What Probate Costs, How Long It Takes, and Whether Your Family Has to Do It at All
My father, Monte, passed away three days after a triple bypass I had been told was a success. I was at sea when it happened. By the time I understood what was going on, the decisions had already started stacking up, and not one of them arrived with instructions. I was one of the fortunate ones who was able to bypass probate. But I have watched people I love and care about go through it, and nobody was there to sit down with them and answer the question they actually had: how much does probate cost in your situation, what does the law actually require of you, and what are you allowed to skip?
Probate usually takes 3 to 7 percent of an estate before anyone inherits. In California, where the law sets the fee and then pays it twice, a $1,000,000 estate runs about $46,000. Most states let smaller estates skip probate entirely, and those limits range from $15,000 to $400,000.
That gap, between what families are told and what families are charged, is the reason this page exists. The calculator below asks four questions and gives you the number for your state, whether your situation even requires probate, and what to do next. Nothing is saved, nothing is sent, and there is no account or email required to see your answer.
Probate commonly takes 3 to 7 percent of an estate before anyone inherits, figured on what the property is worth rather than on the equity left after the mortgage. Most states let smaller estates skip it entirely, and the limits run from $15,000 in Rhode Island to $400,000 in Wyoming.
- The most expensive state: California, because the law pays the attorney and the executor each the full statutory schedule. That is about $46,000 on a $1,000,000 estate.
- What decides more cases than the dollar limit: What counts toward it. Michigan disqualifies any estate holding real estate. New York ignores real estate completely.
- The tool that is not available everywhere: Seventeen states do not allow a transfer on death deed, which removes the simplest way to keep a house out of probate.
- Why gross value hurts: A house worth half a million with nearly all of it still owed on the mortgage counts at the full half million. Families with almost no equity land in full probate because of it.
- What to do now: Run the calculator on this page for your state, then check your small estate threshold and what it counts. Those two numbers decide the whole question.
Free Probate Cost Calculator:
What It Costs and Whether You Have to Do It
Answer four questions and get the number for your state, not a national average. Most probate tools stop at an estimate. This one also tells you whether your family has to go through probate at all, which is the question that saves people the most money.
- What it will cost. Your state’s attorney fee, executor fee, and court filing fee, with the statute that sets each one printed right under the number.
- Whether you can skip it. Nearly every state has a shorter path for smaller estates, and the rule about what counts toward the limit decides more cases than the dollar figure does. The tool applies your state’s actual rule.
- What to do this week. The next steps in plain English, which forms your court publishes for free, and where paid help is genuinely worth it.
How Much Does Probate Cost in 2026?#
A full probate generally consumes 3 to 7 percent of the gross value of an estate, and the percentage climbs when there is real property, a contested will, or property in more than one state. The word gross is doing more work in that sentence than any other. The fee is calculated on what the property is worth, not on what is left after the mortgage. A $400,000 house with $250,000 still owed against it counts as $400,000 when the fee is figured.
California is the clearest and most expensive illustration, because it is the one state that computes the fee exactly and then awards it twice over. Probate Code sections 10800 and 10810 set an identical schedule for the personal representative and for the attorney: 4 percent of the first $100,000, 3 percent of the next $100,000, 2 percent of the next $800,000, 1 percent of the next $9,000,000, and 0.5 percent of the next $15,000,000. Each is entitled to the full schedule independently of the other. On a $1,000,000 gross estate the attorney is owed $23,000 and the executor is owed $23,000, which comes to about $46,000 before the court filing fee and the appraisal costs are added. On a $500,000 estate the two fees together come to roughly $26,000. The statute measures the estate without reference to encumbrances or other obligations on estate property, which is the legal phrasing of the mortgage rule above.
Court filing fees sit on top of the attorney and executor fees, and they vary more than most people expect. California charges a flat $435 statewide. New York charges on a sliding scale from $45 to $1,250 depending on the size of the estate. North Carolina charges 40 cents for every $100 of the estate, capped at $6,000. Virginia charges a probate tax of $1 for every $1,000 of value, with a local surcharge on top in most localities. Ohio charges $35 to appoint an executor. Kansas charges $109.50 statewide. None of those figures are estimates; each comes from that state’s own statute or its published fee schedule.
How Much Are Probate Attorney Fees, and Are They Negotiable?#
This is the question that decides how much a family actually loses, and it is the one almost nobody answers correctly, because the honest answer depends entirely on which state you are standing in.
In some states the attorney fee is set by statute. Arguing about it accomplishes nothing, because the number comes from the legislature rather than from the lawyer sitting across the table. California is the strictest example, with the dual schedule described above. New York sets the executor commission by statute under SCPA 2307 at 5 percent of the first $100,000, 4 percent of the next $200,000, 3 percent of the next $700,000, 2.5 percent of the next $4,000,000, and 2 percent above $5,000,000, though New York computes that on sums actually received and paid out rather than on the gross estate, and it leaves attorney fees to the court as reasonable compensation. Ohio, New Jersey, Iowa, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Wyoming, and Missouri all set schedules of their own.
In most of the country the fee is whatever is reasonable, and reasonable is a negotiation. Colorado, Minnesota, Kansas, Michigan, Washington, Arizona, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Pennsylvania all leave both the executor and the attorney fee to a reasonableness standard with no percentage schedule at all. If you are in one of those states, ask for a flat fee in writing before you hire anyone, and ask what is included in it. Families who ask usually pay less. The ones who never ask almost always pay more.
Florida deserves its own paragraph, because Florida law contains a protection that most Florida families never learn about until it is too late to use it. Florida Statute 733.6171 provides a presumed reasonable fee schedule for estate attorneys, but subsection (2)(b) requires the attorney to disclose in writing, before charging on that schedule, that there is not a mandatory statutory attorney fee for estate administration and that the fee is subject to negotiation. Without that written disclosure, subsection (2)(d) says the attorney may not be paid without court approval or the written consent of all interested parties. An executor who does not know that disclosure exists will pay a schedule fee they were never required to agree to.
When Is Probate Required, and Can You Skip It?#
This is the question the rest of the internet skips past, and for most families it is worth more than the cost estimate is.
Nearly every state has a simplified path for smaller estates. It usually goes by a name like small estate affidavit, summary administration, or release from administration, and it replaces a court case that runs the better part of a year with a single form and a waiting period. The threshold that qualifies you varies more than almost any other number in American law. Rhode Island sets it at $15,000. Wyoming sets it at $400,000. That is a twenty-seven-fold difference between two states in the same country answering the same question.
The dollar limit is not what decides most cases, though. What decides them is the rule about what counts toward that limit, and no two states agree. Michigan will not let a family use the short form if the person owned any real estate at all, of any value. New York counts personal property only and ignores real estate entirely, so a house does not push an estate over the line. New Jersey counts real and personal property together toward the same figure. Arizona uses the county assessed value of real estate rather than its market value, which is usually far lower and qualifies families who assumed they were disqualified. Texas allows the short form only when the person died without a will. Washington subtracts the surviving spouse’s community property share before applying the limit at all. Two families with identical net worth get opposite answers depending on which of those rules applies to them, which is exactly why a calculator that only asks for a dollar amount gets it wrong.
Three jurisdictions have no small estate affidavit at all, and it is worth knowing which. New Hampshire does not have one at all; its only simplified procedures are waiver of administration and summary administration under RSA 553:32 and 553:33. Georgia uses a Petition for Order Declaring No Administration Necessary instead, which carries no dollar limit but requires that the person died without a will, owed no debts, and that every heir agrees unanimously. Alabama rewrote its entire Small Estates Act effective October 1, 2025 and replaced its fixed dollar figure with a formula tied to the homestead, exempt property, and family allowances.
How Long Does Probate Take?#
Probate commonly runs somewhere between nine and twenty-four months, and the honest answer is that very few states publish a real figure. Most of the duration estimates you will find online trace back to law firm marketing rather than to any court.
Four jurisdictions publish something defensible. The Judicial Branch of California states that probate there generally takes nine to eighteen months and can sometimes take longer. The Florida Bar’s consumer pamphlet says a simple estate can reasonably be expected to take about five or six months, and notes that no estate can close faster than the three month creditor claim period. The Minnesota Judicial Branch states that most estates are expected to be completed within eighteen months. Virginia’s Supreme Court publication indicates a first and final accounting is often made at the end of the first year following qualification.
For every other state, a more useful number exists, and it is legally binding rather than anecdotal: the creditor claim period. That is the window during which anyone owed money by the person who passed can file a claim, and an executor who distributes the estate before it closes can be held personally responsible for what was owed. In Ohio a final account is due within six months of appointment. In Michigan an estate cannot be closed by sworn statement earlier than five months after appointment. In New York the creditor period runs seven months from the issuance of letters. In Illinois claims run six months from first publication, with an absolute bar at two years after death. Those are the real floors, and where no court has published a duration, those are the numbers this page uses instead of guessing.
Probate Cost by State: What the Limits and Fees Actually Are#
The table below carries all fifty-one jurisdictions. The four states with the most families searching this question are covered in more detail underneath it, because their rules are the ones most often reported incorrectly elsewhere.
| State | Limit to skip probate | Wait after death | Real estate blocks it? | Attorney fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $51,175 (formula, adjusts) | None | Yes | Capped, court sets it |
| Alaska | $50,000 other property / $100,000 vehicles | 30 days | Yes | Negotiable |
| Arizona | $200,000 personal / $300,000 real | 30 days | No | Negotiable |
| Arkansas | $100,000 | 45 days | No | Not verified |
| California | $208,850 (adjusts) | 40 days | No | Fixed by law |
| Colorado | $88,000 (adjusts yearly) | 10 days | No | Negotiable |
| Connecticut | $40,000 | None | Yes | Negotiable |
| Delaware | $50,000 | 30 days | Yes | Negotiable |
| District of Columbia | $40,000 | None | Yes | Negotiable |
| Florida | $75,000 (summary administration) | None | No | Presumed, negotiable |
| Georgia | No limit, conditions instead | None | n/a | Not verified |
| Hawaii | $100,000 | 30 days | Yes | Not verified |
| Idaho | $100,000 | 30 days | Yes | Negotiable |
| Illinois | $150,000 | None | Yes | Negotiable |
| Indiana | $100,000 | 45 days | Yes | Negotiable |
| Iowa | $50,000 | 40 days | Yes | Fixed by law |
| Kansas | $75,000 | None | Yes | Negotiable |
| Kentucky | $30,000 exempt amount, formula based | None | Yes | Negotiable |
| Louisiana | $125,000 | None | No | Fixed by law |
| Maine | $52,500 (adjusts yearly) | 30 days | No | Negotiable |
| Maryland | $50,000 or $100,000 to a spouse | None | No | Capped, court sets it |
| Massachusetts | $25,000 plus one vehicle | 30 days | Yes | Negotiable |
| Michigan | $53,000 (adjusts yearly) | 28 days | Yes | Negotiable |
| Minnesota | $75,000 | 30 days | Yes | Negotiable |
| Mississippi | $75,000 | 30 days | Yes | Negotiable |
| Missouri | $40,000 | 30 days | No | Fixed by law |
| Montana | $100,000 | 30 days | No | Negotiable |
| Nebraska | $100,000 | 30 days | Yes | Negotiable |
| Nevada | $25,000 or $150,000 to a spouse | 40 days | Yes | Fixed by law |
| New Hampshire | None. No short path exists | None | n/a | Negotiable |
| New Jersey | $50,000 spouse / $20,000 others | None | No | Fixed by law |
| New Mexico | $50,000 | 30 days | No | Negotiable |
| New York | $50,000 | None | No | Fixed by law |
| North Carolina | $20,000 or $30,000 to a spouse | 30 days | No | Capped, court sets it |
| North Dakota | $100,000 | 30 days | No | Negotiable |
| Ohio | $35,000 or $100,000 to a spouse | None | No | Fixed by law |
| Oklahoma | $50,000 | None | No | Fixed by law |
| Oregon | $75,000 personal / $200,000 real | 30 days | No | Fixed by law |
| Pennsylvania | $50,000 | None | No | Negotiable |
| Rhode Island | $15,000 | None | No | Negotiable |
| South Carolina | $45,000 | 30 days | Yes | Capped, court sets it |
| South Dakota | $100,000 | None | No | Negotiable |
| Tennessee | $50,000 | 45 days | Yes | Negotiable |
| Texas | $75,000 | 30 days | No | Capped, court sets it |
| Utah | $100,000 | 30 days | No | Negotiable |
| Vermont | $45,000 | None | Yes | Negotiable |
| Virginia | $75,000 | 60 days | No | Negotiable |
| Washington | $100,000 | 40 days | Yes | Negotiable |
| West Virginia | $50,000 | None | No | Negotiable |
| Wisconsin | $50,000 | None | No | Negotiable |
| Wyoming | $400,000 | 30 days | No | Fixed by law |
How to read this. The dollar limit is only half the answer. What counts toward it decides more cases than the figure does, and the rules differ in every state. A No in the real estate column means owning property does not disqualify you, but it does not always mean the short form can transfer that property; California and Colorado both count real estate toward the limit while requiring a separate procedure to actually move it. Alabama, Georgia and New Hampshire have no small estate affidavit at all and use a different procedure. Arkansas, Georgia and Hawaii do not publish their compensation rules on any public state website, so those are marked not verified rather than estimated. Every figure traces to that state’s statute or its court. Reviewed August 2026.
What Probate Costs in California#
The most expensive statutory scheme in the country, for the reason described earlier: the attorney and the executor each collect the full schedule. The small estate affidavit limit is $208,850 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, and it adjusts every three years under Probate Code section 890. Real property counts toward that limit even though the affidavit itself cannot transfer real estate, which trips up a great many families. There is a separate affidavit for real property of small value at $69,625, and a petition to determine succession to a primary residence at $750,000. The court filing fee is $435 statewide and the waiting period is 40 days. One thing to know before you trust anything you read elsewhere, including on state websites: the California courts’ own self-help page still publishes the older $184,500 figure.
What Probate Costs in Florida#
Florida has no small estate affidavit in the way most states do. It has disposition without administration, which carries no dollar threshold and instead covers only estates consisting of exempt personal property plus non-exempt personal property worth no more than the final funeral and last-illness medical expenses. Summary administration under Florida Statute 735.201 is the practical simplified path, available when the estate subject to administration, less property exempt from creditors, does not exceed $75,000, or when the person has been gone more than two years. Filing fees are capped by statute at $395 for formal administration and $340 for summary administration. There is no waiting period.
What Probate Costs in Texas#
The small estate affidavit limit is $75,000 under Estates Code 205.001, excluding the homestead and exempt property, with a 30 day waiting period. Texas attaches conditions the other three states do not: the person must have died without a will, the estate must be solvent, two disinterested witnesses must swear to the affidavit, and a judge must approve it. The affidavit can transfer the homestead, but only when the homestead is the only real property in the estate. For a person who left a will, muniment of title under Estates Code 257.001 is often the faster path and it carries no dollar limit at all. Filing fees are set county by county and run roughly $360 to $515.
What Probate Costs in New York#
The voluntary administration limit is $50,000 under SCPA 1301, and New York counts personal property only, excluding real estate from the definition entirely. There is no waiting period. The filing fee for voluntary administration is one dollar. Full probate carries a sliding fee from $45 for estates under $10,000 up to $1,250 for estates of $500,000 and over. New York also allows payments without administration under SCPA 1310: up to $30,000 to a surviving spouse with no wait, $15,000 to other close relatives after 30 days, and $5,000 to a creditor after six months. The state runs a free guided small estate affidavit program through the court system.
How Do You Avoid Probate?#
The clearest answer is a funded living trust. Property placed into a trust during life passes at death without a court, without a statutory fee, and without a public file. That is the reason the trust industry exists, and the fee numbers above are the reason it sells.
There are free options that work first, and they deserve to be checked before anyone spends money. Naming a beneficiary on a retirement account or a life insurance policy moves that asset outside probate entirely. Holding property jointly with right of survivorship does the same. Payable on death and transfer on death designations on bank and brokerage accounts cost nothing to add and take about ten minutes.
For real estate, the free tool is a transfer on death deed, and here is the part almost nobody says plainly: seventeen states do not allow one. Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Kentucky, Connecticut, Idaho, Rhode Island, Vermont, Iowa, Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina have no transfer on death deed for real property. Maryland is in the middle of changing: it has none today, and one takes effect October 1, 2026. Louisiana’s answer is structural rather than a legislative gap, because Civil Code article 1570 provides that a disposition taking effect at death may be made only in the form of a testament, so a death-effective deed cannot exist there as a deed at all.
If you are planning ahead rather than settling an estate, the free Estate Readiness Tool walks through which of these fits your situation in about two minutes. If digital assets or cryptocurrency are part of the picture, crypto estate planning and building a digital legacy plan cover the parts a trust alone does not reach.
Where Every Number on This Page Came From#
I want to be direct about why this page exists in the form it does, because the reason is the whole value of it.
Every page currently ranking for what probate costs is a law firm answering for the one state it practices in. That is not a criticism of those firms. It is the shape of the problem: a firm licensed in Texas has no reason to research Rhode Island. The result is that a family searching for a straight answer finds fifty different partial answers and no way to tell which one applies to them.
So we assembled all fifty-one jurisdictions from primary sources. Small estate thresholds, what counts toward each one, waiting periods, court filing fees, whether the attorney fee is fixed by statute or open to negotiation, timelines, and whether the state publishes its form for free. Every figure traces to a state legislature, a state court, a judicial branch publication, or the IRS. Law firm blogs, form-selling sites, and aggregators were read for orientation and used as a source for nothing.
That process turned up things that are not published anywhere else in one place. Five jurisdictions changed their numbers within the last fourteen months: Illinois raised its limit from $100,000 to $150,000 effective August 15, 2025; Arizona nearly tripled its limits to $200,000 for personal property and $300,000 for real property, signed March 31, 2025; South Carolina moved from $25,000 to $45,000 effective May 8, 2025; Delaware went from $30,000 to $50,000 on June 10, 2026; and the District of Columbia created a true affidavit procedure for the first time, effective March 21, 2025. Four states reindex their limits to inflation and republish them annually, which means any static figure is wrong within a year: Maine is at $52,500 for 2026, Michigan at $53,000, Colorado at $88,000, and Alabama runs on a three year cycle.
Where a figure could not be verified from an official source, this page says so rather than filling the gap. Georgia keeps its official code behind a private publisher, and Arkansas and Mississippi do not publish their statutes on any public state website, so the compensation rules in those three states are marked unverified instead of estimated. A number a family might act on is not a place to guess.
None of that is here to impress anyone. It is here because we could not find it, and because the alternative was letting families guess. This page is reviewed on a thirty day cycle, and when a state changes its rule, this page changes with it.
Common Questions About Probate Cost#
The questions below are the ones families actually search for, in the words they use when they search for them.
Sources#
Every statute, court publication, and government source behind the figures on this page, listed in full.
California Probate Code 890, 10800, 10810, 13100, 13151, 13200. New York Surrogate’s Court Procedure Act 1301, 1304, 1310, 2307, 2402. Florida Statutes 733.617, 733.6171, 735.201, 735.301, 28.2401. Texas Estates Code 205.001, 205.006, 257.001, 352.002. Ohio Revised Code 2113.03, 2113.031, 2113.35, 2101.16. Michigan Compiled Laws 700.1210, 700.3982, 700.3983. Illinois 755 ILCS 5/25-1 as amended by Public Act 104-346. Arizona Revised Statutes 14-3971 as amended by Laws 2025 chapter 24. South Carolina Code 62-3-1201 as amended by 2025 Act No. 26. Colorado Revised Statutes 15-10-112, 15-12-1201. Delaware Code title 12 section 2306. Maryland Laws 2026 chapter 751. Minnesota Statutes 524.3-1201. Washington RCW 11.62.010. Virginia Code 64.2-601. North Carolina General Statutes 28A-25-1. New Jersey N.J.S.A. 3B:10-3 and 3B:10-4. Louisiana Civil Code article 1570 and Code of Civil Procedure articles 3421 through 3434. New Hampshire RSA 553:32 and 553:33. Alabama Code 43-2-691 and 43-2-698 as rewritten by 2025 HB164.
Judicial Branch of California self-help and statewide civil fee schedule. The Florida Bar consumer pamphlet on probate. Minnesota Judicial Branch probate guidance and district court fee schedule. Supreme Court of Virginia commissioner of accounts publications. North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts, forms and procedures guide. Colorado Judicial Branch form JDF 999 and fee list. New York State Unified Court System small estate program. Maricopa County Superior Court probate self-service center. Texas State Law Library probate guides. Alabama State Treasurer consumer price index adjustments under Code section 43-8-116.
Internal Revenue Service, employer identification number application for estates, Form 56 notice concerning fiduciary relationship, and Form 1041 instructions.
Reviewed August 2026. This page is checked on a thirty day cycle. Four states adjust their limits for inflation every year and republish them, so any figure older than that is worth confirming.
Related Resources From Memorial Merits#
If debts are part of what you are facing, what happens to debt when someone dies covers who is actually responsible by debt type and by state, and what happens to credit card debt covers the case that comes up most often. If you are still in the first week, your rights around death certificates explains how many certified copies you will actually need before you order them. If you have been named executor and want the whole process laid out in order, how to be an executor walks it step by step. For funeral costs and verified providers in your state, the funeral costs and directory by state covers all fifty.
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