Maryland Living Will PDF: Download, Sign, and Share the Form

The Maryland living will PDF is available as a free fillable form from the Maryland Department of Health at health.maryland.gov, last updated in May 2024 by the Office of the Attorney General.¹ Maryland bundles the living will and health care power of attorney into a single document called the advance directive, and you can complete it at home with two witnesses. No notary is required.²

Where to Download the Official PDF

The form is hosted on the Maryland Department of Health’s Advance Directive Program page.³ Its official title is “Maryland Advance Directive: Planning for Future Health Care Decisions.” The PDF is fillable, so you can type your answers directly into the file before printing, which keeps your entries legible for medical staff who may need to read the document quickly.

You do not have to complete every section for the form to be valid. Maryland law lets you fill out just Part I (naming a health care agent), just Part II (writing down your treatment preferences), or both.⁴ If you only want to appoint someone to speak for you, Part I alone will do the job.

What’s Inside the Form

The document has three parts, plus an optional after-death companion form.

Part I: Your Health Care Agent

This is where you name the person who will make medical decisions for you if you cannot make them yourself. You’ll list their full legal name, address, and phone numbers, and you can also name one or more backup agents in case your first choice is unavailable.⁴ Your agent only steps in when you lose the ability to decide for yourself. As long as you’re conscious and competent, you stay in charge.

Part I also contains an optional pregnancy section for women of child-bearing years, where you can give your agent specific instructions about handling decisions if you are pregnant.¹

Part II: Treatment Preferences

Part II is the living will portion. It asks you to state your preferences for life-sustaining treatment in three medical scenarios that Maryland law defines separately: a terminal condition, a persistent vegetative state, and an end-stage condition.⁴

Terminal condition is an incurable condition that makes death imminent regardless of treatment.
Persistent vegetative state is a loss of consciousness with no behavioral evidence of awareness, from which recovery is not expected.
End-stage condition is an advanced, irreversible condition that has caused complete physical dependency, where further treatment would be medically ineffective.

The distinctions matter. An end-stage condition might describe advanced dementia or severe organ failure, where the person is fully dependent on others without necessarily being close to death.⁵ You may want different care in each scenario, so read the choices carefully before checking a box. Part II has its own optional pregnancy section as well.

Part III: Signatures

Part III is where you and your two witnesses sign. The specifics are covered in the next section.

After My Death (Optional)

The PDF includes a separate optional form covering organ donation, whole-body donation for research, disposition of remains, and funeral arrangements.¹ It has its own signature and witness section.

How to Sign It So It’s Valid

You must sign and date the directive in front of two witnesses, who also sign. No notary is needed.² You can finish the whole process at your kitchen table, in a hospital room, or in your doctor’s office without paying a fee or scheduling anything.

Maryland places two restrictions on witnesses:

Your health care agent cannot be a witness.
At least one of your two witnesses must not be entitled to any part of your estate or any financial benefit from your death.

Beyond those two rules, any competent adult can witness, including doctors, nurses, or other staff at a health care facility.² The financial-interest rule catches people off guard. If your two witnesses are your spouse and your adult child, and both stand to inherit, the document could be challenged. Ask a neighbor, coworker, or friend with no stake in your estate to serve as one of the two.

Maryland also recognizes electronic advance directives and electronic signatures, and it permits witnesses to be in your “electronic presence” through video technology.⁶ In-person signing is still the simplest route.

Sharing and Storing Your Completed Directive

A signed directive that nobody can find in a crisis does not help you. Give copies to your primary care physician for your medical record, to your health care agent, and to any hospital where you regularly receive care. There is no court or government office to file it with.

Maryland supports electronic storage through MyDirectives.com, which has been granted state recognition by the Maryland Health Care Commission.⁷ The Department of Health directs residents to this platform, which lets providers across different health systems access your directive.⁸ Electronic storage is especially useful if you end up in an emergency room away from your regular providers.

Keep a written list of everyone who has a copy. If you later update or revoke the directive, that list is your notification checklist.

Changing or Revoking Your Directive

You can revoke a Maryland advance directive at any time. The methods are: signing and dating a written revocation, physically destroying the document, telling a health care practitioner out loud that you’re revoking it, or simply executing a new directive that replaces the old one.⁹ Revocation does not require witnesses or a notary. If you revoke orally, the practitioner and a witness to that conversation must note it in your medical record.

After any change, notify everyone who has an old copy and send them the new version. An outdated directive circulating through a hospital records system is a common source of confusion.

When an Advance Directive Is Not Enough: MOLST

An advance directive is a planning document. If you are seriously ill or frail, Maryland has a second form called MOLST (Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment).¹⁰ MOLST is a medical order signed by your doctor, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant. Emergency medical technicians can follow a MOLST. They cannot follow an advance directive.

MOLST travels with you between hospitals, rehab facilities, assisted living, and home, and it spells out specific orders about CPR, ventilation, and other interventions in language first responders can act on immediately.¹⁰ It does not replace your advance directive. The two work together: your directive names your agent and states your values, while MOLST translates those values into orders that fit your current condition.

What Happens If You Have No Advance Directive

Without a directive, Maryland law sets a default hierarchy of who decides for you if you lose capacity. In priority order:

A court-appointed guardian, if one exists.
Spouse or domestic partner.
Adult child.
Parent.
Adult sibling.
A friend or other relative who meets additional statutory requirements.

Someone in a lower category can only step in if everyone above them is unavailable.¹¹ This is where family disputes tend to erupt. If you have an estranged spouse, adult children who disagree with each other, or a close friend who knows your values better than a distant relative, the statutory order may not match what you would want. Completing the directive lets you override the default.

Traveling or Splitting Time Between States

A Maryland advance directive may not automatically be honored in another state. Some states recognize out-of-state directives, some require compliance with their own rules, and some have no clear position. If you spend significant time in another state, complete that state’s advance directive form as well so there is no ambiguity if you are hospitalized away from home.

1
Office of the Attorney General. Maryland Advance Directive: Planning for Future Health Care Decisions
2
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Health-General 5-602 – Procedure for Making Advance Directive
3
Maryland Department of Health. Maryland Advance Directive Program – Individual Resources
4
New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. Maryland Code Health General 5-603 – Advance Directives Form
5
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Health-General 5-601 – Definitions
6
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Health-General 5-602 – Advance Directives
7
Maryland Health Care Commission. Electronic Advance Directives
8
Maryland Department of Health. Maryland Advance Directive Program
9
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Health-General 5-604 – Revocation of an Advance Directive
10
Maryland MOLST. Maryland MOLST
11
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Health-General 5-605