Probate Attorney and Executor Fees Set by Your State's Statute

Every line of a result comes from one row of the probate dataset behind this site's 51-row chart of fee rules and small-estate limits. Each row was checked on October 14, 2026, and every cell carries its own source. The calculator reads four cells for the state chosen: how the statute sets the attorney's fee, how it sets the executor's or personal representative's commission, the percentage schedule where one is recorded, and the small-estate affidavit limit.

Nothing in a result is an estimate. Where a schedule is recorded, the calculator splits the value entered into the statute's bands, applies each band's rate and prints every step with its amount, so you can check the total by hand. A schedule that does not read as a clean set of bands produces no figure, only the quoted text. Where the statute sets no percentage, the result quotes the rule instead, such as a reasonable fee approved by the court.

A probate fee schedule works like income tax brackets: each rate applies only to the part of the value inside its band. In California, on a $500,000 estate, 4 percent of the first $100,000 is $4,000, 3 percent of the next $100,000 is $3,000 and 2 percent of the next $300,000 is $6,000, for $13,000; the same schedule gives the executor another $13,000, $26,000 in all. Above $25,000,000 the California schedule stops and the court sets a reasonable amount, so the calculator leaves that part uncomputed.

The statutes frame the figure in different ways, and the result uses the statute's own frame. Some set the fee itself, as California and Wyoming do. Some set a ceiling: the executor's commission in Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas is capped, and the result calls the figure the most the statute allows. Missouri sets a minimum that the court can exceed, and Florida's schedule is presumed reasonable but open to agreement. In Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin the commission is a single rate on a base the statute names, and parts of a schedule that depend on other figures, such as disbursements, income collected or property outside the probate estate, are quoted but not computed.

For Alabama, Arkansas, California, New Jersey and Texas, the statute text was read from a copy of the code rather than the legislature's own site. Their figures are computed the same way, and every one says it is not confirmed against the official text.

Each statute applies its rates to its own base: the estate accounted for in California, gross assets in the probate inventory in Iowa, personal property plus the proceeds of real property sold in Missouri, sums received and paid out in New York. The calculator applies the rates to the value entered and quotes the recorded schedule in full, so the base and any extra rate or minimum it names sit beside the figure.

Outside the states above, no percentage schedule is recorded. The recorded attorney fee rule in Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas and Washington is a reasonable or court-approved fee, and where a cell is blank the rule was not read, which the result says rather than treating the gap as a rule. For those states the result quotes the rule and places the value entered against the state's small-estate limit.

The small-estate limit is the figure up to which an estate can pass by affidavit or a short procedure instead of full probate. The recorded limits that are not marked for a check can run from $15,000 in Rhode Island to $400,000 in Wyoming. The result says whether the value entered is at or below the leading recorded figure or above it. That places the number only: each statute counts its own base toward the limit and sets other conditions, and the result says nothing about whether a particular estate can use the procedure.

It shows no hourly rate, no typical fee and no flat fee quote, because none is sourced. It also leaves out court filing fees, appraisal, publication and bond costs, which are not part of any schedule. Where a statute lets the court allow more for extraordinary services, the result quotes that power but does not price it.

It gives no view on any estate, yours included. It does not say whether an estate needs probate, which procedure fits it, or what any lawyer or executor will charge.