Registering as an organ donor takes about two minutes online through your state’s donor registry. You can also sign up in person at your local motor vehicle department or, if you have an iPhone, through the Health app. Over 103,000 people are currently on the national transplant waiting list, and 13 people die each day waiting for a transplant, so every registration matters.
How to Register Online
The fastest way to register is through organdonor.gov/sign-up, which connects you directly to your state’s registry. Select your state from the drop-down menu or map, and you’ll be taken to the appropriate sign-up page. The form typically asks for your name, address, date of birth, and driver’s license or state ID number. Once submitted, your information enters a national computer system that organ procurement organizations can access.
If you ever want to update your preferences or remove yourself from the registry, you can do so through your state’s online portal at any time.
Signing Up at the DMV
Most people first encounter the organ donor question when applying for or renewing a driver’s license. The DMV will ask whether you’d like to register, and saying yes adds a donor designation to your license (typically a small heart or “DONOR” label). Your information is then sent electronically to your state’s donor registry, including your name, address, year of birth, and license number.
In California, for example, the DMV forwards your details to Donate Life California. From there, you can customize your registration to limit donation to specific organs or tissues, or specify whether your donation can be used for research in addition to transplants. Most states offer similar options through their registries. If you’re under 18, you can still register, but your parents or legal guardian will make the final donation decision.
What You Can Donate
Organ donation covers more than most people realize. The transplantable organs are the heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, intestine, and pancreas. A single organ donor can potentially save up to eight lives.
Tissue donation extends the impact even further. Transplantable tissues include corneas, skin, bone, cartilage, heart valves, blood vessels, and tendons. One tissue donor can help dozens of additional recipients, from burn patients receiving skin grafts to people with damaged corneas regaining their sight.
Who Can Register
Almost anyone can sign up regardless of age or health status. There is no upper age cutoff for donors. Older rules once excluded donors over 70, but those restrictions have been revised. Medical teams evaluate each potential donor individually at the time of death to determine which organs and tissues are viable.
Conditions that were once considered automatic disqualifiers have also been reconsidered. Donors who are HIV-positive or have hepatitis C are now classified as “medically complex donors,” and their organs can be transplanted into recipients who would benefit. Active cancers and certain infections may still rule out specific organs, but that determination happens case by case. The bottom line: don’t assume a medical condition disqualifies you. Register and let the medical team decide later what can be used.
What Happens After Death
Registering as a donor does not change your medical care while you’re alive. Donation only becomes relevant after death has been declared. For organ donation (as opposed to tissue donation), the donor is typically someone who has died from brain death: the irreversible loss of all brain function, including the brainstem. Doctors confirm this through a series of tests showing no response to pain, no cranial nerve reflexes, and no ability to breathe independently.
Your registration functions as legal consent. In most states, it is a legally binding first-person authorization, meaning your decision stands on its own and does not require approval from family members. That said, informing your family about your wishes ahead of time makes the process smoother during an already difficult moment. Organ procurement teams do communicate with families, and knowing the donor’s wishes were clearly expressed can ease that conversation significantly.
Costs and Funeral Concerns
Organ and tissue donation costs nothing to the donor’s family. The organ procurement organization and transplant recipients’ insurance cover all medical expenses related to the recovery of organs and tissues. Your family will never receive a bill for the donation itself.
A common concern is whether donation prevents an open-casket funeral. It does not. Surgical teams recover organs and tissues with the same care used in any operating room, and the body is closed and prepared for funeral services afterward. Clothing covers any incision sites, so there is no visible difference.
Living Donation Is a Separate Process
Everything above applies to donation after death. Living donation, where you give a kidney or a portion of your liver while you’re alive, works completely differently. There is no registry to join. Instead, the process starts at a transplant hospital.
If you want to donate to someone you know, ask that person to connect you with their transplant center. If you’d rather donate to a stranger, call a transplant hospital near you to discuss your options. Many hospitals will even test you confidentially without informing the potential recipient.
The evaluation is extensive and designed primarily to protect you. It includes blood tests, heart and lung screenings, imaging of the organ you’d donate, a psychosocial evaluation, and routine health checks. The transplant team will ask about your motivations, your support system during recovery, whether you can afford time away from work, and whether anyone is pressuring you. You’ll also be assigned an independent living donor advocate whose job is to look out solely for your interests throughout the process.
If you pass the evaluation, the final decision is entirely yours. It must be both informed and voluntary. Only about half of people in the U.S. are signed up as deceased donors, so living donation fills a critical gap for the thousands of patients who may otherwise wait years for a transplant.