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Abstract We construct higher spin quasinormal modes algebraically in D-dimensional de Sitter spacetime using the ambient space formalism. The quasinormal modes fall into two nonunitary lowest-weight representations of so $$ \mathfrak{so} $$ (1, D). From a local QFT point of view, the lowest-weight quasinormal modes of massless higher spin fields are produced by gauge-invariant boundary conserved currents and boundary higher-spin Weyl tensors inserted at the southern pole of the past boundary. We also show that the quasinormal spectrum of a massless/massive spin-s field is precisely encoded in the Harish-Chandra character corresponding to the unitary massless/massive spin-s SO(1, D) representation.