How Does Estate Planning Work in Your State?

Probate costs, will execution requirements, trust rules, and intestate succession for every US state — plus a side-by-side comparison of any two.

First State

Compare with Another State

Estate Value

Document type

Married

YesNo

How a last will varies across the states

Select a state, or two, to see what each document takes to sign, what it costs, who inherits and whether it can be signed from home.

Require two witnesses

50 of 51

Recognize a handwritten will

27 of 51

Holographic, usually unwitnessed

Allow remote online notarization

22 of 51

For this document

Probate on a $500,000 estate

$21,210 to $38,748

4% to 8% of the estate, by state

Examples: California estate laws, Florida estate laws, California against Florida.

Each state has its own probate code, trust laws, and intestacy rules. These variations reflect different historical legal traditions, policy priorities, and legislative decisions. For example, community property states like California handle spousal inheritance differently than common law states like New York.

States with simplified probate procedures and lower filing fees tend to have the lowest costs. Texas, for example, has an independent administration process that minimizes court involvement. States with percentage-based attorney fees (like California) can have higher costs for larger estates.

Yes — reviewing an estate plan after a move is standard practice. While most states honor out-of-state documents, execution requirements (like witness counts and notarization) vary. A will valid in one state may not meet another state's requirements. Trusts are generally more portable across state lines. SimplyTrust uses a structure recognized across states, so one revocable trust moves with you.

Intestate succession is the set of state laws that determine who inherits when someone dies without a will. Each state has its own statute (e.g., Cal. Prob. Code § 6400 et seq.) — in most states, the surviving spouse and children inherit first, followed by parents, siblings, and more distant relatives. Community property states handle spousal inheritance differently than common law states. Enter a state above to see how that state's intestacy rules would distribute the estate.

Nine states follow community property rules: Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin (IRS Publication 555). In these states, property acquired during marriage while domiciled in the state is generally owned equally by both spouses. The other 41 states follow common law rules — each spouse owns what they earn or acquire in their own name. This distinction affects how assets pass at death, how much a surviving spouse is entitled to under intestacy, and how trust funding should be structured.

What Changes From State to State

Probate is a state process, and the states differ on the things that decide its cost: whether attorney and executor fees are set by statute as a percentage of the estate or by a reasonable-compensation standard, how large an estate can be and still pass by affidavit without a court case, how long creditors have to present claims, and whether an informal or independent administration is open to the personal representative.

The documents differ too. The states set their own witness and notary rules for a will, a trust, a healthcare directive and a power of attorney, and they split on whether a document can be notarized over video, whether real estate can pass by a transfer-on-death deed, and whether the Uniform Trust Code governs trust administration.

What happens without a will is the clearest contrast: each state's intestacy statute writes its own shares for a surviving spouse, children from an earlier relationship and parents, and the community-property states start from a different idea of what the decedent owned. 12 states and the District of Columbia levy an estate tax of their own on top of the federal one, and 5 levy an inheritance tax on what a beneficiary receives.

Each state page sets those rules out from the state's statutes with the sections cited, and the comparison pages place two states side by side on the same points.

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