Updated August 13, 2026. Quick answer: the money sitting at these two platforms behaves in opposite ways. PayPal will pay a balance out to the estate — by cheque made out to the dead person, which is why the estate needs a bank account before it needs anything else. Amazon will not pay a balance out at all, because its own terms say a balance cannot be moved to another account and a gift card cannot be redeemed for cash. Amazon money can only ever be spent, from that account, by somebody who can get into it.
The two platforms, side by side
| PayPal | Amazon | |
|---|---|---|
| An estate asset? | Yes | Yes, but unrealisable |
| Cash out? | Yes — by cheque, or to the linked bank account | No — the terms forbid transfer and cash redemption |
| Who may ask | The executor or administrator | The authorised estate manager |
| Best outcome | It reaches the estate account | It is spent down, or lost |
PayPal: the cheque is written to the dead person
PayPal will close the account and release the balance to a verified executor. The documents it asks for are the ordinary estate set, plus a cover sheet identifying the account and asking for it to be closed, and the requester’s email address: a death certificate, government photo ID, legal documentation identifying the executor, state-issued documentation where there is no will, and a W-9 for the estate. They go to deceasedaccounts@paypal.com, or by post to PayPal Inc., Attn: ICA, P.O. Box 45950, Omaha, NE 68145. PayPal then says: “Once we’ve received this information, we’ll review the documents and, upon approval, will close or lock the account.”
The part that surprises executors is how the money comes out. In PayPal’s words: “The requestor will request a check in the name of the deceased account holder through the PayPal account. We do not change ownership of the funds and must issue the check in the name of the deceased account holder.”
A cheque payable to a dead person cannot be deposited into a living person’s account. It needs an estate bank account, which needs an EIN and letters from the court. So the sequence is: open the estate account first, then ask PayPal — not the other way round, which is how these cheques end up sitting in a drawer until they go stale. The mechanics of that account are at the estate EIN and bank account, and the general problem of cheques written to someone who has died is at cheques made out to a deceased person.
PayPal also offers the shortcut worth taking when it is available: if the executor can reach the deceased’s bank account, the balance can simply be transferred to the bank account already linked to the PayPal account. No cheque, no name problem.
Amazon: a balance that cannot leave the account
Amazon runs a real bereavement route, and it is worth knowing that the documentation requirement has a lighter tier. Amazon says that if you cannot produce full authorisation it can still help with “Terminating subscriptions”, “Stopping recurring deliveries” and “Deactivating the account” — email bereavement-support-cs@amazon.com with the death certificate and the email or phone number on the account. For anything more, verification requires a copy of the death certificate, “Proof of authorization showing you’re the legal representative of the deceased’s estate (such as a probate or executor documentation)”, photo ID, and the email address or phone number linked to the account. Amazon adds that “All documents will be securely deleted after validation.”
None of that releases the money, and the reason is in a different document — Amazon’s Balance and Gift Card Terms and Conditions, which state: “No portion of your Amazon.com Balance may be transferred to another Amazon.com account.” The same terms say gift cards may not be “transferred for value; redeemed for cash; returned for a cash refund (except to the extent required by law)”.
Put those together and the position is stark. An Amazon balance is an estate asset that the estate cannot collect. It is not payable to the executor, not movable to an heir’s account, and not convertible to cash. The only way it reaches the beneficiaries is as things bought from that account and delivered — which means somebody has to be able to sign in.
Hence the single practical instruction on this page: if there is a meaningful Amazon balance and anybody has legitimate access, deal with it before the account is deactivated. Deactivate first and the balance is gone. The exception Amazon itself carves — “except to the extent required by law” — points at state unclaimed-property and gift-card statutes, which in some states do require cash redemption of small balances; that is a question for your state, and we have not read those statutes here.
What to do, in order
Stop the bleeding first, at both. Subscriptions and recurring deliveries keep charging a card that keeps charging an estate. Amazon will stop them on the lighter documentation tier, so this needs nothing but an email and a death certificate.
Open the estate bank account before you ask PayPal for money. The cheque will be unusable without it.
Write down what is there before you close anything. Balances at platforms are the assets executors most reliably forget, because no statement ever arrives in the post. The sweep that catches them is at the executor’s digital inventory.
Sources
PayPal quotations are from its help article How do I close the PayPal account of a deceased relative? (paypal.com), read 2026-08-13. Amazon quotations are from two of its own pages, both read 2026-08-13: Bereavement support and the Amazon.com Balance and Amazon.com Gift Card Terms and Conditions. Platform policies change without notice and this page carries its read date for that reason — if their pages and this one disagree, theirs are right and we want to know. We have not read any state unclaimed-property or gift-card statute for this page and make no claim about what one requires. See also methodology.
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Why the platform setting outranks your will. Nearly every state has adopted a law that puts the provider’s own tool at the top of the priority order and your will second — the statutory hierarchy, quoted.