Questions and answers regarding the Life Certificate 2026

Deutsche Post AG's Renten Service regularly checks on behalf of your insurance provider that you continue to meet the requirements to receive payments (in accordance with section 119 of Book 6 of the German Social Security Code - SGB VI).

No. Either of the following two options is sufficient as proof of life:

Digital Proof of Life – conveniently completed online

or

Life Certificate – sent by letter mail to the Pension Service 

Country-specific bodies:

• Argentina Associacion Filantropica Israelita (AFI), Associacion Mutal Israelita de Argentina (AMIA), Deutsche Wohltätigkeitsgemeinschaft (DWG)

• Denmark Bund Deutscher Nordschleswiger (BDN)

• United Kingdom: Physicians, Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR), National branch of the Seliger-Gemeinde, German YMCA, German Welfare Council

• Israel Association of Israelis of Central European Origin (Irgun-Jeckes)

• Canada: Cummings Jewish Centre for Seniors (CJCS), E.P.A.S.A. (social service agency for Italian tradespeople)

• Paraguay: Freiwilliges Deutsches Sozialwerk (FDS - voluntary German social service)

• Peru: German-Peruvian benefit society, Mr. Andreas Mossier

• Philippines: Municipal/City Administration (Barangay)

• USA: German Society of the City of New York

In isolated cases, authorized institutions may refuse to certify the Life Certificate form sent by Renten Service. That is usually because it was not produced in the official language of the country in question. In this case, you can additionally download the form in the country-specific official language (26 languages available) and present it together with the form sent by Renten Service.

An overview of all available forms can be found at the online at https://www.rentenservice.de/LB/Formblatt

Please return the original Life Certificate form by letter mail to Renten Service by July 31, 2026. The form must be signed personally by you and certified by an authorized institution.

Deutsche Post AG

Niederlassung Renten Service

04078 Leipzig, GERMANY

Alternatively, you can complete the Digital Proof of Life procedure. It's fast and reliable. It also means you no longer have to return the completed Life Certificate form.

PLEASE NOTE: Submissions by e-mail and fax will not be accepted.

If you have not yet provided proof of life in 2026 – either through the Life Certificate form or the Digital Proof of Life process – you still have time until July 31, 2026, to do so.

Detailed information about the 2026 Digital Proof of Life option can be found online at www.rentenservice.de/DLN

No. Submissions by e-mail and fax will not be accepted.

You can request alternative access for the Digital Proof of Life process using our request form.

Link to request form

To request access, you need a valid e-mail address to which the alternative access data can be sent. As soon as you have received the access data, you can begin the identification process.

Alternatively, you can use the Life Certificate form. The 2026 Life Certificate form is available at: https://www.rentenservice.de/LB/Formblatt

We are technically networked with numerous countries in such a way that we do not require annual proof of life. 

If your pension adjustment notification does not include a proof of life request for 2025, you do not need to take any further action this year.

If you do not respond to the reminder by September 25, 2026, your pension payments will be suspended as of October 30. Pension payments will not resume until you submit a Life Certificate.

If you submit your Life Certificate to us in a timely fashion shortly thereafter, your payments can be quickly resumed and all outstanding payments will be transferred to you.

Renten Service will otherwise return the payment order for your pension to your insurance provider. Should resumption of payment be necessary after that, you must contact your insurance provider. The address of your pension insurance provider can be found on your pension notice or your pension adjustment notification.

If you, as the pension recipient, are unable to write and thus cannot complete the Life Certificate yourself,

• this must be confirmed in Section C1 of the Life Certificate

If the pension beneficiary is unable to speak to a competent authority in person for health reasons,

• this must be confirmed in Section C1 of the Life Certificate and

• the name of the person who visited the authorized institution on behalf of the pension beneficiary must be given in Section C2

We are sorry to hear that your loved one has passed away. We want to make sure that we don't add to your burden. If you or the funeral home has already informed us about the death of the pension beneficiary, you do not have do anything else. Your message about the passing of the pension beneficiary overlapped with the request for annual proof of life.

If you have not yet notified us, please fill out the global notification of change form ("Änderungsanzeige weltweit"). It can be found on the Print forms page of our website.

Please send the change notification to the following address:

Deutsche Post AG

Niederlassung Renten Service

13496 Berlin

Deutschland

You will find the form here: Chance Notification: Life Certificate

Alternatively, please fill out Section D of the Life Certificate form and send it to us with a copy of the death certificate.