Deceased Do Not Contact List: How to Register and Stop Mail

To stop mail addressed to someone who has died, register their name on the Deceased Do Not Contact List at ims-dm.com for a one-time $6 fee.¹ The registration is permanent and handles marketing mail from participating companies, but it won’t shut down every channel on its own. Prescreened credit offers, sales calls, and identity-theft risk each need a separate step. All told, the work takes about half an hour, and the results appear over weeks and months rather than overnight.

What the Deceased Do Not Contact List Is

The DDNC is run by the Association of National Advertisers, formerly the Data & Marketing Association, through its DMAchoice program. Once you register a deceased person, their name, address, and email stay on the ANA’s suppression list permanently, and an updated file goes out monthly to participating companies who are expected to scrub the information from their marketing campaigns.²¹

It’s the same tool USPS points to for handling advertising mail addressed to a deceased person.³ Expect a noticeable drop in marketing mail within about three months.¹

Information You’ll Need Before You Start

Pull everything together in one place first. Walking away from a half-finished form is the most common reason people never come back to it.

For the deceased, you’ll want their full legal name, last known mailing address with city, state, and ZIP, month and year of death, and age at time of death. Phone numbers and email addresses are optional on the DDNC form but worth including, since they get scrubbed from marketing databases along with the postal address.¹ For yourself, you’ll need your name, your relationship to the deceased, and a working email address that you’ll use if you ever need to look the record up later.

A certified copy of the death certificate isn’t required for the DDNC itself, but you’ll need one for the credit bureau notification and often at the Post Office. Certified copies typically run $15 to $25 through a state vital records office, with the full range across states running from about $5 to $34.

How to Register on the DDNC

Registration is online only at ims-dm.com. The fee is $6, paid once. The form asks for the deceased’s name, full address, month and year of death, and age at death as required fields, plus the optional phone and email entries and your own contact details.¹

Once submitted, the record is permanent. There’s no annual renewal and nothing to reconfirm.

Stop Prescreened Credit and Insurance Offers

Those “pre-approved” credit card and insurance mailers come from a separate system that the DDNC alone won’t fully close. Credit bureaus generate prescreened lists based on their own criteria, and those lists drive the offers. To stop them, go to OptOutPrescreen.com or call 1-888-567-8688.²

The initial online or phone request gives you a five-year opt-out. For a permanent one, complete the Permanent Opt-Out Election form available on the site after you start the process, and mail it back.²

Notify a Credit Bureau

Placing a deceased notice on the person’s credit file does two useful things: it blocks new credit from being issued in their name, and it takes their information off the prescreened marketing lists that generate credit offers. You only need to contact one of Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion. Whichever you notify will alert the other two.⁴

Send a letter that includes a copy of the death certificate, the deceased’s legal name, Social Security number, date of birth, and date of death. Add your own name, mailing address, and a copy of your government-issued ID. If you’re not the surviving spouse, include court documents showing your authority to act for the deceased, such as letters testamentary or letters of administration.⁴

This step is worth prioritizing. Deceased individuals are common targets for identity theft precisely because fraud on their records can go undetected for months.

Stop Sales Calls to the Deceased’s Number

The National Do Not Call Registry, run by the FTC, blocks sales calls from law-abiding businesses. Registration is free at DoNotCall.gov or by calling 1-888-382-1222.⁵

One practical wrinkle: if you register by phone, you have to call from the number you’re registering, which means having access to the deceased’s line. Online registration only requires an email address for verification, so it’s the easier route in most cases. The number should appear on the Registry the next day, and covered sales calls should stop within 31 days.⁵

The Registry doesn’t cover political calls, charitable solicitations, surveys, debt collection, or purely informational calls, and companies with a recent business relationship with the deceased may keep calling.⁵ If the line is being disconnected entirely, registration is still worth doing so the number is protected if it’s later reassigned.

Forwarding or Stopping Physical Mail at USPS

USPS treats the DDNC as the primary tool for advertising mail addressed to a deceased person and cites the same three-month timeline.³

To forward the deceased’s mail to yourself or another address, you have to go to a Post Office in person. A death certificate alone is not enough. You need documented proof that you’re the appointed executor or administrator, so bring your letters testamentary or letters of administration along with the death certificate.³ This trips people up regularly.

If you lived at the same address as the deceased and just need to redirect a single envelope, cross out the address, write the forwarding address on the front, and leave it in your mailbox for carrier pickup.³

When Results Should Arrive

DDNC marketing mail: a noticeable decrease within about three months, as the suppression file updates monthly and companies process the changes.¹
National Do Not Call Registry: up to 31 days for covered sales calls to stop.⁵
OptOutPrescreen: prescreened offers taper off over several weeks after the request processes.
Credit bureau deceased notice: processing time varies, but once posted it immediately blocks new credit inquiries.

What the DDNC Won’t Stop

Some mail and calls will continue regardless of what you register. Bills and account statements from companies the deceased actually did business with keep coming until those accounts are formally closed. Legal notices, debt collection, and government correspondence are all exempt from the marketing suppression tools.

A separate category is mail generated from public probate filings. Real estate agents and investors buy lists of executors from court records, which is why solicitations you’ve never seen before start showing up after probate opens. The DDNC won’t stop those because the mail is technically addressed to the executor, not the deceased. Contacting the companies directly or marking envelopes “return to sender” are the practical options.

Scam calls and overseas operations also ignore the Do Not Call Registry entirely. Those are a law enforcement problem rather than a registration one.⁵

If Mail or Calls Keep Coming

After the waiting periods have passed, start by confirming your registrations went through. Log back into the DDNC with the email you used, and check the phone number on DoNotCall.gov.

For companies that keep sending mail, contact them directly. A short letter or phone call saying the person is deceased and asking to be removed from their internal list usually works, because companies maintain databases separate from the DDNC and a direct request forces them to update those records.

If sales calls continue despite the Registry, report them at DoNotCall.gov.⁶ Robocalls with recorded messages can be reported whether or not the number is on the Registry, and reports help the FTC identify patterns even when individual calls can’t be stopped.⁵

1
ANA. Deceased Do Not Contact Registration
2
Federal Trade Commission. What To Know About Prescreened Offers for Credit and Insurance
3
USPS. How to Stop or Forward Mail for the Deceased
4
Equifax. After a Relatives Death, Do I Need to Contact Each Nationwide Credit Bureau
5
Federal Trade Commission. National Do Not Call Registry FAQs
6
DoNotCall.gov. Report Unwanted Sales Calls