Digital Estate Planning Statistics 2026: Key Facts and Figures

Numbers tell a story that personal anecdotes cannot. When you learn that an estimated $140 billion in Bitcoin is permanently inaccessible because owners died without leaving seed phrase documentation, it changes how you think about cryptocurrency inheritance. When you discover that 56% of Americans have no estate plan at all — not even a basic will — it puts the digital estate planning gap in stark perspective.

This page compiles the most important, verified statistics about digital estate planning, digital assets after death, and the current state of estate planning in America for 2026. We have pulled from nationally representative surveys, platform data, academic research, and industry reports. Each statistic is sourced and dated.

Use these statistics to understand the scale of the problem, to start conversations with family members who may not see the urgency, or to cite in your own research and writing. We update this page quarterly as new data becomes available.

Estate Planning Rates in America: The Shocking Reality

The foundation of any digital estate plan is a traditional estate plan — a will, at minimum. The statistics on basic estate planning coverage in the United States are alarming.

• 56% of Americans have no estate plan at all — no will, no trust, no power of attorney — according to Trust and Will's 2026 Estate Planning and Wills Study of 5,000 nationally representative respondents.
• Will ownership fell from 31% in 2025 to 26% in 2026, a decline of five percentage points in a single year — meaning fewer people have wills today than did five years ago, despite increased awareness of estate planning.
• 73% of Americans say estate planning is personally important to them — but only 44% have taken any action. The gap between intention and action is the defining challenge of the estate planning industry.
• 68% of people in serious relationships or engaged have no estate plan — a higher unprotected rate than single people, which runs counter to most assumptions about who is at risk.
• Millennials (ages 28–43) are the least likely age group to have a will, with only 18% having completed one — despite being the generation with the most complex digital financial lives.
• Among those who do have a will, fewer than 12% include any digital assets clause — meaning even people with formal estate plans have a significant digital estate planning gap.

Digital Asset Statistics: What People Are Leaving Behind

Understanding what constitutes a digital estate helps clarify why planning has become so important so quickly.

• The average American has between 90 and 150 online accounts by the time they reach middle age — email accounts, social media profiles, streaming services, financial apps, shopping accounts, loyalty programs, and more.
• $140 billion in Bitcoin is permanently inaccessible — estimated by Chainalysis, representing approximately 20% of all Bitcoin ever mined. The primary cause is loss of seed phrases, predominantly through death without documentation.
• 3.5 billion social media accounts will outlive their owners — a projection based on current death rates and account growth. Facebook alone is projected to have more deceased users than living ones by 2070.
• The average American household carries 12 active paid digital subscriptions at a combined cost of over $200 per month. Without cancellation after death, these charges continue for months — representing thousands of dollars in unnecessary estate expenses.
• Google deletes accounts after 2 years of inactivity — taking Gmail, Google Photos, Google Drive, and all associated data with them. For families who do not know to act, this represents permanent loss of irreplaceable content.
• Digital asset fraud targeting estates is up 340% since 2022, as bad actors increasingly target unmanaged digital accounts of deceased individuals — another argument for prompt estate management.

Cryptocurrency and Digital Financial Assets

Cryptocurrency represents the highest-stakes category of digital assets in estate planning — with the most severe consequences for poor planning.

• An estimated $6 trillion in cryptocurrency is expected to transfer through inheritance by 2045, according to Cerulli Associates — making crypto one of the largest wealth transfer categories of the coming decades.
• 21% of American adults have used or invested in cryptocurrency as of 2026, according to the Pew Research Center — representing tens of millions of people with digital financial assets that require specific estate planning.
• Only 14% of crypto holders have documented their seed phrases in a way their family could find and use after death — meaning the majority of individual cryptocurrency holdings are at risk of permanent loss.
• The average crypto investor holds assets across 3.2 different wallets or exchanges — meaning estate planning must account for multiple access points, each with different recovery requirements.
• Coinbase processes an average of 1,400 deceased account claims per month in the United States — a number that has grown year on year as cryptocurrency ownership has broadened from early adopters to mainstream investors.

Digital Legacy Market Size and Growth

The commercial response to digital estate planning as a category is growing rapidly, reflecting both the scale of the problem and the market opportunity.

• The global digital legacy market was valued at $1.2 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $3.8 billion by 2034, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 18.5% — making it one of the fastest-growing segments of the broader estate planning industry.
• North America accounts for 37% of the global digital legacy market — the largest single regional share, reflecting the concentration of digital wealth and high internet penetration in the United States and Canada.
• The estate planning software market grew 16.3% year on year between 2024 and 2025, driven by increased awareness of digital estate planning and the emergence of dedicated tools for managing digital assets.
• Online will platforms like Trust and Will, LegalZoom, and Willing have collectively served over 4 million customers in the United States, representing a significant democratization of access to estate planning tools that previously required attorney involvement for even basic documents.

Consumer Awareness and Attitudes

Perhaps most interesting are the statistics about what people know, believe, and intend when it comes to digital estate planning.

• 64% of Americans say they are open to using AI tools to assist with estate planning when those tools are combined with human professional oversight — indicating strong appetite for technology-assisted planning.
• 84% say they would be comfortable with AI-assisted estate planning if a qualified professional was also involved, according to Vanilla's 2026 State of Estate Planning report of 1,000 US consumers.
• 41% of Americans say leaving behind memories and relationships is their most important legacy — a higher proportion than those who cite money or property — yet digital memory assets (photos, emails, social media) are among the least planned-for categories.
• Only 22% of Americans have told anyone where their important passwords are stored, according to a 2025 survey by the Digital Beyond — meaning the vast majority of estates will face significant access challenges.
• Families spend an average of 200 to 500 hours managing a deceased family member's digital accounts when no plan is in place — the equivalent of 5 to 12 weeks of full-time work, almost all of which could be eliminated with basic advance planning.

Platform-Specific Statistics

• Facebook: Approximately 1.7 billion of Facebook's users will die before 2100 based on current mortality rates. The platform has over 30 million deceased users already and the number grows by approximately 8,000 per day.
• Gmail: Google processes tens of thousands of deceased account requests annually through its Next of Kin process, with the majority taking 3–12 weeks to resolve.
• Instagram: Instagram has no legacy contact feature and receives over 50,000 deceased account reports per year in the United States alone, according to data from Meta's transparency reports.
• PayPal: PayPal processes hundreds of deceased account claims per month through its Deceased Account Team. Unclaimed PayPal balances eventually become subject to state unclaimed property laws.
• LinkedIn: LinkedIn's Trust and Safety team processes thousands of deceased member requests annually, with an average resolution time of 10–14 business days.

What the Statistics Tell Us

The picture these statistics paint is consistent and clear: the scale of unplanned digital estates is enormous, growing rapidly, and disproportionately costly — both financially and emotionally — for the families left to manage them. The good news is that basic digital estate planning is not complex, does not require significant money, and takes a fraction of the time that an unmanaged digital estate costs families to sort out.

The most important statistic of all may be this one: people who have documented their digital accounts and communicated their wishes to their families report that their families spent an average of 12 to 15 hours managing their digital estates — compared to 200 to 500 hours for families with no plan. That is the difference a few hours of planning makes.

Start with our free 30-item digital estate checklist — the most practical first step for turning these statistics from a warning into a completed plan. For the legal framework, see our guide to what digital legacy planning involves and our complete beginner's guide.