When a beneficiary passes away the next of kin or executor of the estate must inform the Pension Authority without delay. The authority will then discontinue the payments.

The following information/documents are required by the German Pension Authority:

- death certificate of the beneficiary (if possible as original)
- date of birth
- name and file number of the Pension Authority
- name and contact details of the executor of the estate.

You can find the contact details of the Pension Authorities at the bottom of this page.

The pensioner is entitled to the pension for the month in which he/she passed away. In most cases the pension payment is made at the beginning of the month/end of the previous month. Pension payments that are made after this time must be paid back to the Pension Authority.

Please note that even after notification of the death it can still take several weeks until payments are stopped due to banking procedures. As many pensions are paid at the beginning of a month, overpayments occur regularly. The Pension Authority tries to retrieve the money from the account to which the pension was paid directly, or contacts the next of kin. If the pension was paid by cheque, you should not cash the cheques to which the pensioner was not entitled.