No TOD deed on the books today
Rhode Island has not adopted the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act or any equivalent statute. No authority for this kind of deed exists in R.I. Gen. Laws Title 34 (Property) or Title 33 (Probate Practice and Procedure). Real property in Rhode Island has to pass through probate, a non-probate ownership structure like joint tenancy or tenancy by the entirety, or a trust-based transfer — there's no separate beneficiary-designation deed option available yet.
2026: the closest attempt yet
The 2026 legislative session saw two companion URPTODA bills introduced. House bill H 7284, introduced January 23, 2026, was held by the House Judiciary Committee for further study on March 26, 2026 — effectively stalling in committee. Its Senate companion, S 2050, had a genuinely different trajectory: introduced January 9, 2026, the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended it for passage on June 2, 2026, and the full Senate actually passed it, as amended, on June 9, 2026 — its most recently recorded action. This is the furthest a Rhode Island TOD deed bill has advanced to date, though it would still need to pass the House and be signed before becoming law.
A history of near-misses
This isn't Rhode Island's first attempt. Senate bill S 2027 passed the Senate in March 2024 and was referred to House Judiciary on March 22, 2024, where it died with no further action. A 2025 bill, S 0141, introduced by Senator Euer, was referred to Senate Judiciary on January 31, 2025, with no further recorded action after that. Companion bills have also been introduced in earlier sessions, including 2019 and 2020, without becoming law. Taken together, this pattern shows sustained, recurring legislative interest in creating a Rhode Island TOD deed, even though none of these attempts has yet succeeded all the way through to enactment.
Why it keeps almost happening
The repeated reintroduction of essentially the same bill across multiple sessions, with genuine committee-level and now full-chamber support in 2026, suggests Rhode Island may eventually join the large majority of states that have already adopted this kind of deed. Anyone with Rhode Island real estate should watch for developments in a future legislative session, since a bill that has already cleared one full chamber has real momentum going into its next attempt.
Other states' deeds don't reach Rhode Island property
It's worth being direct about a common point of confusion: real property transfers are governed by the law of the state where the property is actually located. A TOD deed signed and recorded under another state's statute has no legal effect on real estate located in Rhode Island — someone who owns property in both Rhode Island and a state that does authorize TOD deeds needs a separate plan specifically for the Rhode Island property.
What Rhode Island owners use in the meantime
Without a TOD deed, Rhode Island owners rely on the tools the state does recognize: joint tenancy with right of survivorship or tenancy by the entirety for married couples, or a revocable living trust. Each of these keeps real estate out of probate, though none offers quite the same simplicity, or the same degree of continued individual control, as a straightforward beneficiary-designation deed would.