A spokesman for the Holy See confirmed Benedict died on Saturday morning, December 31, 2022.
They said: "With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9.34am in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican. Further information will be provided as soon as possible."
He led the Catholic Church for less than eight years until, in 2013, he became the first Pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415.
Benedict spent his final years at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery within the walls of the Vatican.
His successor Pope Francis said he had visited him there frequently.
The Vatican said in a statement: "With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican.
"Further information will be provided as soon as possible."
The Vatican said the body of the Pope Emeritus will be placed in St Peter's Basilica from 2 January for "the greeting of the faithful".
Plans for Pope Benedict's funeral will be announced in the next few hours, the Vatican said.
The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, said Pope Benedict was "one of the great theologians of the 20th century".
In a statement he said: "I remember with particular affection the remarkable Papal Visit to these lands in 2010. We saw his courtesy, his gentleness, the perceptiveness of his mind and the openness of his welcome to everybody that he met."
"He was through and through a gentleman, through and through a scholar, through and through a pastor, through and through a man of God - close to the Lord and always his humble servant."
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: "I am saddened to learn of the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
"He was a great theologian whose UK visit in 2010 was an historic moment for both Catholics and non-Catholics throughout our country.
"My thoughts are with Catholic people in the UK and around the world today."
French President Emmanuel Macron said: "My thoughts go out to Catholics in France and around the world, bereaved by the departure of His Holiness Benedict XVI, who worked with soul and intelligence for a more fraternal world."
Although the former pontiff had been ill for some time, Vatican authorities said there had been an aggravation in his condition because of advancing age.
On Wednesday, Pope Francis appealed to his final audience of the year at the Vatican to "pray a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict", whom he said was very ill.
Born Joseph Ratzinger in Germany, Benedict was 78 when in 2005 he became one of the oldest popes ever elected.
For much of his papacy, the Catholic Church faced allegations, legal claims and official reports into decades of child abuse by priests.
Earlier this year the former Pope acknowledged that errors had been made in the handling of abuse cases while he was archbishop of Munich between 1977 and 1982.
Benedict was the longest-living pope, having surpassed Pope Leo XIII in September 2020.
“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican,” the Vatican said in a statement early Saturday. No cause of death was provided. "Further information will be provided as soon as possible,” the statement said.
The Vatican said Benedict’s remains would be on public display in St. Peter’s Basilica starting Monday for the faithful to pay their final respects.
But he continued to advise his far more liberal-minded successor in private. His influence was felt in August 2016, when Francis, who had made attempts to reach out to the LGBTQ community, took an unexpectedly hard line against schools’ teaching children that they could choose their gender.
“We must think about what Pope Benedict said — ‘It’s the epoch of sin against God the Creator,’” Francis said at a gathering of Polish bishops.
Born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, in Marktl, in Germany, Benedict, the son of police officer Josef and Maria, grew up in a Germany infected by Nazism.
Like his father, Benedict opposed Hitler. But at age 14, he was forced to join the Hitler Youth. And two years later, while still in the seminary, the future pope was conscripted into the German army and sent to the front.
With the Allies on the verge of victory, Benedict deserted and went home. After a brief stint in a POW camp, he returned to the seminary and, along with his brother Georg, was ordained a priest on June 29, 1951.
Unlike most priests, Benedict logged little time in parishes. Instead, he embarked on an academic career and found himself moving to the conservative right as German campuses moved to the liberal left in the 1960s.
Unlike the wildly popular John Paul II, Benedict was a stern and forbidding figure with little of his Polish predecessor’s charisma. He was seen more as a transitional pope — a keeper of John Paul’s flame.
Like John Paul, Benedict was a witness to the Holocaust and made it his mission to reach out to Jews and to fight antisemitism. In 2008, Benedict became the first pope to visit a Jewish house of worship in the United States when he prayed at the Park East Synagogue in New York City.
Benedict also made a historic pilgrimage to ground zero in New York City, where he prayed with the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Already for several days, the health conditions of the Pope Emeritus had worsened due to advancing age, as the Press Office had reported in its updates of the evolving situation.
Pope Francis himself publicly shared the news about his predecessor's worsening health at the end of the last General Audience of the year, on 28 December.
The Pope had invited people to pray for the Pope Emeritus, who was "very ill," so that the Lord might console him and support him "in this witness of love for the Church until the end."
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