What Drives Probate Cost in Nebraska
Court filing fees are the visible starting point, but many estates also pay for certified copies, notice or publication, property recordings, appraisals, and legal help.
Nebraska probate filing fees do not vary by county, and neither does the court. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 33-125 sets one statewide schedule and § 24-517(1) gives the county court exclusive original jurisdiction over decedents’ estates, so all 93 counties take the same paper at the same price through the same office. Four things surprise people. First, the $22.00 in § 33-125(1)(a) is the statute’s fee and not the bill: § 24-703(3)(a) charges a sum "equal to ten percent of each fee provided by sections 33-125, 33-126.02, 33-126.03, and 33-126.06, rounded to the nearest even dollar", and six per-case cost statutes add exactly $20.00 (§ 33-107.01 legal services $6.25, § 33-107.03 automation $8.00, § 33-154 education $1.00, § 33-155 dispute resolution $0.75, § 33-156 indigent defense $3.00, § 47-633 uniform data analysis $1.00), so an informal probate collects $44.00, or $45.00 in a testate case with the § 33-126.05 certificate of probate of will. Quoting $22.00 as the Nebraska probate filing fee is wrong by half. Second, $22.00 also has a decoy inside it: the (A) through (F) list nested in § 33-125(1)(a) is the slice the clerk remits to the Nebraska Retirement Fund for Judges, currently twelve dollars, and not a second charge. Third, formal probate is priced on a twenty-step ladder in § 33-125(1)(b) running from $44.00 to $1,670.00 collected, measured by § 33-125(2) on "the gross value of the estate, including both real and personal property in the State of Nebraska at the time of death", which means actual value less liens and joint tenancy property, so property that passes by survivorship is outside the count and so is property outside Nebraska. Informal fees are capped and can never exceed what formal would have cost the same estate. Fourth, Nebraska has three simplified routes and two different $100,000 caps that are not one figure that moved: § 30-24,125 collects personal property on an affidavit where all personal property wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, is $100,000 or less, and is presented to whoever holds the property rather than filed anywhere; § 30-24,129 passes Nebraska real property on a separate affidavit filed with the register of deeds where the decedent’s interest in all Nebraska real property is $100,000 or less, valued from the assessment rolls for the year of death rather than at market; and § 30-24,127 summary administration carries no dollar figure at all, because its test compares the whole estate against the homestead allowance, exempt property, the family allowance, administration costs, funeral expenses and last-illness medical bills, and it needs an appointed personal representative and an inventory first, so it saves process rather than money. Two costs are genuinely local and are in no total here: newspaper publication of the notice to creditors, which § 30-2483(a) requires once a week for three successive weeks and which § 33-141(4) prices at fifty cents per line for the first insertion and 43.34 cents per line for each subsequent insertion rather than as a total, and recording a deed or a § 30-24,129 affidavit, which goes to the county register of deeds at $10.00 for the first page and $6.00 for each additional page under § 33-109(1). Nebraska also levies an inheritance tax that the county court determines and the county collects, and it is a tax on what each beneficiary receives rather than a filing fee; the petition to determine it costs $24.00 inside an informal probate, $44.00 standing alone, and nothing inside a formal probate. For a decedent dying on or after January 1, 2023 the rate is 1% above $100,000 for the immediate relatives listed in § 77-2004(2), 11% above $40,000 for the aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews of § 77-2005, and 15% above $25,000 for everyone else under § 77-2006, with a surviving spouse exempt at any amount and any beneficiary under twenty-two years of age exempt as well. For a decedent who died before January 1, 2023 the older figures printed in those same subsections govern instead, so always qualify a Nebraska inheritance-tax rate by the date of death. Nebraska sets no statutory percentage for either the personal representative or the attorney: § 30-2480 allows reasonable compensation and § 30-2482 lets the court review it, so no dollar figure is estimated for either role. Confirm the current total with the county court for the county where the decedent lived.
Cost componentsFiling fees, add-on charges, and attorney work compared
Court Filing Fees
The court procedure chosen is often the biggest first driver of cost. Simplified procedures usually cost less than full administration.
Additional Charges
Certified copies, publication or notice costs, appraisals, and document recordings can materially change the final number.
Attorney Work
Legal fees depend on the estate's issues. A modest estate with title or creditor problems can cost more than a larger estate with clean paperwork.
How to Use the EstimateWhat the number means and which check to run next
Use the result to set expectations, not to lock in a final fee quote. If the number looks high, the next question is whether all of the property really needs probate or whether some assets already transfer outside court.
From here, compare the estate structure with the estate value calculator, review transfer structure with the beneficiary checker, and use the Nebraska courts page if you need the next local filing contact.
If the attorney-fee line above is the one you want help with, the Nebraska attorney listings name each firm and its own phone and site, so you can compare quotes yourself.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Nebraska probate costs and filing fees?
Do I need an attorney for Nebraska probate?
How long does Nebraska probate take?
Official Sources and Further ReadingOfficial references used for this page
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 33-125 ("County court; probate fees; how determined"), the source of every court figure on this page and a section that prices probate two different ways in the same subsection. Subdivision (1)(a) charges a FLAT twenty-two dollars for probate proceedings commenced and closed informally, twenty-two dollars for each subsequent petition or application filed within an informal proceeding, and twenty-two dollars for any other proceeding under the Nebraska Probate Code with no fee set elsewhere, then caps the lot: "The fees assessed under this subdivision (a) shall not exceed the fees which would be assessed for a formal probate under subdivision (b) of this subsection." Subdivision (1)(b) charges formal proceedings on TWENTY value brackets, running $22 where the value does not exceed $1,000 up to $1,500 on all estates over $5,000,000. Subsection (2) supplies the measure and it is narrower than most people assume: the brackets are "based on the gross value of the estate, including both real and personal property in the State of Nebraska at the time of death", and "The gross value shall mean the actual value of the estate less liens and joint tenancy property", so a survivorship house is out of the count. The same subsection charges formal fees in full for all services, so no further fee is charged for petitions, hearings and orders during the administration, gives one certified copy of the letters of appointment free, and sets the fee at ten dollars where a petition is filed, no appointment is made, no order is entered and the cause is dismissed. Read the (A) through (F) list nested inside the twenty-two dollars for what it is: a REMITTANCE schedule sending part of the same fee to the Nebraska Retirement Fund for Judges, currently twelve dollars beginning July 1, 2025, and not a second charge. The section last moved in Laws 2021, LB17, § 8
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 24-703, the reason $22 is not what a Nebraska clerk collects, and the statute that is easiest to miss because it lives in the judges-retirement chapter rather than in the fee chapter. Subsection (3)(a) taxes a Nebraska Retirement Fund for Judges fee as costs in each civil cause of action filed in the district, county and separate juvenile courts, and then adds the county-court rule in one sentence: "In county courts a sum shall be charged which is equal to ten percent of each fee provided by sections 33-125, 33-126.02, 33-126.03, and 33-126.06, rounded to the nearest even dollar." That is a charge ON TOP of the § 33-125 fee and a different thing from the remittance split nested inside it. Quote the closing five words rather than paraphrasing the rule as a bare ten percent: on the $22.00 informal row the judiciary schedule prints $2.00 rather than $2.20, which is the only bracket where the rounding clause changes the answer, and it happens to be the row that produces the headline $44.00. A bare ten percent yields $44.20 and contradicts the schedule. The section was amended by Laws 2026, LB1101, § 1 and was read in its current text rather than from a summary
- Nebraska Judicial Branch, "Filing Fees and Court Costs", Effective 07-01-2026, the schedule a county court clerk actually collects from and the document that reconciles the statutes above into single totals. Its PROBATE block prints the informal proceeding as $10.00 under § 33-125 plus a $12.00 docket fee and judges retirement split of the same § 33-125 fee, plus $2.00 of § 24-703 judges retirement fee, plus six per-case costs (legal services $6.25, automation $8.00, NSC education $1.00, dispute resolution $0.75, indigent defense $3.00, uniform data analysis $1.00), for a Total of $44.00, and adds $1.00 in a testate case for the § 33-126.05 certificate of probate of will and affixing the seal, for $45.00. Each subsequent petition or application inside an informal proceeding is $24.00 and any proceeding with no specific fee set is $24.00, both lower than $44.00 because the six costs are charged once per case. A dismissal where no appointment is made and no order entered is $11.00. Its FORMAL block reprints all twenty § 33-125(1)(b) brackets in four columns headed Fee, J. R. (10%), Costs* and Total, from $22.00 + $2.00 + $20.00 = $44.00 at the bottom to $1,500.00 + $150.00 + $20.00 = $1,670.00 at the top, and notes that the six costs and the docket fee are not charged again on a formal case. Every one of those twenty totals was checked against the statute before anything on this page was written. The INHERITANCE TAX block prices a § 33-126.03 determination at $44.00 standing alone, $24.00 inside an informal probate, and no fee inside a formal probate. Other rows a family meets: deposit of a will for safekeeping $2.00, a certificate involving real estate $1.00, an objection to probate of a will to the district court $103.00 under § 30-2429.01, and a notice of transfer of claim to the district court $87.00 under § 30-2488. The schedule carries its own effective date, which is the signal to watch: re-read it and § 33-125’s amendment chain after the next July 1
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-24,125 ("Collection of personal property by affidavit"), the free route for personal property, and the first of Nebraska’s TWO separate $100,000 caps. Thirty days after the death, anyone indebted to the decedent or holding tangible personal property or an instrument evidencing a debt, obligation, stock or chose in action must pay or deliver it to a claiming successor on presentation of an affidavit stating, among other things, that "the value of all of the personal property in the decedent’s estate, wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed one hundred thousand dollars". Note the scope words: this measure counts personal property OUTSIDE Nebraska, which the § 33-125(2) fee measure does not. There is no filing fee because there is no filing; the affidavit goes to whoever holds the property. Subsection (b) makes a transfer agent change the registered ownership of a security on the same paper, and (c) lets the successor endorse or negotiate a check or draft payable to the decedent or the estate, discharging the accepting financial institution from all claims for the amount accepted notwithstanding UCC §§ 3-403, 3-417 and 3-420. Two further conditions are easy to overlook: the affidavit must state that no application or petition for appointment of a personal representative is pending or has been granted in any jurisdiction, so opening a probate closes this route, and a vehicle, motorboat, all-terrain vehicle, utility-type vehicle or minibike needs a further affidavit to the Department of Motor Vehicles under (d)(1). A will does not close this route. The figure went from $50,000 to $100,000 in Laws 2022, LB1124, § 1; the chain-end act, Laws 2025, LB85, § 1, moved no money and instead added the § 71-601.01 abstract of death as an alternative where a certified death certificate is delayed, and the ten-year DMV waiver in (d)(2)
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-24,129 ("Succession to real property by affidavit"), the SECOND $100,000 cap, and the section that makes Nebraska a real-property treatment of its own. It is not the exclusion pattern and it is not the disqualification pattern: land gets its own parallel affidavit with its own ceiling, its own valuation basis and its own filing office. Thirty days after the death a claiming successor may file an affidavit with the register of deeds office of a county where the property sits, stating that "the value of the decedent’s interest in all real property in the decedent’s estate located in this state does not exceed one hundred thousand dollars", and the statute fixes the basis in the next sentence: "The value of the decedent’s interest shall be determined from the value of the property shown on the assessment rolls for the year in which the decedent died less real estate taxes and interest thereon if any is due at the time of death." That is assessed value, not market value, so a house that would sell above the cap can still be under it. It is filed with the register of deeds rather than with the county court, so the charge is the § 33-109(1) recording fee rather than a court fee, and subsection (b) requires recording the affidavit and the death certificate in every other Nebraska county where the decedent owned land that the affidavit covers. The successor claims by homestead allowance, exempt property allowance or family allowance, by intestate succession, or by devise under the will with a copy of the will attached, and must swear that an investigation found no subsequent will and that no other person has a right to the decedent’s interest. Unlike § 30-24,125, it does not accept the abstract of death. The figure went from $50,000 to $100,000 in Laws 2024, LB1195, § 4. The two $100,000 caps are concurrent figures in different sections on different property classes, not one threshold that moved
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-24,127 ("Small estates; summary administrative procedure"), the third simplified route, and the one this calculator deliberately does not compute. It carries NO dollar figure at all. Its test is comparative: "If it appears from the inventory and appraisal that the value of the entire estate, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed homestead allowance, exempt property, family allowance, costs and expenses of administration, reasonable funeral expenses, and reasonable and necessary medical and hospital expenses of the last illness of the decedent", then the personal representative may immediately disburse and distribute the estate without giving notice to creditors and file a closing statement under § 30-24,128. Every term on the right-hand side is a figure a calculator cannot read off an intake answer, so this page says so rather than guessing at it. Note what the route needs before it can be used: an appointed personal representative and an inventory and appraisal, which means an estate has already been opened at the ordinary informal price. It saves process rather than money. The section is unamended since enactment (Laws 1974, LB 354, § 205, UPC § 3-1203)
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2480 ("Compensation of personal representative"), and why this calculator prints no dollar figure for either professional. Nebraska is a reasonable-compensation state and sets no percentage anywhere: "A personal representative is entitled to reasonable compensation for his services." The rest of the section is about renunciation, and it matters where a will fixes a fee: if a will provides for compensation and there is no contract with the decedent about it, the representative may renounce the provision BEFORE QUALIFYING and take reasonable compensation instead, and may renounce all or any part of the compensation by a written renunciation filed with the court. Two companion sections complete the picture and are often confused with this one. Section 30-2481 allows a personal representative, or a person nominated as one, who prosecutes or defends a proceeding in good faith, whether successful or not, necessary expenses and disbursements including reasonable attorney fees from the estate. Section 30-2482 is the REVIEW provision, listing the reasonableness factors and letting the court order a refund of any excessive part of the compensation paid to a representative or an attorney; cite it for the review, never for the entitlement. Any site quoting a Nebraska executor percentage is quoting a different state. This section is unamended since enactment (Laws 1974, LB 354, § 158, UPC § 3-719)
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 33-126.03 ("County court; inheritance tax proceedings; fees; by whom paid"), the charge most Nebraska cost estimates leave out, because the inheritance tax is determined by the county court in the same courthouse as the probate. "In all matters for the determination of inheritance tax under Chapter 77, article 20, the county court shall be entitled to receive fees of twenty-two dollars." Two rules ride on that. The fee is NOT charged where fees have already been imposed under § 33-125(1)(b), so a formal probate absorbs it, and the judiciary schedule accordingly prints no fee for a determination inside a formal probate, $24.00 for one inside an informal probate, and $44.00 for one standing alone. And except in cases instituted by the county attorney, the fee is paid by the person petitioning for the determination rather than by the estate as a matter of course. The $22.00 here is one of the four fees § 24-703(3)(a) loads its ten percent onto, which is the same trap § 33-125 sets. The tax itself is not a filing fee and is in no total on this page: Chapter 77, article 20 taxes what each beneficiary receives, § 77-2003 and § 77-2014 pay it to the county, and the rates and exemptions in §§ 77-2004, 77-2005 and 77-2006 are each stated twice in the same subsection, once for decedents dying before January 1, 2023 and once for those dying on or after it, so a figure lifted from those sections without its date qualifier is a coin flip
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 33-109 ("Register of deeds; county clerk; fees"), the second counter, a different office from the court in every Nebraska county, and the one that takes the § 30-24,129 small-estate affidavit for real property. Subsection (1) is a single statewide figure rather than a county schedule: for recording a deed, mortgage or release, recording and indexing a will, recording and indexing a decree in a testate estate, recording proof of publication, or recording any other instrument, "a fee of ten dollars for the first page and six dollars for each additional page", of which $2.50 of the first-page fee and $0.50 of each additional-page fee is reserved for preserving and modernizing the office’s public records. Subsection (2) prices a certified copy of any instrument filed or recorded with the county clerk or register of deeds at one dollar and fifty cents per page. None of this is a court fee and none of it appears on the judiciary fee schedule, so a probate cost estimate that stops at the courthouse door understates a case that has to move a house. The section last moved in Laws 2019, LB593, § 5
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 33-141 ("Legal notices; rates") and § 30-2483 ("Notice to creditors"), the two halves of a cost this page deliberately leaves at zero rather than guessing. Section 30-2483(a) has the CLERK of the court, on the appointment of a personal representative, publish notice once a week for three successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county, with the first publication within thirty days after the appointment, and requires the party or the attorney to mail the published notice and give proof under § 25-520.01. Section 33-141 then prices legal notices per LINE rather than per notice, and it is a section to read to the end: it prints four dated tiers stacked in ascending order, and the first figure in it, forty-one cents per line, expired in 1996. The operative tier is subsection (4), "Beginning October 1, 2023", at fifty cents per line for the first insertion and forty-three and thirty-four hundredths cents per line for each subsequent insertion at eight-point type and pica width eleven, with an official conversion table for other type sizes. So the bill is the line count times those rates times three insertions, which the newspaper quotes and no statute totals. Section 33-141 was amended by Laws 2026, LB596, § 10 and was read in its current text. One Nebraska notice rule is worth knowing before publishing: under § 30-2483(b), where the decedent was fifty-five or older or resided in a medical institution as defined in § 68-919(1), the notice must also go to the Department of Health and Human Services with the decedent’s social security number, and a predeceased spouse’s name and number, in the manner the department publishes on its website, and "Any notice that fails to conform with such manner is void"
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2485 ("Limitations on presentation of claims") and § 30-24,117 ("Closing estates; by sworn statement of personal representative"), the two clocks that set the floor under any Nebraska timeline on this page. Section 30-2485(a)(1) bars all claims arising before the death unless presented "within two months after the date of the first publication of notice to creditors if notice is given in compliance with sections 25-520.01 and 30-2483", and it measures from FIRST PUBLICATION, not from the death and not from the appointment. It then gives a creditor who missed that window, "including any creditor who did not receive notice", sixty days after the expiration to apply to the court for further time, which the court may allow up to thirty days on good cause. Subsection (a)(2) is the consequence of never publishing: three years after the death. Section 30-24,117(a) closes the other end and states TWO conditions that both have to hold, which is the half most summaries drop: an unsupervised personal representative may close by verified statement "no earlier than five months after the date of original appointment of a general personal representative for the estate", and only where the statement can say that first publication "occurred more than four months prior to the date of the statement". Five months from appointment and four months from publication are different clocks, and the later one governs. Under (b) the appointment terminates one year after the closing statement is filed if no proceedings are pending
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 24-517 ("Jurisdiction"), the one-sentence reason there is no Nebraska probate court to find and no county fee schedule to shop: "Each county court shall have the following jurisdiction: (1) Exclusive original jurisdiction of all matters relating to decedents’ estates, including the probate of wills and the construction thereof", subject to two narrow exceptions in § 30-2464(c) and § 30-2486. The Nebraska Judicial Branch says the same thing in its own words on its County Court page: "All small claims, probate, guardianship, conservatorship, adoption, and municipal ordinance violation cases are filed in the county courts." There is no separate probate court in Nebraska, no probate division, and no county probate surcharge; probate is on the county court’s ordinary docket in all 93 counties, and the office a family hands paper to is that court, run by a clerk magistrate everywhere except Douglas, Lancaster and Sarpy Counties, where a judicial administrator does the same work. One item in the same section is a standing trap for Nebraska research and is worth naming here: subdivision (19) gives the county court concurrent original jurisdiction with the district court in matters arising under the Uniform Community Property Disposition at Death Act, except for the decedents’ estates matters subdivision (1) already makes exclusive. That act governs property that WAS community property when it was acquired in a community-property state and was later brought to Nebraska. It does not make Nebraska a community-property state, and Nebraska is not one
- IRS Publication 559 for survivors, executors, and administrators
- CFPB guide to managing someone else’s money
Information current as of May 31, 2026
Settled Estate is not a law firm, and this content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Probate laws and procedures in Nebraska can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.