25 What to do after someone dies

Article 8, paragraph 2 of the Regulations on Household Registration: "Where a citizen dies in an accident or the cause of death is unknown, the head of the household or the person who discovers it shall immediately report to the local police station or the people's committee of the township or town." That means: if there was an accident, or nobody knows how the person died, the head of the household and the person who found them must report at once to the police station or the township or town government. Article 23 of the Funeral Management Regulations: "Where a natural person dies a natural death, the medical institution shall issue a death certificate promptly. For a deceased person in an unnatural-death case handled by the public security organs according to law, who was not treated by a medical institution, the public security organs issue the death certificate." That means: a natural death from illness is certified by the medical institution that treated him. A death with no hospital treatment, which the police are handling, is certified by the police. If the scene has been disturbed, you can neither explain it nor get the certificate easily. Cremation, canceling the hukou, and the insurance claim all wait on this one piece of paper.

According to the “Interim Regulations on Registration and Management of Population Death Information,” death certificates for patients who die in medical institutions are issued by those institutions; for deaths occurring at home or elsewhere, they are issued by the local community health service center or township health clinic. Cases deemed non-natural by police or judicial authorities are handled by those authorities under current rules and procedures. In 2026, five government agencies confirmed that electronic death certificates carry the same legal weight as paper versions; both are equally valid. Certificates for natural deaths with known causes must be issued within one day. If lost, a single replacement can be requested from the original issuer. If basic information is wrong, you can apply with supporting documents for one re-issue.

Article 25 of the Funeral Management Regulations states: “Services such as transport, storage, embalming, body preparation, and cremation must be provided exclusively by funeral homes.” No other entities are permitted to offer these services. Article 24 adds: “Morgues operated by medical institutions may not subcontract or provide funeral services; they may only offer temporary storage for remains.” Hospital morgues are thus restricted to short-term storage only. Article 27 specifies: “Funeral homes generally store remains for no more than 3 days; where a longer stay is needed, the family or the party handing over the body shall go through the extension procedure at the funeral home.” Article 28 requires cremation to be performed only upon presentation of a death certificate and cremation confirmation document, after which a cremation certificate is issued. Article 29 further mandates that in regions where cremation is mandatory, remains must be cremated at a nearby funeral home.

The time limit for autopsies is stipulated in Article 26 of the Regulations on Prevention and Handling of Medical Disputes. The original text reads: “In cases where a patient dies and both the patient and medical institution dispute the cause of death, an autopsy must be performed within 48 hours after death; if the hospital has facilities to freeze the body, this period may be extended to 7 days.” In other words, to determine the true cause of death, an autopsy must be carried out within 48 hours of death, or up to 7 days if the hospital has freezing capabilities. The same article further states: “An autopsy must be approved and signed off by the deceased’s close relatives; failure to sign is regarded as refusal of consent.” If family members do not sign, it is interpreted as a refusal. It also specifies: “If consent is denied or the deadline is missed, leading to uncertainty over the cause of death, the party that refused or delayed bears the responsibility.” Article 24 states that sealing and unsealing of medical records “must be conducted in the presence of both the patient and medical institution.” Both you and the hospital must be present during both the sealing and later unsealing of records.

Article 8, Paragraph 1 of the Hukou Registration Regulations states: “When a citizen dies, in cities the household head, relatives, caregivers, or neighbors must report the death to the hukou registration authority and cancel the hukou registration before burial; in rural areas, this must be done within one month. If a citizen dies while temporarily residing elsewhere, the local hukou registration authority must notify the permanent residence’s authority to cancel the registration.” In short, urban residents must act before burial, while rural residents have one month to do so. Any household head, relative, caregiver, or neighbor may initiate the process at the police station, which serves as the hukou registration authority. If the deceased was living temporarily elsewhere, the local police station there must inform the permanent residence’s station to cancel the hukou registration.

Collecting the body, storing the body, the farewell to the body, cremation of the body, keeping the ashes, and ecological burial are all on the national list of basic items. Burial of ashes in a niche provided by a government-run funeral service body is also on the list. The fees for these items are set by law and by the rules, and the funeral home does not decide them itself. The list of non-basic items is set by the civil affairs department at the level of a city divided into districts or above (the civil affairs department of a prefecture-level city or higher).

Regulations identify five categories of price violations. Four of them are: not displaying prices clearly or adding extra charges beyond the listed price — that is, no posted price list or charging more than advertised; bundling services or imposing unreasonable conditions to force a purchase — meaning you can’t obtain a service unless you buy another one; forcing or indirectly forcing you to use paid third-party services — essentially pushing another provider’s services on you; and indirectly raising prices by re-labeling charges — such as charging more under a different name. Additionally, it is prohibited to “split services into multiple items or expand the scope of charges to indirectly raise prices.” This means breaking one service into several line items for billing or extending the range of charges beyond what was originally stated.

An intermediary that is not registered is not in the funeral-service information system run by the civil affairs bureau. Those who charge in violation of the rules by deception, push a family into a large showy funeral, force people to accept a service, or resell information about the deceased will be dealt with according to law. They are also marked in the system and made public, and anyone can see it.

The balance of the housing provident fund account (the money still left in his provident-fund account) can be withdrawn by heirs and by legatees. A legatee is the person named in a will to receive something. If the death was caused by work, there are 3 more payments: a funeral allowance, a dependents' pension, and a one-time work-death benefit. Money left in the individual account of the basic pension can be inherited; the Social Insurance Law says so in writing. If a person covered by the employees' pension dies of illness, or dies from a cause that is not work, the family can also receive a funeral allowance and a survivor allowance, together called survivor benefits. The standard for enterprise employees is calculated on a nationwide formula. The funeral allowance is 2 times the previous year's monthly per capita disposable income of urban residents in that province. The survivor allowance uses that same monthly per capita income as the base, and is paid for 3 to 24 months according to the years of contributions. Under 5 years, 3 months are paid. For 5 to 10 years, 6 months are paid. For 10 to 15 years, 9 months are paid. For 15 years or more, each extra 1 year adds 1 month, up to 24 months. If the person had already retired, each 1 year of pension already received subtracts 1 month, and the minimum is 9 months.

The law states it in so many words: when a natural person has died, close relatives, for their own lawful and proper interests, may exercise the rights to access, copy, correct, delete, and otherwise deal with the deceased's relevant personal information. Close relatives can ask the platform to bring his information out to be looked at, to make 1 copy, to correct an error, and to delete it. Article 50 requires the platform to set up a convenient mechanism for accepting and handling applications. "If it refuses a person's request to exercise a right, it shall state the reasons." If the platform refuses, "the individual may bring a lawsuit in a people's court according to law."

Article 1161 of the Civil Code: "An heir clears the taxes and debts the decedent legally owed, limited to the actual value of the estate obtained. This limit does not cover any part beyond the actual value of the estate that the heir repays voluntarily." That means: for the taxes and debts he owed, you pay only with the share of the estate you inherited. You do not pay the part beyond that, unless you yourself are willing to pay. Paragraph 2 of the same article: "An heir who renounces the inheritance may bear no duty to clear the taxes and debts the decedent legally owed." Article 1159 of the Civil Code says that, when the estate is divided, the taxes and debts he owed are paid first. Article 1124 of the Civil Code: a person who renounces an inheritance must "make a statement of renunciation in writing before the estate is handled; if no statement is made, the heir is deemed to accept the inheritance." Article 33 of the Supreme People's Court's Interpretation (1) on the Inheritance Book: the written statement is given to the estate administrator or to the other heirs. Article 35 of that interpretation: if the renunciation is made only after the estate has been divided, what is renounced is not the right of inheritance but property already in hand. Article 1145 of the Civil Code: the heirs may choose an estate administrator, and if none is chosen they serve together. Article 1147 of the Civil Code: the estate administrator must take stock of the estate, make an estate list, and deal with the decedent's claims and debts. In a case in Yuzhou, Henan, the borrower died of illness in March 2023, and the children had not renounced the inheritance in writing. In May 2023 the court ordered the children to repay 95,000 yuan of principal and interest, within the actual value of the estate they inherited. The children said the value of the company they inherited could not be calculated, and the judgment could not be enforced. Accounts and a car in the children's names were frozen and seized, and they were placed on the list that restricts high consumption. Only in February 2025 was there a settlement, and they paid 90,000 yuan. In a Chongqing case, the borrower died of illness before the principal and interest on a loan of 400,000 yuan were paid off, and every heir stated that they renounced the inheritance. But his spouse and daughter had already withdrawn the basic pension and the occupational annuity that counted as his estate. The procuratorate found that the 2 of them had not expressly renounced, so they were treated as having accepted the inheritance. In November 2025 the spouse settled with the creditor and paid the debt in full. Debts of this kind run from 10,000 yuan to several hundred thousand yuan, so the benefit is rated large.

On the deposit side, Document No. 18 of 2021 from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and the People's Bank of China provides that a small deposit that meets the conditions no longer requires notarization. There are 3 conditions. Condition 1: the balances of the accounts at the same bank add up to no more than 10,000 yuan. A bank may raise that on its own, up to 50,000 yuan. Condition 2: the applicant is the spouse, a child, or a parent, or an heir or a legatee named in a notarized will. Condition 3: the money is taken out all at once, and the account is closed afterward. The spouse, the children, and the parents submit 4 kinds of documents: a death certificate; kinship papers such as the household register (户口簿 — the hukou booklet), a marriage certificate, or a birth certificate; their own identity document; and a commitment letter signed in their own hand. Jin Gui [2024] No. 6 (金规〔2024〕6号) provides that, from June 1, 2024, the limit is raised across the board to 50,000 yuan. Small and medium-sized rural banks may wait until December 31, 2025 to put it in place. Accumulated-gold products, and treasury bonds and wealth-management products sold through the bank, can be withdrawn the same way once they mature or are redeemed, and the amounts count together toward the 50,000 yuan. Funeral expenses and a survivor allowance paid into his account do not count toward the 50,000 yuan, and the spouse, the children, and the parents can withdraw them with this same set of documents. On the house side, Article 14 of the detailed implementing rules for the Interim Regulations on Real Estate Registration says that an application to register an inheritance or a bequest "shall submit materials on the death, a will or an agreement of all statutory heirs on how the real estate is divided, and materials on kinship with the decedent, and may also submit notarized materials or a legal document that has taken effect." Notarization is only one option. In 2016 the Ministry of Justice issued a document abolishing the 1991 joint notice that had required stronger notarization for real-estate registration. The Fuzhou Real Estate Registration and Transaction Center has explained what to do when notarized materials are not submitted. All the statutory heirs, or all the legatees, must go together to the registration office to have the materials checked, and sign an undertaking (a written statement that the materials are true). The fee follows the Fujian standard. For an inheritance notarization that does not involve real estate, the part within 200,000 yuan is charged at 0.8%, and the minimum is 300 yuan. Real estate is charged by floor area. In Fuzhou and Xiamen the charge is no more than 70 yuan per square meter, and 1 unit is in principle no more than 10,000 yuan. On that standard, the notarization fee for a deposit of 50,000 yuan is 400 yuan, and a house of 90 square meters in Fuzhou is at most 6300 yuan. The saving is several hundred to several thousand yuan, so the benefit is rated medium.