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Nebraska Probate Types: Informal vs Formal

Nebraska sorts its routes by how much of the estate is in dispute, not by how much it is worth. The counterintuitive part is the price: the simple route is the flat one and the contested route is the one that scales with the estate.

Compare eligibility, timing, court involvement, and local verification points

How to Compare Nebraska Probate Types

One court hears all of it. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 24-517(1) gives the county court exclusive original jurisdiction over all matters relating to decedents' estates, so every one of Nebraska's 93 counties uses the same forum, and there is no separate probate court and no probate division of another court to choose between. Venue is the county where the decedent was domiciled at death under § 30-2410, which is what decides the courthouse.

The five routes split into three groups. Two of them are court administrations that differ in who decides: informal probate goes to the REGISTRAR of the county court and is granted without a hearing, while formal probate is heard by a county judge on notice. One is a shortcut inside a court administration, the § 30-24,127 summary procedure, which needs an appointed personal representative and a filed inventory before its test can even be run. The last two never reach a court at all: § 30-24,125 collects personal property on an affidavit handed to whoever holds it, and § 30-24,129 passes Nebraska land on an affidavit recorded with the register of deeds.

Fees run the opposite way from the intuition. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 33-125(1)(a) charges informal probate a flat $22.00 statutory fee, which collects as $44.00 once the § 24-703(3)(a) judges retirement charge and the six statutory court costs are added. Formal probate is priced on a twenty-step ladder in § 33-125(1)(b) keyed to the gross value of the estate, from $44.00 collected at the bottom to $1,670.00 collected above $5,000,000. Informal fees are also capped: § 33-125(1)(a) says they can never exceed what the same estate would have paid formally.

Informal vs Formal at a Glance

Who decides

Tie

Informal: The REGISTRAR of the county court, on an application, with no hearing (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2414)

Formal: A county judge, on a petition, after notice given as § 30-2427 directs

Cost to open

Informal

Informal: $44.00 collected, flat, whatever the estate is worth ($45.00 testate)

Formal: $44.00 to $1,670.00 collected, on twenty brackets keyed to the gross value of the estate (§ 33-125(1)(b))

Cost of later filings

Formal

Informal: $24.00 for each later petition or application, because the $20.00 of court costs is charged once per case

Formal: Nothing further. § 33-125(2) charges formal fees in full for all services, with no extra fee for later petitions, hearings and orders

Fee ceiling

Informal

Informal: Capped. § 33-125(1)(a) says informal fees can never exceed what a formal probate would have cost the same estate

Formal: No ceiling beyond the top bracket, which is $1,670.00 collected above $5,000,000

When it is unavailable

Formal

Informal: Sections 30-2417 and 30-2424 list situations where the registrar cannot act, and the matter goes formal

Formal: Always available, and it is where a contested case ends up

Creditor window

Tie

Informal: Two months from first publication, with the first publication due within thirty days of appointment

Formal: The same two months and the same thirty days. § 30-2485 does not vary with the route

Earliest closing

Tie

Informal: Five months after appointment, and not until first publication is more than four months old (§ 30-24,117)

Formal: The same floors apply. Choosing formal does not shorten either one

Best fit

Tie

Informal: An agreed family, a will nobody challenges, and one obvious person to appoint

Formal: A contested will, competing applicants, uncertain heirs, or a family that wants a judge signing off as the estate goes

Main Nebraska Probate Options

Informal Probate and Informal Appointment

Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 30-2414 to 30-2424, with the fee at § 33-125(1)(a)

An uncontested estate that needs letters, with an agreed personal representative and a will nobody is challenging

Threshold: No dollar threshold. This is the ordinary route where nothing is contested and the registrar has no reason to be dissatisfied.

Filing Fee: $44.00 collected ($22.00 statutory fee, $2.00 judges retirement, $20.00 court costs), or $45.00 testate. Each later petition inside the same informal proceeding is $24.00

Timeline: Commonly about 6 to 12 months. The floor is statutory: the closing statement cannot be filed earlier than five months after appointment, and not until first publication of the creditor notice is more than four months old

Real Estate: Yes

Attorney: No statutory requirement. Counsel is usual once there is land to sell, a business to wind up or a claim in dispute

Formal Probate (Formal Testacy and Formal Appointment)

Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 30-2425 to 30-2438, with the fee ladder at § 33-125(1)(b)

A contested will, competing applicants for appointment, an uncertain set of heirs, or an estate where beneficiaries want a judge signing off

Threshold: No dollar threshold. Formal proceedings are litigation before a county judge, used where the will, the heirs, the priority for appointment or the conduct of the estate is contested or uncertain.

Filing Fee: $44.00 to $1,670.00 collected, on twenty brackets keyed to the gross value of the estate. Formal fees are charged in full for all court services, with no extra charge for later petitions, hearings and orders

Timeline: Longer than informal, because each contested step is heard on notice. The same statutory floors apply, and the three-month inventory and the two-month creditor bar do not shorten for a formal case

Real Estate: Yes

Attorney: No statutory requirement, and rare without one. A formal proceeding is adversarial and is where a will contest is decided

Summary Administrative Procedure

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-24,127, closing under § 30-24,128

An estate that will be consumed by family allowances, funeral and last-illness bills once those are counted

Threshold: No dollar figure at all, and quoting one would be inventing it. The test is comparative: the value of the entire estate, less liens and encumbrances, must not exceed the 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.

Filing Fee: No separate fee. The estate pays the ordinary § 33-125 fee to open, which is $44.00 informally or $45.00 testate

Timeline: Shorter than an ordinary administration, because it skips the creditor notice entirely, but it cannot start until the appointment and the inventory are done

Real Estate: Yes

Attorney: No statutory requirement. The comparison against allowances plus administration, funeral and last-illness costs is where advice earns its cost

Affidavit for Transfer of Personal Property

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-24,125, effect at § 30-24,126

An estate held in accounts, wages, vehicles and belongings where nobody needs letters

Threshold: $100,000 or less, on the value of all of the personal property in the decedent's estate, wherever located, less liens and encumbrances. Personal property outside Nebraska counts toward it. Real property does not count toward it at all.

Filing Fee: $0. It is never filed, so no fee attaches. Budget for certified death certificates at $16.00 each

Timeline: Usable thirty days after the death, then as long as the bank, employer or company takes to accept it

Real Estate: No

Attorney: No

Affidavit for Succession to Real Property

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-24,129, effect at § 30-24,130

A Nebraska house or acreage whose assessed value for the year of death sits under the cap, where nobody has opened an estate

Threshold: $100,000 or less on the decedent's interest in ALL Nebraska real property, valued from the assessment rolls for the year in which the decedent died, less real estate taxes and interest due at the death. That is a separate concurrent cap from the personal property one, not a tier of it, and it is not market value.

Filing Fee: $10.00 for the first page and $6.00 per additional page under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 33-109(1), charged again in each county where the land sits

Timeline: Usable thirty days after the death, then as long as recording takes in each county involved

Real Estate: Yes

Attorney: No statutory requirement. A title company will want the affidavit drafted carefully, because it is what the chain of title rests on

* Nebraska sets probate fees by statute, statewide, so all 93 county courts charge the same amounts and there is no county schedule to shop. The trap is that the statutory fee is not the bill. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 33-125(1)(a)(i) names $22.00 for an informal probate, then § 24-703(3)(a) adds a judges retirement charge equal to ten percent of that fee, and six per-case cost statutes add exactly $20.00 (§ 33-107.01 legal services $6.25, § 33-107.03 court automation $8.00, § 33-154 training $1.00, § 33-155 dispute resolution $0.75, § 33-156 indigent defense $3.00, § 47-633 uniform data analysis $1.00). What the clerk collects is $44.00, or $45.00 in a testate case with the § 33-126.05 certificate of probate of will. A second decoy sits inside the $22.00: the schedule nested in § 33-125(1)(a) ending at twelve dollars beginning July 1, 2025 is the slice the clerk remits to the Nebraska Retirement Fund for Judges, not an extra charge. Every amount here was matched against the Nebraska Judicial Branch fee schedule effective July 1, 2026.

Unfamiliar terms in the comparison? The Nebraska probate glossary defines them in plain language.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the main Nebraska probate types?
Two court administrations, one shortcut inside a court administration, and two affidavits that never reach a court. Informal probate under Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 30-2414 to 30-2424 is the ordinary route: the application goes to the registrar of the county court, and where the registrar is satisfied the will was properly executed and the applicant has priority, the will is informally probated and a personal representative informally appointed without a hearing. Formal probate under §§ 30-2425 to 30-2438 is the contested route, heard by a county judge on notice. The § 30-24,127 summary administrative procedure sits inside either one and lets the representative distribute without notifying creditors where the estate is smaller than the allowances and expenses it owes. Below all of them, § 30-24,125 collects personal property on an affidavit at $100,000 or less, and § 30-24,129 passes Nebraska land on a separate affidavit with its own $100,000 cap.
Which court hears probate in Nebraska?
The county court, in all 93 counties, and there is no alternative. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 24-517(1) gives it exclusive original jurisdiction over all matters relating to decedents' estates, so Nebraska has no separate probate court and no probate division of a district court. Venue is the county where the decedent was domiciled at death under § 30-2410, or where the decedent's property was located if the decedent was not domiciled in Nebraska. One question can leave the county court: under § 30-2429.01(1), where there is an objection to probate of a will or a petition to set aside an informal probate, any party may transfer the question of whether the decedent left a valid will to the district court by filing a notice of transfer, depositing the district court docket fee with the clerk of the county court, and paying that clerk a fee of twenty dollars.
What is the difference between informal and formal probate in Nebraska?
Who decides, and whether anyone gets notice first. Informal probate is administrative: the application goes to the REGISTRAR under § 30-2414, no hearing is held, and the registrar acts where the statutory conditions are met. Formal probate is judicial: a petition under § 30-2426 is heard by a county judge after notice given as § 30-2427 directs. Informal is not available in every case. Sections 30-2417 and 30-2424 list the situations where the registrar cannot act, and the matter then goes formal whether the family wanted that or not. The price runs the other way from the effort: informal is flat at $44.00 collected, formal scales from $44.00 to $1,670.00 with the gross value of the estate, and § 33-125(1)(a) caps informal fees so they can never exceed what formal would have cost that estate.
How long does the Nebraska creditor claim period run?
Two months from the first published notice, which is one of the shortest non-claim windows in the country. On appointing a personal representative the clerk publishes notice once a week for three successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county, and § 30-2483 requires that first publication within thirty days of the appointment. Section 30-2485(a)(1) then bars claims that arose before the death unless presented within two months of first publication. A creditor who missed it, including one who never received notice, has sixty days after the bar date to ask the court for more time, and the court on good cause shown may allow up to thirty further days. Skipping publication does not protect the estate: under § 30-2485(a)(2) claims then run for three years after the death instead of two months.
How soon can a Nebraska estate be closed?
Five months after appointment at the earliest, and only once the creditor notice is more than four months old. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-24,117 lets a personal representative close by filing a verified statement no earlier than five months after the date of original appointment of a general personal representative, stating that notice to creditors was published and first publication occurred more than four months before the statement, that the estate has been fully administered, and that a copy has gone to all distributees and to creditors whose claims are neither paid nor barred. Those two floors are why a straightforward Nebraska estate rarely closes inside six months even when nothing is in dispute. A § 30-24,127 summary administration is the exception, because it skips creditor notice altogether.
Does Nebraska require an inventory?
Yes, within three months of appointment. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2467 requires a personal representative who is not a special administrator, and who has not succeeded a representative that already did it, to prepare and file an inventory of property owned by the decedent at the time of death, listing it in reasonable detail with each item's fair market value as of the date of death and the type and amount of any encumbrance on it. That filing does more than record what is there: the § 30-24,127 summary procedure cannot be evaluated until the inventory and appraisal exist, because its test compares the inventory value against the allowances and expenses.
What is the deadline to open probate in Nebraska?
Three years after the death, with narrow exceptions. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2408 bars commencing any informal or formal probate, testacy or appointment proceeding more than three years after the decedent's death. Under its exception (4) a proceeding may still be commenced after three years where none occurred inside them, but claims other than expenses of administration may not then be presented against the estate. The same three years is the window for contesting an informally probated will under § 30-2408(3). Neither small-estate affidavit carries a deadline of its own beyond the thirty-day wait, so the practical effect of the three-year bar is on the fallback: a family that relies on an affidavit and later needs a full probate has a narrower door than it started with.
Does a Nebraska personal representative have to post a bond?
Usually not, because the exceptions cover most estates. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2446(1) excuses bond where the will waives it, where all heirs or devisees file a written waiver, where a guardian or conservator waives on behalf of a ward, where an adult waives on his or her own behalf, where the representative is a bank or a chartered trust company, or where the petition alleges that the probable value of the entire estate will permit summary procedures under § 30-24,127. Where a bond is required in an informal proceeding and no amount is specified, § 30-2447(a) has the person qualifying file a sworn estimate of the personal estate plus the next year's income and post a bond of at least that amount. The premium is set by the surety rather than by statute, and it is a real cost no fee schedule shows.
How much does it cost to open probate in Nebraska?
$44.00 for an informal probate, and between $44.00 and $1,670.00 for a formal one. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 33-125(1)(a)(i) sets the informal statutory fee at $22.00, § 24-703(3)(a) adds a judges retirement charge equal to ten percent of it, and six per-case cost statutes add $20.00, so $44.00 is what the clerk collects, or $45.00 in a testate case with the § 33-126.05 certificate of probate of will. Formal probate is priced on twenty brackets in § 33-125(1)(b) keyed to the gross value of the estate, which § 33-125(2) defines as the actual value of both real and personal property in Nebraska at the time of death, less liens and joint tenancy property. Every one of the 93 county courts charges the same amounts, because the fees are statutory and statewide.
Does Nebraska charge an estate or inheritance tax?
No estate tax and no probate tax, but yes to an inheritance tax, and it is the county rather than the state that collects it. The tax is charged on what each beneficiary receives rather than on the filing, and the county court determines it. For a decedent dying on or after January 1, 2023, the rate is one percent above a $100,000 exemption for the immediate relatives listed in Neb. Rev. Stat. § 77-2004, eleven percent above a $40,000 exemption for the remote relatives in § 77-2005, and fifteen percent above a $25,000 exemption in all other cases under § 77-2006. A surviving spouse pays none, and neither does any beneficiary under twenty-two years of age. Always qualify a rate by the date of death: each of those three sections prints the older pre-2023 figures alongside the current ones as live text, so a figure copied out of the section without its date qualifier is likely to be the wrong one.
How is an executor paid in Nebraska?
By what is reasonable, reviewed by the court, not by a percentage of the estate. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2480 entitles a personal representative to reasonable compensation for his services, and Nebraska publishes no statutory schedule keyed to estate value. Where the will fixes compensation and no contract with the decedent controls, the representative may renounce that provision before qualifying and take reasonable compensation instead, and may renounce all or part of the compensation by a written renunciation filed with the court. Section 30-2482 lets the court review the reasonableness of what the representative sets for his or her own services and for any agent employed, and order a refund of compensation that was excessive. Any Nebraska percentage presented as the executor fee is local custom or a private agreement rather than the law.
Does Nebraska notify the state when someone on medical assistance dies?
It notifies the Department of Health and Human Services through the same creditor notice, on an age trigger. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2483(b) requires that where the decedent was fifty-five years of age or older, or resided in a medical institution as defined in § 68-919(1), the notice to creditors must also be provided to the Department, together with the decedent's social security number, and where the decedent was predeceased by a spouse, that spouse's name and social security number as well. The trigger is age or institutional residence rather than a known claim, so an estate meeting it sends the notice whether or not anyone believes the state has a claim to make.

Important: Picking the county in Nebraska picks the building and nothing else. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 24-517(1) gives the county court exclusive original jurisdiction over all matters relating to decedents' estates, so all 93 counties run the same routes through the same kind of office, and § 30-2410 puts venue in the county where the decedent was domiciled at death, or where property was located if the decedent was not a Nebraska domiciliary. Fees are set statewide by § 33-125 and § 33-109, and § 33-147 makes an officer who charges more than the prescribed fee liable to the injured party for $50.00. What is genuinely local is the register of deeds that records a § 30-24,129 affidavit, the county assessor who holds the assessed value that affidavit is measured against, and the newspaper that publishes the notice to creditors.

Legal Authority: Neb. Rev. Stat. § 24-517(1) (county court jurisdiction), § 30-2410 (venue), §§ 30-2414 to 30-2424 (informal probate and informal appointment), §§ 30-2425 to 30-2438 (formal testacy and formal appointment), § 30-24,117 (closing statement), § 30-24,125 and § 30-24,126 (personal property affidavit and its effect), § 30-24,127 and § 30-24,128 (summary administrative procedure and its closing statement), § 30-24,129 and § 30-24,130 (real property affidavit and its effect), § 30-2408 (three-year outer limit), § 30-2446 (bond), § 30-2467 (inventory), § 30-2483 (notice to creditors), § 30-2485 (claim bars), § 30-2480 (compensation of the personal representative), § 33-125 (probate fees), § 33-109 (recording fees) and § 24-703(3)(a) (judges retirement fee).. Last Verified: September 2026.

SourcesOfficial references used for this page

This content is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice or a substitute for attorney review. Laws and fees may change. Verify current requirements with your local court clerk before filing.

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