When a parent dies: the first steps

A doctor certifies the death online, and the death is then registered automatically. In hospital, the hospital doctor does this. If your parent died at home, call the family doctor or a doctor who makes house calls. If no doctor can be reached, or the doctor cannot certify the death, call the police.

There is no fee for registering the death or for the digital death certificate.

Download the digital death certificate from the LifeSG website within 30 days. You will need the certificate number, your parent's identification number and the date of death. The doctor or hospital will give you these.

Next of kin can download it. This includes a spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece or nephew, or someone they authorise. After 30 days, you will need to apply for an extract, which carries a fee. Save the certificate on your phone or computer, as you will need it for most of the steps below.

If your parent made a CPF nomination, the CPF Board pays the nominees directly. Its standard processing time is 17 working days once it has the documents it needs.

If there was no nomination, the savings go to the Public Trustee's Office. It distributes them under the intestacy rules or, for Muslims, under Muslim inheritance law. This can take up to six months, and a fee is deducted.

Contact each insurer to make a claim. A policy with a nomination is paid to the nominees. A policy without one is paid into the estate.

Accounts and property in your parent's sole name usually cannot be dealt with until a grant is made. Property held as joint tenants passes to the surviving owner or owners.

If your parent left a will, the executor named in it applies to the Family Justice Courts for a Grant of Probate. If there was no will, a family member applies for Letters of Administration. For a Muslim estate, the family first obtains an Inheritance Certificate from the Syariah Court.

If there was no will and the estate is worth $50,000 or less, the Public Trustee's Office may be able to administer it instead. Its fee is set by law and deducted from the estate.

We can go through your parent's documents with you and explain what each one does and what needs to happen next. We are not lawyers, and we will tell you if you need one.

• ICA: register a death and download the digital death certificate (ica.gov.sg)
• CPF Board: payment when no nomination was made (cpf.gov.sg)
• Ministry of Law: Public Trustee criteria and fees (ask.gov.sg)
• NEA: post-death matters (nea.gov.sg)

Last reviewed: October 2026.

• Dying without a will
• Insurance nominations
• Talking to your parents

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