Over the last decades, great concern has arisen along with increasing longevity about health at older ages and the sustainability of health systems in ageing countries. It is indeed well-known that age is a strong determinant of poor health. Many studies, however, have shown that proximity to death is more important than age as a predictor of both health care expenditures (Zweifel et al. 1999; Werblow et al. 2007) and health care service use (Forma et al. 2009, 2011; Weaver et al. 2009), suggesting that most severe health conditions are concentrated at the end of life. Despite that, only few studies have analysed the health status of older people according to the number of years remaining before death. This work fills this gap by using data from the so-called “New Italian Longitudinal study” - i.e. the mortality follow-up of the health interview survey carried out by the National Institute of Statistics in the years 1999-2000 - to investigate the health-related quality of life of older Italian adults during the last years of their lives.