R15 return code: Beneficiary or Account Holder (Other Than a Representative Payee) Deceased

R15 is the return reason code Beneficiary or Account Holder (Other Than a Representative Payee) Deceased. The beneficiary or account holder has died.

It is sent by the RDFI as a return entry: the original entry goes back to the ODFI with an addenda record carrying R15, and the ODFI passes the return on to the Originator.

• The account holder, or the beneficiary of the payments, has died.

Available to the ODFI by opening of business on the 2nd banking day after the settlement date of the original entry.

Banking days are the Federal Reserve’s business days: weekends and Fed holidays don’t count, so a holiday in the window pushes the deadline out by a day.

• Stop future entries and update your records.
• The date of death is in the return addenda record (positions 22–27). Federal benefit payments are also subject to the government’s reclamation rules.

A return is the original entry detail record (type 6) sent back with a return transaction code — 21 or 26 for a checking account, 31 or 36 for savings (21 and 31 return a credit, 26 and 36 a debit) — the original amount, and an addenda record of type 99 that carries the reason. The batch keeps the original entry’s SEC code.

To read a return file record by record, open the file in NACHA Navigator, a free sister site that parses NACHA files in your browser without uploading them.

The code table on this page is the one behind the REST API and the MCP server, so a script or an AI agent gets the same answer as JSON. No key and no account.

curl -s 'https://payopskit.com/api/v1/codes/R15?set=ach-return'

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "lookup_payment_code",
    "arguments": {
      "code": "R15",
      "set": "ach-return"
    }
  }
}

{
  "code": "R15",
  "set": "ach-return",
  "found": true,
  "matches": [
    {
      "set": "ach-return",
      "code": "R15",
      "name": "Beneficiary or Account Holder (Other Than a Representative Payee) Deceased",
      "description": "The beneficiary or account holder has died.",
      "details": {
        "category": "return",
        "timeframe": "Available to the ODFI by opening of business on the 2nd banking day after the settlement date of the original entry",
        "timeframeKind": "banking-days",
        "timeframeDays": 2,
        "timeframeFrom": "original-settlement",
        "account": "any",
        "accountNote": null,
        "writtenStatement": false,
        "initiatedBy": "RDFI",
        "note": null,
        "effectiveFrom": null,
        "upcomingChange": null,
        "caveat": "Federal government benefit payments are also subject to reclamation rules (31 CFR Part 210, the Green Book), which reach beyond the ACH return timeframe."
      }
    }
  ]
}

The deadline for a settlement date: GET /api/v1/ach/return-deadline?settlement_date=2026-11-25&code=R15 or the MCP tool ach_return_deadline.

• R14Representative Payee Deceased
• R02Account Closed

SEC codes involved: DNE.

All ACH return codes, R01 to R85