Washington Probate Forms Finder

Important Notes

• -WASHINGTON PUBLISHES NO STATEWIDE PROBATE FORM SET. The Washington Courts forms index lists 90 categories and a search of every category name for probate, decedent, estate, will, executor or administration returns zero. Any website advertising the official Washington probate form is selling somebody's template.
• -No statewide form set is not the same as no published form text. The code itself prints the wording of the letters of administration (RCW 11.28.140), the probate notice to creditors (RCW 11.40.030), the notice of filing a declaration of completion (RCW 11.68.110(4)), the tax reserve version of that notice (RCW 11.68.114(1)(b)), and both reports in RCW 11.76.010. These are statutory forms with no form NUMBER, so cite the section and never invent a number.
• -Ask the county clerk for that county's probate packet. Individual superior courts and county clerks publish their own packets, and a county packet is the closest thing to an official Washington probate form. Those are per county facts.
• -The filing fee is a flat, statewide, statutory $290: $200 under RCW 36.18.020(2)(f), a $40 surcharge under (5)(c), and a $50 surcharge under (6). It is not banded by estate value, not a percentage, not a probate tax, and not set by the county. A source quoting $240 predates the $50 surcharge, effective 27 July 2025.
• -There is NO statewide Washington judiciary fee schedule. RCW 36.18.080 makes posting a per county duty, so the statute is the schedule and a county's posted sheet governs at that counter.
• -Probate is heard by the {County} County Superior Court under RCW 11.96A.040(1). Washington has no separate probate court and no probate division. The filing office is the COUNTY CLERK, and county page directions to file should point at the clerk.
• -Twelve counties share superior court judges across five joint judicial districts, but a shared judge is not a shared filing office. All 39 counties keep their own clerk and their own place to file.
• -Nonintervention powers under RCW 11.68.011 are the normal Washington route. After the grant there is generally no court supervision, no annual accounting and no court approval of distributions. Copy saying the court supervises each step is wrong for Washington.
• -Publishing notice to creditors is OPTIONAL. RCW 11.40.020(1) says the personal representative MAY give notice. Publish and most creditors are barred four months after FIRST PUBLICATION; do not publish and the bar is 24 months after the date of death. The bar reaches nonprobate assets too.
• -The inventory does NOT have to be filed. RCW 11.44.015(2) says it may, but need not, be filed in the probate cause. The mandatory duty is furnishing a copy within ten days of a written request, and RCW 11.44.050 punishes that failure just as hard.
• -The small estate affidavit cap is $100,000, measured EXCLUDING the surviving spouse's or surviving domestic partner's community property interest in assets subject to probate, and is available at any time after forty days from the death.
• -Guardianship IS a statewide form set, in the GDN series, and it pairs with chapter 11.130 RCW. The old chapters 11.88 and 11.92 RCW are repealed and both redirect to the Revised Code disposition page, so any guardianship guidance citing them is describing law that no longer exists.
• -Use of the guardianship forms is OPTIONAL by statute. RCW 11.130.640 says failure to use them does not prejudice any party. The one exception is the letters of office in RCW 11.130.660, which must be in that form or a substantially similar form.
• -The Washington estate tax return has a NAME, not a number: the Washington State Estate and Transfer Tax Return. The Department of Revenue publishes no form number for it or for the extension application. Do not read a number off a filename.
• -Washington has a real property transfer on death deed under chapter 64.80 RCW but NO statutory form for it, because Washington adopted the uniform act without the optional form. It also has no vehicle transfer on death designation at all.
• -An original will cannot be filed electronically. GR 30(b)(2) bars electronic filing of a document required by law to be in non electronic media, and its comment names original wills first among the examples.