive Account Manager.
Doing nothing is a decision, and it is the worst one available. Tier 3 hands the question to a contract written by the platform’s lawyers, which in practice means the answer is usually no.
The tool has to allow changes to win. The override in tier 1 applies only where “the online tool allows the user to modify or delete a direction at all times”. A one-time, irrevocable setting does not get the same priority — a detail almost every summary of this law omits.
The limiter nobody quotes
RUFADAA does not hand your executor a master key, and the statute says so directly: “This chapter does not give a fiduciary or a designated recipient any new or expanded rights other than those held by the user for whom, or for whose estate or trust, the fiduciary or designated recipient acts or represents.” (Fla. Stat. §740.004(2).)
And access “may be modified or eliminated by a user, by federal law, or by a terms-of-service agreement if the user has not provided direction” (§740.004(3)). The federal-law reference is the one that surprises people: the Stored Communications Act constrains what a provider may disclose regardless of what a state statute permits, which is why platforms hand over data grudgingly and slowly even to a properly appointed executor.
So the honest summary is: RUFADAA tells the platform whose instruction to follow. It does not force the platform to give your family anything the account holder could not have had.
What to do, in order
1. Use the platform tools for the accounts that matter — they sit at the top of the hierarchy.
2. Make the estate documents agree with them. A will clause that contradicts a live platform setting loses, so the clause should authorise rather than contradict.
3. Write an inventory, not a password list. A will becomes a public record in probate. Changing a will is a formal act; changing a platform setting is two clicks — another reason the settings do the real work.
4. Tell the executor the tools exist. An Apple access key or a Google plan nobody knows about is the same as no plan at all. The other things executors discover too late.
The planning frame: digital assets in estate planning and, for the hardest category, crypto estate planning.
Sources, and why there are no state pages
Fla. Stat. §740.003 and §740.004 read at the Florida Senate, Minn. Stat. §521A.04 at the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, and Cal. Prob. Code §871 at leginfo.legislature.ca.gov — all on 2026-08-06.
We have not built a page per state, and that is deliberate. RUFADAA is a uniform act: the enacted text we read in three states is the same rule with different section numbers. Fifty pages restating one hierarchy would rank and would not inform. If we find states whose enactment genuinely differs — a non-uniform amendment, a different priority order, an added procedural requirement — those states will get their own pages and this paragraph will name them.
See methodology and corrections. General information about published statutes, not legal advice. No affiliate links, nothing sold.
Where this statute stops. Every tier instructs a custodian, so an account held on an exchange is covered and a self-custodied wallet has nobody to instruct — crypto when the owner dies.