Do You Pay an Exit Fee on a Dead Person's Phone Contract?

You can almost always cancel a deceased person's mobile phone contract without paying an early-termination charge — as long as you go through the network's bereavement team and send a copy of the death certificate, rather than tapping "cancel" in the app or ringing the ordinary customer line. Handle it the right way and the account closes cleanly from the day you tell them. Handle it the wrong way and a few providers will treat it as you breaking the contract early, and bill the remaining months to the estate.

The reason the door you use matters is that a standard cancellation and a bereavement cancellation are handled by different teams under different rules. The ordinary retentions line exists to charge an exit fee, because leaving early is what normally triggers one. The bereavement team exists to waive it. So the single most useful thing to know before you pick up the phone is this: ask for the bereavement or specialist team by name, send them the death certificate, and do not let the call slide into a normal cancellation.

One honest caveat first. Waiving the exit fee does not wipe out everything. The airtime actually used up to the date you notify the network is a real debt of the estate, and so is any separate finance taken out to buy the handset. Both are different from the penalty for leaving early, and both are dealt with below.

Use the bereavement team, not the cancellation line

Every large UK network runs a dedicated bereavement process, and it is almost never the same as the cancellation menu on the website or the option you reach by pressing buttons on the main number. Search the provider's name plus the word "bereavement" and you will usually find a specific email address, form or freephone number that routes you straight to the team that deals with a death.

What they will ask for is consistent from network to network: a copy of the death certificate, the account holder's name and address, ideally the account or mobile number, and some evidence that you are the person dealing with the estate. You do not normally need a grant of probate to close a mobile account, because the sums involved are small. A death certificate and your own identification are usually enough.

Two practical points make the difference between a clean closure and a running argument. First, get the outcome in writing. Ask the team to confirm by email that the contract is cancelled, that no early-termination charge applies, and the date charges stop. A verbal assurance on a recorded line is worth less than an email you can forward if a bill lands anyway. Second, keep paying nothing extra and cancel nothing at the bank yet — cancelling the direct debit before the account is closed can cause a failed-payment charge that then has to be unpicked. Close the account first, then let the direct debit fall away.

Which networks waive the exit fee, and which bill the estate

In practice the major UK mobile networks — the ones that own their own coverage, and the large resellers that sit on top of them — all publish a bereavement procedure, and most waive early-termination charges on a monthly airtime contract when the customer has died and a death certificate is produced. Cancellation from the date of notification, with the exit fee written off, is the normal outcome rather than the exception.

The cases where an estate is more likely to be charged are worth knowing, because they are the ones that catch people out:

• Business and SME contracts. A tariff held in a sole trader's or a company's name is governed by business terms, which give a consumer far less protection and are more likely to run to the end of the term regardless.
• Smaller networks and niche resellers. Some smaller providers have no dedicated bereavement policy at all and simply apply their standard terms, which means the balance of the minimum term can be billed.
• Bundled device plans. Where the handset was bought on finance alongside the airtime, waiving the airtime charge does not clear the money still owed on the phone. That is a separate agreement, covered in the next section.

Because the picture varies and providers change their policies, do not rely on what a forum or an old article says a particular network does. Ask the bereavement team directly what they will waive and what they will still charge, and get the answer in writing before you send anything back or agree to anything.

The catch: a handset bought on finance is a separate debt

Many phones sold in the last few years are split into two agreements: an airtime plan for the calls and data, and a separate device plan — effectively a loan — for the handset itself. The marketing presents them as one monthly figure, but legally they are two contracts, and a death treats them differently.

The airtime plan is the part the bereavement team will usually cancel and waive. The device plan is a credit agreement, and the outstanding balance on the phone is a debt of the estate like any other. The network's options generally come down to one of two things: the estate keeps the handset and settles what is left owing on it, or the phone is returned and the finance is closed off against it. Which applies depends on the specific terms, so ask the bereavement team to spell out the device plan separately from the airtime, in writing, rather than assuming "the contract is cancelled" covers both.

If the estate does pay off a device balance, or you settle any final airtime bill from your own money before the estate is released, keep the paperwork. You can usually reclaim bills you pay before probate from the estate afterwards, but only if you have the receipt and can explain what the payment was for.

Keeping the number: PAC codes and moving it to another account

A phone number often matters more than the contract. It may be the number friends and family have always used, or the one tied to online accounts and two-factor security codes. The good news is that a number can usually be kept — but the decision has to be made before the account is closed, because once a number is disconnected and released back into the pool it is, in practice, gone for good.

There are two routes. The network can move the number directly onto another person's account with the same provider, or it can issue a PAC code (Porting Authorisation Code) so the number can be transferred to a different network. Either way, expect to show the death certificate and evidence that you are entitled to deal with the estate, because you are asking to move an asset out of the deceased's name.

Think carefully about whether keeping the number is genuinely useful before you do it. A number that is still receiving security codes for the deceased person's banking, email and shopping accounts can be helpful while you are closing those accounts down, and disruptive if it keeps them alive longer than you want. If the number was mainly a channel for marketing texts and cold calls, letting it go and separately arranging to stop the post and marketing addressed to someone who has died may be the cleaner path.

Saving the voicemail before the number is disconnected

This is the part people wish they had known, and it cannot be undone once it is missed. When a mobile account is closed and the number disconnected, the voicemail box goes with it — the recorded greeting in the person's own voice, and any saved messages they left or received. Networks generally cannot recover a voicemail once the number is gone, whatever the circumstances of the death, because it is not stored in a way anyone can retrieve later.

So before you cancel, if there is any chance you will want a recording of their voice, capture it. Ring the number, let it go to voicemail, and record the greeting on speaker using another phone. Do the same for any saved messages in the mailbox if you can access it. It is a small, strange task to do in the first weeks, but families are far more often glad they did it than sorry.

The same instinct applies to anything stored on the handset itself — photos, notes, messages — which is a separate problem from the contract, because the phone may be locked and the contract closure does nothing to unlock it. That is worth dealing with before the device is wiped or handed on.

Broadband, landline and the router that must go back

A home broadband or landline contract follows the same logic as a mobile one: use the provider's bereavement route, send the death certificate, and most will close the account and waive an early-exit charge when the account holder has died. Ask specifically for billing to stop from the date of death rather than the date you happened to notify them, and get that confirmed in writing, because some providers otherwise keep charging up to the notice date.

The extra step with broadband is the equipment. The router, hub and any TV box are almost always the provider's property, not the household's, and they will send a prepaid return bag with a deadline attached — often only a few weeks. The estate can be charged for kit that is not sent back, so return it promptly and keep the proof of postage. It is one of several things that have to be handed back after a death, alongside what the council and the NHS want returned if the person was being cared for at home.

Cancelling a contract is the small, visible admin of a death — a few phone calls, a certificate in the post, a router in a bag. The larger financial question a death raises is quieter and slower: whether the household income still stretches to the bills that remain once one person's earnings have gone. Cover that pays a regular monthly amount to a family, rather than a single lump sum, is designed for exactly that gap, and if it is something you want to understand for your own household you can get life insurance quotes and have an FCA-authorised broker talk it through against your circumstances.

Scotland, Northern Ireland and free help

Mobile and broadband providers are national companies, and the consumer protections around cancelling a contract are UK-wide, so the position on exit fees and bereavement processes does not change depending on where in the UK you live. What differs is the machinery around registering the death and notifying government, which can affect how quickly you get the certificate the network wants.

In England, Wales and Scotland the free Tell Us Once service lets you report a death to most government departments in one go, though it does not contact private companies such as mobile networks — you still have to do those yourself. Tell Us Once is not available in Northern Ireland, where notifications are handled differently. A death must be registered within five days in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and within eight days in Scotland, and it is the death certificate from that registration that the bereavement teams will ask you to send.

If a provider refuses to waive a charge you think it should, or a bill keeps arriving after you have closed an account, free help is available. Citizens Advice can talk you through your rights on a contract after a death, and MoneyHelper, which is government-backed, covers dealing with a deceased person's money and debts. Neither will try to sell you anything. Cancelling a phone contract is also only one item on a long list, and it can help to work through it against a fuller checklist such as our guide to bereavement admin, assets and contracts so that nothing keeps billing quietly in the background. Alongside the contracts, remember there may be money owed the other way too — an overpaid final bill, or wider overpaid tax and marriage allowance to reclaim after a death.

Frequently asked questions

Will I be charged to cancel a dead person's mobile contract?

Most major UK networks waive early-termination charges when a customer dies, on production of the death certificate, but you must use their bereavement route rather than a standard cancellation. Charges normally stop from the date you notify them, and airtime used before then is still owed by the estate. Where the handset was bought on a separate finance plan, the balance owing on the phone is a separate debt and may still have to be settled.

Can the family keep the phone number?

Often yes. Networks can move a number onto another person's account, or issue a PAC code so it can be transferred to a different provider, provided you show the death certificate and proof you are dealing with the estate. Ask before cancelling, because once a number is released it is usually gone for good. Weigh up whether keeping it is useful, as it may still be receiving the deceased person's security codes and marketing.

What happens to the voicemail greeting and messages?

Voicemail is deleted when the account closes, so save anything you want to keep before you cancel. Play the greeting or a saved message on speaker and record it on another phone. Providers generally cannot recover voicemail once the number is disconnected, whatever the circumstances of the death, so it is one of the few tasks that genuinely cannot wait until the rest of the admin is done.