Skip to main content
Nebraska Will Requirements
Pillar GuideNebraska25 min read

Nebraska Will Requirements

Nebraska will requirements under Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2327: two witnesses, no notary, handwritten wills that need a date, and a marriage that revokes nothing.

By Settled Editorial

A Nebraska will must be in writing, signed by the person making it or by someone else in that person's presence and at that person's direction, and signed by at least two individuals who each watched the signature happen or heard the testator acknowledge it. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2327 sets all of it. Nebraska also accepts handwritten wills, and it has no electronic wills act.

The execution rules sit in chapter 30 of the Nebraska Revised Statutes, the Nebraska Probate Code. Every rule on this page was read at the Nebraska Legislature's own statute pages on 2026-09-10, section by section, with the amendment chain checked on each one. Each rule is cited where it appears.

Read this page as a map of the statutes rather than a signing kit. It is general information about Nebraska law and not advice about your estate. A licensed Nebraska attorney should look at any plan that involves real property, a blended family, or a dispute you can already see coming.

A valid will does not keep an estate out of court. The will names who inherits and who serves as personal representative, and the estate still moves through the county court as described in the Nebraska probate process. What happens with no valid will is decided by the Nebraska intestacy statutes instead.

Who Can Make a Nebraska Will

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2326 is one sentence, and it carries a disjunction that catches people out. Any individual who is eighteen or more years of age or is not a minor, and who is of sound mind, may make a will.

Nebraska needs both halves because its age of majority is nineteen. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-2101(1) declares all persons under nineteen years of age to be minors, and the Probate Code repeats the number in its own definitions: Section 30-2209(26) reads "Minor means an individual under nineteen years of age". So an eighteen-year-old Nebraskan is still a minor for most purposes and can still make a will, because Section 30-2326 grants the power on age rather than on majority.

The second branch does real work too. Both Section 43-2101(1) and Section 30-2209(26) end a person's minority when that person marries under nineteen, so someone married below eighteen is not a minor and reaches Section 30-2326 through the other door.

Watch what this rules out. Nebraska never asks whether the testator has reached the age of majority, and answering that way produces nineteen, which is the wrong number. The statutory test is eighteen, or married, or otherwise out of minority.

Sound mind is the other half of the test, and Section 30-2326 supplies no definition. Anyone drafting for a testator whose capacity could later be questioned should have a Nebraska attorney involved before the document is signed, because that is the ground most contests are fought on. The procedure for raising it is covered in challenging a Nebraska will.

What Makes a Nebraska Will Valid

Section 30-2327 carries the whole execution rule in a single sentence, and it opens by naming its own exceptions: holographic wills, the separate tangible-property writings allowed by Section 30-2338, and wills saved by the choice-of-law rule in Section 30-2331. Everything else has to clear three requirements.

  1. In writing. Nothing oral qualifies.
  2. Signed by the testator, or signed in the testator's name by some other individual in the testator's presence and at the testator's direction.
  3. Signed by at least two individuals, each of whom witnessed either the signing or the testator's acknowledgment of the signature or of the will.

Four details do most of the work here.

No notary is part of the formality. Section 30-2327 asks for a writing, a signature and two witnesses, and stops. A notary appears in the Nebraska Probate Code only through the optional self-proved affidavit in Section 30-2329, which speaks to proof at the courthouse rather than to whether the will is valid. A will signed in front of a notary and nobody else has not met Section 30-2327.

Nebraska prints no placement rule. The section says "signed by the testator" and never says where on the page. Some probate codes require the signature to sit at the end of the document, and Section 30-2327 carries no such words. Signing on the last page is still the sensible habit, because it is what the self-proving form in Section 30-2329 assumes.

The testator does not have to sign in front of anyone. The witnesses get two ways in. They may watch the signature happen, or they may hear the testator acknowledge a signature or a will already signed. Either satisfies the section, so a will signed alone in the morning can be witnessed properly that afternoon.

The witnesses' own signing is described loosely. Section 30-2327 requires two individuals to sign and requires each of them to have witnessed the signing or the acknowledgment. It sets no deadline for their signatures, and it does not say in its own words that they must sign in front of the testator or in front of each other. Do not read that as permission to be casual. The self-proving affidavit in Section 30-2329 has the witnesses swear that each of them signed "in the presence and hearing of the testator", so a signing that follows the statutory form keeps everyone in the same room anyway, and that is the version an attorney will run.

Nebraska writes no harmless-error rescue into its wills sections. Section 30-2327 names its three exceptions and stops there. The Legislature's chapter 30 index was enumerated in full on 2026-09-10, all 1,224 section numbers with their catchlines, and none of them is a provision letting a county court admit a document that missed a step on clear evidence of intent. Treat the three requirements as a checklist where every box matters.

Who May Witness, and What a Gift to a Witness Costs

Section 30-2330(a) is generous about who may sign: any individual generally competent to be a witness may act as a witness to a will. The section prints no age, no residency requirement and no bar on relatives.

Section 30-2330(b) then handles the beneficiary who signs, and Nebraska caps the gift rather than voiding it.

  • The will survives. A will or any provision of it is not invalid because an interested witness signed. Nothing is voided outright.
  • The gift gets capped, not cancelled. Unless at least one disinterested witness signed the will, an interested witness may receive property under it only up to the amount of the intestate share that witness would have taken had the testator died without a will, measured at the date of death.

Read the cap literally and two consequences fall out. A child who witnesses a parent's will keeps something, limited to what the intestacy rules would have handed that child. A friend, a neighbor or a caregiver who witnesses the will has no intestate share to measure against, so the cap leaves nothing behind.

The fix the statute names is cheap. One disinterested witness lifts the cap for everyone, and two disinterested witnesses avoid the question entirely. What a surviving spouse can claim regardless of who witnessed the document is a separate subject, covered in what a spouse can claim anyway.

Nebraska Accepts Handwritten Wills, and the Date Is the Catch

The short answer is yes. The short answer on its own is what gets people into trouble.

Section 30-2328 validates an instrument that is testamentary in nature and does not comply with Section 30-2327, whether or not it was witnessed, on one condition: the signature, the material provisions and an indication of the date of signing must be in the handwriting of the testator.

Three details are worth pulling out.

The whole page does not have to be handwritten. The statute names the signature, the material provisions and the date indication. A printed form filled in by hand can qualify where the handwritten parts carry the dispositive terms, which is the opposite of what "handwritten will" suggests to most readers.

The date requirement is real. Section 30-2328 asks for an indication of the date of signing, in the testator's own hand, alongside the signature and the material provisions. The Legislature amended the section in 1980 (Laws 1980, LB 694, section 7) and left that requirement standing.

A missing date is survivable. Where the instrument carries no indication of date, Section 30-2328 saves it if the instrument is the only such instrument, or contains no inconsistency with any like instrument, or the date can be determined from the contents, from extrinsic circumstances, or from any other evidence.

One limit deserves a plain sentence. A holographic will with no witnesses cannot be made self-proved, because Section 30-2329 builds self-proving out of the testator's acknowledgment plus the affidavits of the witnesses. In a contested case the family proves it another way: Section 30-2430(a) allows due execution of an attested or unattested will to be proved by other evidence, which usually means someone who can identify the handwriting.

Advertisement

Self-Proved Nebraska Wills

Section 30-2329 offers self-proving twice, and the two subsections do different jobs.

Subsection (1) is the combined signing. A will may be executed, attested and made self-proved at the same moment, by the testator's acknowledgment plus the witnesses' affidavits, each made before an officer authorized to administer oaths under Nebraska law or under the law of the state where execution occurs, and evidenced by the officer's certificate under official seal. The statute prints the form. It then says something no reader should skip: executing the acknowledgment and the affidavits in that form is sufficient to satisfy the signing requirements of Section 30-2327. One set of signatures does both jobs.

Subsection (2) is the later fix. An attested will may at any time after its execution be made self-proved the same way, with a certificate attached or annexed to the will. A Nebraska will signed in 2006 with no affidavit can be made self-proved now, so long as the testator and the witnesses will all sign.

The payoff arrives at the county court, and Section 30-2430(b) states it in strong terms. Where the will is self-proved, compliance with the signature requirements for execution is conclusively presumed, and the other requirements of execution are presumed subject to rebuttal, without the testimony of any witness, on filing the will with the acknowledgment and affidavits annexed. Only proof of fraud or forgery affecting the acknowledgment or affidavit reopens it.

Without that affidavit, Section 30-2430(a) applies to a contested case: the testimony of at least one attesting witness is required if that witness is within the state, competent and able to testify. Years later, one witness has moved and the other has died, and the affidavit signed at the kitchen table is what spares the family that hunt.

Note who may take the oath. Section 30-2329 says an officer authorized to administer oaths, which is wider than a notary, and it accepts an officer authorized under the law of the state where the signing happens. A Nebraskan who signs a will while wintering in Arizona can use an Arizona officer.

Nebraska Has No Electronic Wills Act

Nebraska has not enacted the Uniform Electronic Wills Act or any local equivalent. Three checks settle it, and the third one has two halves because Nebraska runs two separate notary acts. All of them were read on 2026-09-10, which is the date this section speaks as of.

Chapter 30 contains no electronic wills article. The Legislature's own chapter index was enumerated in full on 2026-09-10, all 1,224 section numbers paired with their catchlines, and it carries no electronic wills act. That enumeration was tested against controls before its empty result was trusted: the same catchlines return Section 30-2328 for "holographic" and Section 30-2329 for "self-proved", so a zero from it is a real zero rather than a search that cannot find anything. There is no enactment date and no effective date to report for a Nebraska electronic will, because there is no act to date.

The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act excludes wills by name. Section 86-630(2)(a) states that the act does not apply to a transaction to the extent it is governed by a law governing the creation and execution of wills, codicils or testamentary trusts. That carve-out entered Nebraska law with the act itself in 2000 and survives in the current text, whose amendment chain ends at Laws 2005, LB 570, section 4.

Remote online notarization is closed to wills too, and this is the detail most readers miss. Section 64-418(2)(a), enacted by Laws 2019, LB186, section 18, says an online notarial act satisfies a requirement that a principal appear before or be in the physical presence of a notary public except for requirements under a law governing the creation and execution of wills, codicils or testamentary trusts. Nebraska wrote that exception into its own Online Notary Public Act, so the officer taking the oath on a Nebraska self-proving affidavit has to be in the room.

Nebraska's other electronic notary route is closed for a different reason and lands in the same place. The Electronic Notary Public Act at Sections 64-301 to 64-317 lets a notary sign and seal an electronic document, and Section 64-308 forbids an electronic notarial act where the signer is not in the physical presence of the electronic notary at the time of notarization. Electronic seal, physical room. Neither notary act moves a Nebraska will signing onto a video call.

The reader-facing consequence is short. You can draft a Nebraska will online, and plenty of people do. You cannot execute one electronically, no Nebraska statute lets witnesses attend by video, and the notary on your self-proving affidavit has to be in the room. Print it, sign it, and have two witnesses sign. Electronic wills law moves quickly in other states, so treat this section as dated and re-check it against the statutes before relying on it.

Nebraska Has No Oral Will

Section 30-2327 names its own exceptions and an oral will is not among them. All three of those exceptions are writings of a kind. Section 30-2328 wants the testator's handwriting, Section 30-2338 is a written statement or list, and Section 30-2331 reaches "a written will" in its own words. The chapter 30 catchlines were then searched on 2026-09-10 for "nuncupative" and for "oral will", and both returned zero against the same index that returns Section 30-2328 for "holographic".

So a spoken instruction is not a Nebraska will, no matter how clearly the intention behind it was expressed, and nothing turns it into one after the fact. The choice-of-law rule below closes the last door: it starts every one of its routes from a written will, so an oral will made in a state that allows one gets no help from it.

Advertisement

A Will Signed in Another State

Section 30-2331 accepts a written will four ways. It is valid if its execution complied with Section 30-2327, or with the holographic rule in Section 30-2328, or with the law of the place where it was executed, or with the law of the place where the testator was domiciled, had a place of abode or was a national, measured either when the will was signed or at death.

That is a wide net, and it means a will signed properly in Iowa or Colorado needs no re-signing after a move to Nebraska. Have a Nebraska attorney read it anyway, because the property and tax rules around the will change at the state line even when the signing rules do not.

The one thing Section 30-2331 will not do is manufacture a writing. Every route in it starts from "a written will".

The International Will Route

Nebraska adopted the Uniform Wills Recognition Act in Laws 2020, LB966, and it sits at Sections 30-201 through 30-209. It matters to anyone holding property abroad, and it is easy to miss because it lives at the front of chapter 30 rather than beside the execution rules.

Section 30-202 makes a will valid as to form, whatever the place of signing, the location of the assets or the testator's nationality, domicile or residence, if it is made in the form of an international will. Section 30-203 sets that form: writing in any language, by hand or otherwise; a declaration by the testator in front of two witnesses and an authorized person that the document is the testator's will; the testator signing or acknowledging a signature in front of all three; and the witnesses and the authorized person attesting by signing in the testator's presence.

Two points make the route practical rather than theoretical. Section 30-209 declares that individuals admitted to practice law before the courts of Nebraska and in good standing as active practitioners are the authorized persons, so the third signature is a Nebraska attorney. And Section 30-202(b) provides that failing as an international will does not affect the document's formal validity as a will of another kind, so a document that misses a step can still stand under Section 30-2327. Section 30-202(c) keeps the act away from a single instrument made by two or more people.

Marriage Does Not Revoke a Nebraska Will

This is the Nebraska fact worth stating flatly, because the assumption that a wedding rewrites a will is a stubborn one. Section 30-2333(h) provides that no change of circumstances other than the ones described in that section and in Section 30-2354, the homicide rule, revokes a will. Marriage is not on the list. Neither is the birth of a child.

Nebraska handles the new family member with a share rather than a revocation.

  • The omitted spouse. Section 30-2320 gives a surviving spouse who married the testator after the will was executed, and who was not provided for in it, the same share of the estate that spouse would have received had the decedent left no will, unless it was waived under Section 30-2316. The other gifts abate to pay it.
  • Pretermitted children. Section 30-2321 gives a child born or adopted after the will was executed, and not provided for in it, a share equal in value to an intestate share. Three things defeat that share: the will showing the omission was intentional, the testator already having children when the will was signed and devising, in the statute's own words, "substantially all" of the estate to the omitted child's other parent, or a lifetime transfer to the child worth at least the intestate share. Subsection (b) adds the child left out only because the testator believed the child was dead.

Divorce is the change that does revoke, and Section 30-2333(d) is broad. Absent contrary terms in the document, a court order or a marital-property contract, a divorce or annulment revokes every revocable disposition or appointment in favor of the former spouse or a relative of the former spouse, revokes powers of appointment conferred on them, revokes any nomination of them as personal representative, trustee, conservator, agent or guardian, and severs a joint tenancy with right of survivorship into a tenancy in common. The revoked provisions come back if the couple remarries or the divorce is nullified, under subsection (g).

Outside divorce, Section 30-2332 lists the only two ways to revoke a Nebraska will: a later will that revokes the earlier one expressly or by inconsistency, or burning, tearing, canceling, obliterating or destroying it with the intent to revoke, done by the testator or by someone else in the testator's presence and at the testator's direction.

The List of Household Items, and the Clocks

Two small sections answer the questions people ask about an older will.

A separate list can handle the tangible items. Section 30-2338 lets a Nebraska will refer to a written statement or list disposing of items of tangible personal property that the will does not itself dispose of, other than money, evidences of indebtedness, documents of title, securities, and property used in trade or business. The writing must be in the testator's handwriting or be signed, must describe the items and the devisees with reasonable certainty, and carries the same date rule as a holographic will, with the same three fallbacks. It may be written before or after the will and altered later. That is the clean way to move the jewelry and the furniture around without redrafting.

Three years is the outer limit on the estate. Section 30-2408 bars an informal probate or appointment proceeding, and a formal testacy or appointment proceeding, commenced more than three years after the death, subject to four listed exceptions covering a dismissed proceeding, a missing person, a contest of an informally probated will, and a late proceeding in which claims other than administration expenses may not be presented.

Whoever holds the will has a duty, and it has no day count. Section 30-2356 requires the custodian of a will to deliver it with reasonable promptness after the testator's death, on the request of an interested person. Willful failure carries civil liability, and refusing a court order to deliver it is contempt. The section names no crime and prints no number of days.

A testator can take the question away entirely. Section 30-2355 lets a living testator deposit a will with the county court for safekeeping, and Neb. Rev. Stat. § 33-126.05 prices that service at two dollars for depositing the will and indexing it. That fee buys the lifetime deposit. It is not a charge for handing a decedent's will in after a death, which Section 30-2356 requires for free.

Signing a Nebraska Will That Holds Up

A compliant Nebraska signing looks like this.

  1. Confirm the testator is eighteen or older, or is no longer a minor, and is of sound mind under Section 30-2326.
  2. Put the will in writing and have the testator sign it, on the last page, in full rather than by initials.
  3. Bring in two individuals competent to testify who take nothing under the will.
  4. Have the testator either sign in front of both witnesses or acknowledge the signature or the will to both of them.
  5. Have both witnesses sign while the testator is present, which is what the Section 30-2329 affidavit form has them swear to anyway.
  6. Add the acknowledgment and affidavits under Section 30-2329 in front of an officer authorized to administer oaths, in person, so the will arrives at the county court self-proved.
  7. Review the will after a divorce or a remarriage, because Section 30-2333 rewrites part of it and Section 30-2320 hands a share to a new spouse.

A will governs what happens after a death and nothing before it, and it is one document among several. The other documents to sign covers the lifetime paperwork and the assets that pass outside the will entirely.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many witnesses does a Nebraska will need?

Two. Neb. Rev. Stat. 30-2327 requires a written will to be signed by at least two individuals, each of whom witnessed either the signing or the testator's acknowledgment of the signature or of the will. Section 30-2330 adds that any individual generally competent to be a witness may sign. A holographic will under Section 30-2328 needs no witnesses at all.

Does a Nebraska will have to be notarized?

No. Section 30-2327 asks for writing, the testator's signature and two witnesses, and it never mentions a notary. An officer authorized to administer oaths enters only through the optional self-proved affidavit in Section 30-2329, which is about proof rather than validity. A notarized Nebraska will with no witnesses is not an attested will.

Is a handwritten will valid in Nebraska?

Yes, within limits. Section 30-2328 accepts a holographic will whether or not anyone witnessed it, provided the signature, the material provisions and an indication of the date of signing are in the testator's own handwriting. Where the date indication is missing, the section gives three fallbacks, including a will that is the only such document.

Does Nebraska accept electronic wills?

No. Nebraska has enacted no electronic wills act, and two statutes point the other way. Section 86-630(2)(a) takes wills, codicils and testamentary trusts out of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, and Section 64-418(2)(a) says an online notarial act does not satisfy an appearance requirement under a law governing the creation and execution of wills. Statutes read 2026-09-10.

Can a witness inherit under a Nebraska will?

Yes, and the will still stands. Section 30-2330(b) says a will is not invalid because an interested witness signed it. Where no disinterested witness signed, that witness may take only up to the intestate share he or she would have received had the testator died without a will. One disinterested witness removes the cap entirely.

Does getting married revoke a Nebraska will?

No. Section 30-2333(h) says no change of circumstances other than the divorce and annulment rules in that section, and the homicide rule in Section 30-2354, revokes a Nebraska will. A spouse married after the will was signed instead takes an intestate share as an omitted spouse under Section 30-2320.

How long does a family have to open probate on a Nebraska will?

Three years, with four listed exceptions. Section 30-2408 bars an informal probate or a formal testacy proceeding commenced more than three years after the death. Section 30-2356 runs on a different clock and asks whoever holds the will to deliver it with reasonable promptness after the death.

Related Guides

Sources:

It is not legal advice.

Prefer to talk it through? Get a free local attorney match (no obligation).

Settled Estate is not a law firm and does not give legal advice.

Thinking about preparing the will with an online service? See what Nebraska requires from an online will before you sign anything.

Not sure which documents you need?

The free estate planning assessment builds a short document list for your situation.

Take the free estate planning assessment

Information current as of September 10, 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.

All Nebraska guides← Back to all articles

More Nebraska Resources

Explore the rest of the Nebraska estate planning hub.

The core documents5 pages
Trusts and avoiding probate4 pages
Tools1 page