Delaware: how to sign your advance directive

What Delaware asks

What you need to sign in Delaware

Instruments

A power of attorney for health care, a health-care instruction, or both — one chapter, and they "may be in the same record" (§2502(1), §2507(d)). A separate advance mental health-care directive may address mental health care only (§2509)

Form

Illustrative — "The following form may be used to create an advance health-care directive" (§2511)

Execution

One adult witness, no notary (§2508(d)). The witness is present if physically present, by real-time audio and visual transmission, or by audio connection alone where your identity is personally known or authenticated by accurate answers (§2508(e)). A bare health-care instruction has no execution formality — §2508(d) governs a power of attorney, and the form states the scope plainly: "You need a witness if you are using this form to name an Agent."

May not witness

The agent; the agent's spouse, domestic partner or cohabitant; and, if you reside or are receiving care in a nursing home or long-term care facility, the owner, operator, employee or contractor of it (§2508(d))

May not be your agent

A court finding that the agent poses a danger to your well-being, with or without a protection-from-abuse order; an owner, operator, employee or contractor of a nursing home or long-term care facility where you reside or receive care, unless a family member, cohabitant or descendant of a cohabitant; a pending protection-from-abuse petition; a protection-from-abuse order; a civil or criminal order prohibiting or limiting contact (§2508(b))

Copy rule

A copy equals the original — electronic included. "A physical or electronic copy of an advance health-care directive, revocation of an advance health-care directive, or appointment, designation, or disqualification of a surrogate has the same effect as the original." (§2525(a)). An individual may create a certified physical copy of an electronic directive by affirming under penalty of perjury that it is complete and accurate (§2525(b))

Delivery

No — the directive does not wait on delivery to a clinician to operate. §2516(b): "A person may assume without inquiry that an advance health-care directive is genuine, valid, and still in effect, and may implement and rely on it, unless the person has good cause to believe the directive is invalid or has been revoked." A professional informed of a directive must document it and "request a copy and, on receipt, cause the copy to be included in the individual's medical record" (§2521(d)(2))

Who decides

One qualified examiner — with a second finding if you object. The finding must follow a contemporaneous examination by a physician, psychologist, physician associate, advanced practice registered nurse or licensed clinical social worker; a responsible health-care professional may make it only in a narrow emergency where none of those is reasonably available (§2504(b)(1)). Your family members, your cohabitant, your surrogate and their relatives may not make the finding (§2504(c)). You may object — orally, in a record, or by any act clearly indicating objection — and the finding must then be confirmed by a second, different qualified person (§2505(c), (d)). A second finding cannot be used to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment you are requesting (§2505(e))

Trigger overridable

The statute sets the commencement. §2518(a): the power of an agent or default surrogate "commences when the individual is found under §2504(b) of this title or by a court to lack capacity." The one commencement the document may vary is the agent's power to obtain and share health information (§2518(c))

Registry

None

Age

"Individual" means an adult or emancipated minor (§2502(16)); no departure from 18 recorded

Reciprocity

Yes — a directive created outside Delaware is valid if it complies with the law of the state named in it or the state where it was created, or with this chapter (§2516(a)); a directive created before 30 September 2025 is valid if it complied, when created, with the law of the state where it was created (§2529(a))

Pregnancy

None found in ch. 25

Revocation

By any act clearly indicating an intent to revoke, "including an oral statement to a health-care professional" (§2515(b)). A spouse's or domestic partner's appointment as agent is revoked on the filing of a petition for annulment, divorce, dissolution, legal separation or termination — and also on the decree, on a recorded agreement to a legal separation, or after desertion for more than one year — unless the directive provides otherwise (§2515(d))

Oral instructions

Yes — "a direction, whether or not in a record" (§2502(14)), and a provider must document the instruction and its date in the medical record (§2507(b))

Uninitialled box

On the optional form the two boxes cut opposite ways. An optional power left unmarked withholds the power: "If I do not mark or initial this choice, my Agent MAY NOT admit me as a voluntary patient to this type of facility." A donation-purpose box left unmarked grants everything: "If you do not mark or initial any of the purposes below, your donation can be used for all of them." (§2511, Parts C and D)

Provider may not require

Yes — §2524(a)(5): a person may not "[r]equire or prohibit the creation or revocation of an advance health-care directive as a condition for providing health care", with statutory damages of $25,000 or actual damages, whichever is greater

Carried device

Nothing for the directive. No bracelet, necklace, card or medallion provision anywhere in ch. 25

Citation

16 Del. C. ch. 25

Read from the enacted statute, 2026-09-18.