Which Organs Can Be Donated, After Death and While Alive

The little heart on a driver’s license takes about four seconds to add at the counter. Most people who check the box never think about it again, and most never learn what the symbol actually commits them to: not a vague gesture, but a specific list of organs and tissues that surgeons can recover, preserve and place into another person’s body.

Ask a room of adults to name those organs and you will hear kidneys, heart, maybe liver, then silence. Ask what a living person can safely give and the guesses get shakier still. That gap matters, because the decision to donate is far more informed, and far easier for grieving families, when people understand what is on the table.

So here is the honest inventory: what can be donated after death, what a healthy adult can give while alive, what genuinely rules someone out, and where the evidence stops and the myths begin.

What are the organs that can be donated after death?

Eight solid organs can be recovered from a single deceased donor, which is where the widely quoted line that one donor can save up to eight lives comes from, a figure MedlinePlus and Mayo Clinic both use. Counted individually, they are the heart, two lungs, the liver, two kidneys, the pancreas and the intestines. Ask a search engine for ‘the seven organs’ and you will see the same list with the paired organs counted once.

Each behaves differently once blood flow stops. The heart and lungs tolerate the least time outside the body, so the logistics of matching, transport and surgery for those organs run on the tightest clock. Kidneys are the most forgiving and remain the most frequently transplanted organ worldwide, according to the WHO. The liver sits in between and is also the organ most often split between two recipients, typically an adult and a child, because liver tissue regenerates.

The pancreas is usually transplanted alongside a kidney for people whose diabetes has damaged both, though it can also be processed for its insulin-producing islet cells. Intestinal transplants are rare and reserved for people who can no longer absorb nutrition through their own gut.

Newer categories extend the list. Hands, arms, faces and the uterus are grouped as vascularized composite allografts, and a small number of programs recover them from deceased donors with explicit family consent. These are not part of standard registration in most places; they require a separate conversation, which is one reason the registry alone does not capture everything a family may be asked.

What organs can you donate while you're still alive?

Living donation rests on a simple anatomical fact: some organs come in pairs, and some regrow. A healthy adult has two kidneys but needs only one to filter blood adequately, which is why the kidney accounts for the overwhelming majority of living donations in the United States, per the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

The liver is the second option. A surgeon removes a segment, often the right lobe for an adult recipient or a smaller left segment for a child, and both the remaining portion in the donor and the transplanted piece grow back toward normal size over the following months, as Cleveland Clinic describes. This is the closest medicine comes to sharing an organ.

Everything else is uncommon. A lobe of one lung can be donated, usually two donors each giving a lobe to a single recipient, but the operation is major and offered by only a handful of centers. Portions of the pancreas and intestine have been donated by living people, though rarely enough that most transplant teams would consider them exceptional rather than routine. Living uterus donation exists in research and specialized programs.

Then there are the donations people forget to count. Blood, platelets and plasma are living donations. So are bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cells. Even bone and skin removed during certain routine surgeries can be donated with consent. None of these carry the surgical weight of a kidney, but all of them reach a patient who needs them.

Which organ cannot be donated?

The brain cannot be donated, and neither can the spinal cord. The reasons are not a matter of storage or surgical skill. The brain is where a person’s memory, identity and consciousness reside, and its billions of connections cannot be severed, moved and reconnected in another body. No transplant program anywhere lists it, and none is working toward it.

The whole eye is also not transplanted. What is transplanted is the cornea, the clear dome at the front, which can restore sight for people whose corneas have clouded or scarred. Behind it, the retina and optic nerve are extensions of the brain and share its limitations.

Several organs are simply not needed. The gallbladder, spleen and appendix are not transplanted because people live well without them and there is no shortage-driven demand. Other structures, such as the stomach, have been transplanted only as part of multi-organ intestinal procedures rather than on their own.

There is a practical category too: organs that could in theory be transplanted but are ruled out for a specific donor because of disease. A liver scarred by heavy alcohol use, a heart weakened by longstanding failure or kidneys damaged by advanced diabetes may be declined even when consent is in place. That decision is made organ by organ at the time of death, which is why registering is worthwhile even for people who assume some of their organs would not qualify.

Organ donation at a glance: what comes from whom

The two routes to donation overlap less than most people expect. The chart below sets out where each organ typically comes from, and it is worth reading the last column closely, because it reflects clinical reality rather than theoretical possibility.

Organ	Deceased donation	Living donation	Notes
Kidney	Yes	Yes, common	Most transplanted organ worldwide (WHO); one kidney is sufficient for a healthy donor
Liver	Yes	Yes, segment	Regenerates in donor and recipient; often split between two recipients
Heart	Yes	No	Shortest tolerance outside the body
Lungs	Yes	Rare, single lobe	Living lobar donation offered at few centers
Pancreas	Yes	Rare, partial	Often transplanted with a kidney; islet cells can be isolated
Intestine	Yes	Rare, partial	Reserved for intestinal failure
Uterus	Yes, select programs	Yes, select programs	Specialized and still emerging
Hands, face	Yes, with specific consent	No	Not covered by standard registration
Cornea	Yes	No	Tissue, not organ; restores sight
Bone marrow, stem cells, blood	No	Yes, common	Non-surgical or minor procedure

Two patterns stand out. Living donation is realistically a kidney or liver decision for most people who consider it. Deceased donation, by contrast, is where the heart, lungs and the full range of tissues come from, which means a registered decision at death reaches patients that no living donor can.

What excludes you from organ donation?

Far less than people assume. There is no upper age limit for deceased donation in US or UK practice, and organs from donors in their seventies and eighties are transplanted every year, as Mayo Clinic notes. What matters is the condition of the specific organ, not the birth year on the chart.

Genuine exclusions are narrower than folklore suggests. An active cancer that has spread beyond its original site is a common reason to decline, because tumor cells can travel with the organ into a recipient whose immune system will be deliberately suppressed. Certain uncontrolled, whole-body infections at the time of death can also rule out donation. Some rare neurodegenerative diseases with the potential for transmission are treated as absolute barriers.

Conditions that once disqualified donors often no longer do. Hepatitis B or C is not an automatic bar; organs may be matched to recipients who already carry the same virus or who can be treated after transplant. Donation between people living with HIV is now legal in the United States under specific research and clinical frameworks. Diabetes, high blood pressure and a history of smoking are evaluated organ by organ rather than as blanket exclusions.

The practical lesson is that self-disqualification is the biggest avoidable loss. People who decide their organs would be ‘too old’ or ‘too damaged’ and skip registration take that decision away from the transplant professionals whose job is to make it with the actual medical facts in hand.

Can you be a living donor with a health condition?

Living donation is judged by a stricter standard than deceased donation, and rightly so, because the donor is a healthy person undergoing surgery they do not medically need. The evaluation exists to protect that person first.

For kidney donation, the NIDDK describes a workup that includes blood and urine tests, imaging of the kidneys and their blood vessels, a cardiovascular assessment, cancer screening appropriate to age, and a psychosocial evaluation to confirm the decision is voluntary and understood. Conditions that commonly stop the process include existing kidney disease, diabetes, poorly controlled blood pressure, active cancer, significant heart or lung disease, and current substance use disorder. Obesity is assessed in context rather than as a single cutoff, because it raises both surgical risk and the donor’s own long-term risk of kidney disease.

Liver donation adds its own screening: liver function tests, imaging to map blood vessels and bile ducts, and a check for fatty liver, which can compromise both the donated segment and the donor’s regrowth.

What surprises many candidates is how often a chronic condition that is well managed is not a barrier, while a seemingly minor finding such as a slightly reduced kidney filtration rate or a small kidney stone is. Transplant teams are looking decades ahead. A person in their thirties who donates a kidney must live with one for the rest of their life, and the team’s job is to be confident that one will be enough.

How does deceased organ donation actually work?

Deceased donation happens under two medical circumstances, and understanding the difference dispels most of the anxiety around it.

The first is brain death. This is a legal and medical determination that all brain function, including the brainstem that drives breathing, has permanently stopped. It is diagnosed through a defined series of clinical examinations, typically repeated and conducted by physicians who are not part of the transplant team, a separation that Mayo Clinic highlights as a safeguard. A ventilator keeps oxygen flowing to the organs, which is why a person who has died in this way can still have a beating heart and warm skin. That is the setting in which hearts and lungs are most often recovered.

The second is donation after circulatory death. Here a person with a devastating, non-survivable injury is not brain dead, but the family and medical team have decided to withdraw life support. Once the heart stops and death is declared, there is a mandatory waiting period before recovery begins. Kidneys, liver and increasingly lungs and hearts are recovered this way with newer preservation techniques.

In both cases the sequence is the same in principle: death is declared first, by clinicians whose only responsibility is the patient in front of them; the organ procurement organization is contacted; the registry is checked and the family is approached; and only then does a transplant team become involved. The order is not a courtesy. It is the ethical architecture of the entire system.

Why living kidney donation gets so much attention from transplant teams

If there is one point where the evidence is unusually clear, it is this: a kidney from a living donor tends to work better and last longer than one from a deceased donor. The NIDDK states this plainly, and the reasons are mechanical rather than mysterious.

A living donor’s kidney is removed from a healthy, well-hydrated person in a planned operation and placed into the recipient within hours, often in an adjacent operating room. It never endures the physiological storm of a critical illness or the cold storage time that deceased-donor kidneys face. The recipient can also be prepared in advance, sometimes receiving the transplant before ever needing dialysis, which the NIDDK notes is associated with better outcomes than transplanting after years on treatment.

There is a second, quieter benefit. Every living donation removes one person from a waiting list that Cleveland Clinic puts at more than 100,000 people in the United States, and it does so without drawing on the limited pool of deceased-donor organs. Paired exchange programs amplify this: a donor whose blood type does not match their intended recipient can give to a stranger in another incompatible pair, and the chain of swaps can run through several transplants.

None of this makes living donation an obligation, and no reputable program frames it that way. But it does explain why, when a family member with kidney failure asks whether anyone might be tested, the medical case for saying yes is stronger than for almost any other elective act a healthy person can perform.

What is recovery like after donating a kidney or part of a liver?

Kidney removal is now almost always laparoscopic, using several small incisions and a camera rather than a long flank cut. The NIDDK describes a hospital stay of a few days and a return to most normal activity within several weeks, with heavy lifting restricted for longer while the abdominal wall heals. Pain is real in the first days and fades quickly for most donors; fatigue lingers longer than people expect.

Liver donation is a bigger operation. The incision is larger, the hospital stay longer, and full recovery is measured in months rather than weeks, as Cleveland Clinic outlines. The remaining liver begins regrowing almost immediately and approaches its previous volume over the following months, though the shape is never quite the same.

Long-term, the picture for kidney donors is reassuring but not risk-free. The remaining kidney enlarges and takes over most of the filtering work of two. Donors have a slightly higher lifetime chance of developing high blood pressure and a small increase in the risk of kidney failure compared with equally healthy people who did not donate, which is why the NIDDK recommends lifelong annual checks of blood pressure, kidney function and urine protein. Pregnancy after donation is possible, with a modestly increased risk of a pregnancy-related blood pressure disorder that obstetricians should know about in advance.

Donors should also understand the emotional arc. Most report satisfaction; a minority experience low mood, especially if the recipient’s transplant fails. Good programs screen for this and offer follow-up, and donors should feel free to ask what that support looks like before surgery.

When to seek care: red flags for living donors and their families

A donor’s recovery should follow a steady, predictable curve. Anything that breaks that curve deserves a phone call, and some signs need same-day attention.

Seek urgent care for a fever with chills, worsening rather than easing abdominal pain, redness, warmth or discharge at an incision, persistent vomiting, or a swollen, painful calf, which can signal a clot. Shortness of breath, chest pain or coughing up blood after any major surgery can indicate a clot that has traveled to the lungs and is an emergency. For kidney donors, a sharp drop in urine output, blood in the urine or sudden swelling of the legs and face warrants prompt evaluation. Liver donors should report yellowing of the skin or eyes, dark urine, pale stools or confusion, all of which can point to a problem with the regenerating liver or the bile ducts.

Beyond the surgical window, any donor who develops persistent high blood pressure, is prescribed a medicine that affects the kidneys, or becomes pregnant should tell the treating clinician that they have a single kidney or a partial liver. It changes how some decisions are made.

Families of deceased donors have a different kind of need. Grief compounded by a hospital conversation about donation can leave people replaying the decision for months. Organ procurement organizations offer aftercare and, in many cases, the option of anonymous correspondence with recipients. If grief is interfering with sleep, work or relationships weeks later, that is a reason to talk to a primary care clinician, not a sign of weakness.

Does organ donation affect funerals, medical care or cost money?

Three fears keep coming up in surveys, and all three dissolve under scrutiny.

The first is that doctors will try less hard to save a registered donor. The structure described earlier answers this: the clinicians treating a critically ill patient are not the transplant team, do not check registry status while providing care, and declare death by criteria that have nothing to do with donation. Mayo Clinic lists this as the leading myth for good reason; it is common and it is unfounded.

The second is that donation rules out an open-casket funeral. It does not. Organs are recovered through surgical incisions that are closed and covered by clothing, and tissue recovery is done with the same care. Funeral homes routinely handle donors without any visible difference, and the timing of a funeral is rarely affected by more than a day.

The third is cost. In the United States, neither the deceased donor’s family nor the living donor pays for the costs of evaluation, surgery and hospital care related to donation; those are covered by the recipient’s insurance or the transplant program, as MedlinePlus explains. Living donors may face indirect costs such as lost wages or travel, and there are programs designed to offset some of these. Buying or selling organs is illegal in the United States and in virtually every country, a position the WHO has held for decades on the grounds that payment exploits the poor and undermines trust in the system.

How do you register, and why is telling your family the step that matters most?

Registration takes minutes: through a state motor vehicle office, an online national or state registry, or in some states through a health app. A registered decision is legally binding in most US states, meaning the hospital will proceed based on that record.

Here is the part that gets less attention and, in my view, deserves more. In practice, the family is still in the room. They are asked about medical and social history, about tissue and about any newer donation categories the registry does not cover. A family that already knows what their relative wanted can answer those questions in minutes, at the worst moment of their lives, without second-guessing. A family that is guessing may hesitate, and hesitation in a process measured in hours can mean an organ is lost.

So say it out loud. Tell the people who would be at your bedside that you have registered and why. If you have views about specific organs, hands or face donation, or research use, write them down. If you would consider living donation for a relative someday, mention that too; people with kidney failure often never ask because they cannot bear to.

Everything in this article points toward one conclusion: the medical and ethical case for donation is strong, the exclusions are few, and the biggest gap in the system is not technology or law but ordinary conversations that never happened. Have yours this week.

Frequently asked questions

What are the 7 organs that can be donated?

The seven organ types are the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas and intestines, with lungs and kidneys counted as pairs, which brings the individual total to eight. Hands, faces and the uterus can also be transplanted in specialized programs but are not part of standard registration. Tissues such as corneas, skin, bone, heart valves and tendons are donated separately and can help many additional patients.

Which organ cannot be donated?

The brain cannot be donated because its neural connections cannot be severed and rejoined in another person, and it is the seat of identity. The spinal cord shares this limitation. The whole eye is not transplanted either; only the cornea is. Organs such as the gallbladder, spleen and appendix are not transplanted because people live normally without them and there is no medical demand.

What organs can you donate while you're still alive?

A healthy adult can donate one kidney or a segment of the liver, which regrows in both donor and recipient over the following months. Less commonly, a lobe of one lung, part of the pancreas or part of the intestine can be donated, but only at a few specialized centers. Blood, platelets, plasma, bone marrow and stem cells are also living donations that require no major surgery.

What excludes you from organ donation?

Active cancer that has spread, certain uncontrolled whole-body infections at death, and a few rare transmissible brain diseases are the main exclusions for deceased donation. Age is not one; there is no upper limit. Diabetes, high blood pressure, hepatitis and smoking history are assessed organ by organ. Living donors face stricter screening and may be declined for kidney disease, diabetes, uncontrolled blood pressure or significant heart or lung disease.

Can you donate organs if you have diabetes or high blood pressure?

Often, yes, for deceased donation. Transplant teams evaluate each organ’s actual condition rather than applying blanket rules, and a person with well-managed diabetes may still have a transplantable liver, lungs or corneas even if the kidneys are declined. For living kidney donation, diabetes is usually a barrier and uncontrolled blood pressure is as well, because both raise the donor’s own long-term risk of kidney disease.

Is there an age limit for organ donation?

No. Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom sets an upper age limit for deceased organ donation, and organs from donors in their seventies and eighties are transplanted every year, as Mayo Clinic notes. Suitability depends on organ function at the time of death. Living donation programs do set their own age criteria, usually requiring donors to be adults and screening older candidates more carefully.

How long can a donated organ survive outside the body?

It varies widely by organ. Hearts and lungs tolerate the shortest time and must be transplanted within hours, which is why matching and transport for them run on the tightest schedule. Kidneys are the most forgiving and can be preserved longest, with the liver and pancreas in between. Newer perfusion technologies that keep organs supplied with oxygenated fluid are extending these windows in some programs.

Does organ donation cost the donor or their family anything?

No. In the United States, the costs of evaluation, surgery and hospital care related to donation are covered by the recipient’s insurance or the transplant program, according to MedlinePlus, and a deceased donor’s family is never billed for donation. Living donors may have indirect expenses such as travel or lost wages, and assistance programs exist to help offset them. Selling organs is illegal in the United States and nearly every country.

Can you still have an open-casket funeral after donating?

Yes. Organs and tissues are recovered through surgical incisions that are closed and covered by clothing, and the process is carried out with the same respect as any operation. Funeral homes routinely care for donors without visible difference, and the timing of services is rarely delayed by more than a day. Families can specify limits on what is donated if that eases their concerns.

What happens to a living kidney donor's remaining kidney?

The remaining kidney enlarges and increases its filtering capacity, taking over most of the work previously shared by two. The NIDDK notes donors have a small increase in lifetime risk of high blood pressure and kidney failure compared with similarly healthy non-donors, which is why annual checks of blood pressure, kidney function and urine protein are recommended for life. Most donors live normally with one kidney.

References

• MedlinePlus: Organ Donation
• Cleveland Clinic: Organ Donation and Transplantation
• NIDDK (NIH): Kidney Transplant
• WHO: Transplantation

This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult a qualified doctor about your individual situation.