Florida: Living Will and Advance Health-Care Instruction Requirements

Florida's Life-Prolonging Procedure Act governs the treatment-instruction part
of chapter 765. A living will may stand alone even though Florida also permits
the same document to appoint a health-care surrogate. This page addresses the
adult's own instruction, not the agent appointment.

Requirements one by one

Florida recognizes both written and oral living wills

§ 765.101 defines a living will as either a witnessed written
document or a witnessed oral statement about life-prolonging procedures. For
the written route, § 765.302 requires the adult's signature in the presence of
two subscribing witnesses. At least one witness must be neither the adult's
spouse nor a blood relative.

If the adult is physically unable to sign, one witness may subscribe the
adult's signature, but only in the adult's presence and at the adult's
direction. The living-will statute supplies no notary substitute and no added
facility witness. It calls an oral statement "witnessed" without stating the
number or qualifications for that oral route.

Execution and operation are separate

Any competent adult may make a living will at any time. The paper or statement
does not control merely because it was validly made. § 765.304
requires three findings before the primary physician proceeds: no reasonable
medical probability that the adult will recover capacity; a terminal
condition, end-stage condition, or persistent vegetative state; and
satisfaction of the instruction's oral or written limits.

§ 765.306 adds the examination rule. The primary physician and at
least one consulting physician separately examine the patient, and each signs
documented findings in the medical record before life-prolonging procedures
may be withheld or withdrawn.

Treatment choices include artificial sustenance and hydration

The adult may direct providing, withholding, or withdrawing life-prolonging
procedures. Section 765.101(12) includes artificially provided sustenance
and hydration in that term. It excludes medication or procedures considered
necessary for comfort care or pain relief.

The printed § 765.303 form is expressly optional. Its condition choices track
terminal condition, end-stage condition, and persistent vegetative state, and
its treatment language preserves comfort care and medication or procedures
needed to alleviate pain.

The pregnancy provision limits surrogate or proxy consent

Chapter 765 states no separate pregnancy bar on the principal's own living-
will instruction. § 765.113 instead says a surrogate or proxy may
not consent to withholding or withdrawing life-prolonging procedures from a
pregnant patient "prior to viability" unless the principal expressly delegated
that authority to the surrogate in writing or the surrogate or proxy obtained
court approval.

The enacted sentence still says viability is defined in § 390.0111(4), but the
current cross-reference does not lead to a definition. The current definition
is in § 390.011(15): viability is the stage when fetal life is sustainable
outside the womb through standard medical measures. This page reports both the
living-will chapter's actual text and the present location of the definition.

§ 765.309 separately provides that chapter 765 does not authorize
mercy killing, euthanasia, or an affirmative or deliberate act or omission to
end life other than permitting the natural process of dying.

Revocation requires competence and communication

Under § 765.104, a competent principal may amend or revoke at any time by a
signed and dated writing; directed physical cancellation or destruction; an
oral expression; or a later advance directive that is materially different.
The change becomes effective when communicated to the surrogate, health-care
provider, or health-care facility.

Chapter 765 creates no state directive registry and states no special medical-
record notation formula for a revocation.

A refusing provider has a timed transfer route

For a moral or ethical refusal, § 765.1105(2) gives the provider or facility
seven days to transfer the patient. If no transfer occurs, it must carry out
the patient's wishes unless the expedited-review section applies.

A living will executed under § 765.302 is rebuttable clear-and-convincing
evidence of the adult's wishes. Under § 765.112, a directive executed in
another state in compliance with that state's law or Florida law is validly
executed for chapter 765.

What trips people up

• The oral route is real but underspecified. The definition recognizes a
  witnessed oral statement, while the detailed two-witness execution rule is
  written for the signed document.
• The statutory form is optional. Section 765.303 says it “may, BUT NEED
  NOT,” be used. A different instrument still must satisfy the governing rule.
• The pregnancy clause is about surrogate or proxy consent. It is not
  written as a categorical invalidation of every principal-made living will.
• The viability citation is stale. Section 765.113(2) names
  § 390.0111(4), but the live definition appears in § 390.011(15).

Common questions

Must a Florida living will be notarized?

No notary requirement or notary alternative appears in § 765.302. The written
route uses two subscribing witnesses, with at least one neither spouse nor
blood relative.

May I address artificial nutrition and hydration?

Yes. Section 765.101(12) includes artificially provided sustenance and
hydration within “life-prolonging procedure,” while excluding comfort care and
pain-alleviating medication or procedures.

Can I revoke orally?

Yes, while competent. Section 765.104 includes an oral expression among the
methods, and the revocation becomes effective when communicated to the named
recipient in the statute.

Is a directive from another state recognized?

Florida treats it as validly executed if it complied with the law of the state
where it was executed or with Florida law.

Statutes and sources

• Fla. Stat. §§ 765.101 and 765.301-.309 — definitions, living-will form,
  execution, medical trigger, physician findings, treatment choices, and legal
  boundary. Official chapter 765
  (accessed 2026-07-30).
• Fla. Stat. § 765.104 — amendment, revocation methods, competence, and
  communication. Official chapter 765
  (accessed 2026-07-30).
• Fla. Stat. §§ 765.1105, 765.112, and 765.113 — refusal and transfer,
  out-of-state execution, and the surrogate/proxy pregnancy restriction.
  Official chapter 765
  (accessed 2026-07-30).
• Fla. Stat. § 390.011(15) — current viability definition. Official
  chapter 390
  (accessed 2026-07-30).