How much does probate cost in Oklahoma?
9 Aug 2026
Oklahoma publishes the executor’s commission and it works out to the dollar: 5% of the first $1,000.00, 4% of the next $5,000.00, and 2.5% of everything above $6,000.00. There is no attorney-fee section in the probate title at all.
Two Oklahoma facts are worth having before you budget. The court fee is flat — $135.00 whatever the estate is worth, with fixed add-ons bringing it to $178.00 today — and none of it is refundable. And Oklahoma is one of the very few states that prints what a legal notice costs: twenty-two cents a word for the first insertion, twenty cents for each one after, with a $25.00 minimum. There are three small-estate routes, not one, at $50,000.00, $150,000.00 and $200,000.00.
58 O.S. §527 — Oklahoma Statutes, Title 58, published by the Oklahoma Legislature · Verified 6 Aug 2026
Informational only, not legal advice. Figures verified on the date stamped. Details: /disclaimer/
Work it out on your own number
Oklahoma is a statutory-formula state, so the commission computes exactly. It is also the one state whose publication cost can be worked from a word count, so both are below.
| For the first $1,000.00 | 5% |
| For the next $5,000.00 | 4% |
| For all amounts above $6,000.00 | 2.5% |
| Extraordinary service, as the district judge deems just and reasonable | allowed — but never more than the commission itself |
| Court — probate and guardianship, flat | $135.00 |
| Court — mandatory statutory add-ons | $43.00 |
| Publication — first insertion, per word | $0.22 |
| Publication — each subsequent insertion, per word | $0.20 |
| Publication — minimum charge for any notice | $25.00 |
Worked through: a whole estate accounted for at $500,000.00 produces a commission of $12,600.00; $100,000.00 gives $2,600.00; $50,000.00 gives $1,350.00; $1,000,000.00 gives $25,100.00. On the court side, the mandatory total today is $178.00 — $135.00 plus $6.00, $25.00, $10.00 and $2.00 — rising to $188.00 with the records-preservation charge that runs until 1 November 2027, and $198.00 where the county has added its full $10.00. A 300-word notice run twice costs $126.00: $66.00 for the first insertion and $60.00 for the second.
The percentages belong to the executor. Oklahoma’s probate title contains no attorney-fee section at all, and applying the §527 bands to a lawyer’s bill is the single most common Oklahoma error. The commission base is also narrower than gross value: it is the whole estate accounted for, excluding all property not ranked as assets.
What each part costs
Every row is one figure, one source, one date. Where Oklahoma fixes no price, the row says so instead of guessing.
| Fee | Amount or formula | Set by | Source | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attorney feeOrdinary services | No statutory rate — and no sectionOklahoma’s probate title contains no attorney-fee section at all — not a schedule, not a cap, not even a designation or limitation provision. The whole expenses-and-compensation block was read and none of it touches the lawyer. The fee reaches the estate instead as a necessary expense: the executor or administrator is allowed all necessary expenses in the care, management and settlement of the estate, and the district court decides what is reasonable when it approves the account. Two sections mention attorney fees for narrow purposes only — an action against non-probate beneficiaries for estate tax, and the rule that the notice to creditors may give the attorney’s place of business as the address for claims. Neither fixes a rate. | Agreement, allowed as a necessary expense at the accounting | 58 O.S. §525 Title 58 is served as one PDF; §525 is at page 94 | 6 Aug 2026 |
| Personal representativeExecutor or administrator | 5% / 4% / 2.5%Where the will provides no compensation, or the executor renounces all claim to it, commissions are allowed upon the amount of the whole estate accounted for by the representative, excluding all property not ranked as assets: five percent for the first $1,000.00, four percent for the next $5,000.00, and two and one-half percent for all amounts above $6,000.00. The same commission is allowed to administrators. Further allowance may be made as the district judge deems just and reasonable for extraordinary service — but the total of that allowance may not exceed the commission itself, so the schedule doubles as the ceiling on the bonus. Co-executors and co-administrators are entitled as a unit to the same fee a single executor would take, divided as the court determines. A representative who does not serve for the whole administration takes only a portion, fixed by the court. | Statute — the schedule computes exactly | 58 O.S. §527, with §525 Pages 94 and 95 of the Title 58 PDF; last amended Laws 1992 c.395 §10 | 6 Aug 2026 |
| Court filing feeDistrict court — flat, and not refundable | $135.00, or $178.00 payableA flat fee of $135.00 for probate and guardianship, collected at the time of filing, and the statute says these flat fees are meant to be the only charge for court costs except as specifically provided by law. None of it is ever refundable, stated expressly. Several statutory add-ons ride on top: $6.00 to the Law Library Fund, $25.00 to the Oklahoma Court Information System Revolving Fund, $10.00 to court-appointed special advocates, and $2.00 split between the Council on Judicial Complaints and the Supreme Court revolving funds — $178.00 in all. Until 1 November 2027 a further $10.00 goes to the Court Clerk’s Records Management and Preservation Fund, and your county may assess up to $10.00 more for the Sheriff’s Service Fee Account. Separate per-proceeding fees: $43.00 for a sale or lease of estate property, $43.00 to revoke the probate of a will, $58.00 for a judicial determination of death. Where a litigant files a poverty affidavit and the court is satisfied, no fees or costs are required at all. | Statute — flat, statewide, with fixed add-ons | 28 O.S. §152, with §§152.1 and 152.2 Pages 30 to 33 of the Title 28 PDF; last amended Laws 2025 c.87 §1, effective 1 Nov 2025 | 6 Aug 2026 |
| Newspaper publicationNotice to creditors — Oklahoma prints the price | $0.22 per word, then $0.20Oklahoma is one of the very few states that publishes what a legal notice costs. Twenty-two cents per word for the first insertion and twenty cents per word for each subsequent insertion, with each separate group of letters or numerals counted as one word whatever the number of digits. Eliminating the space between words, or hyphenating to combine them, is prohibited — the paper cannot inflate or deflate the count. Tabular matter, including graphics, maps, seals, signature blocks, forms and spreadsheets, is $1.10 per line per column width for the first insertion and $1.00 after, a standard tabular line being at least one and a half inches wide. There is a minimum charge of $25.00 where the computed cost comes to less. Type is no smaller than eight point and no larger than ten point non-condensed unless a larger size is requested in writing. Two things come free: the newspaper must place the notice on its own website in front of any paywall and upload it to the statewide legal-notice site, and if it fails to publish as confirmed it must run the notice again at no charge. On the schedule: the representative must file the notice to creditors within two months of letters issuing, the first publication must appear within ten days of that filing, the notice runs once each week for two consecutive weeks, and the presentment date must be at least two months after the notice is filed. | Statute — a printed per-word rate with a floor | 28 O.S. §121, with 58 O.S. §331 and 25 O.S. §106 Amended Laws 2025 c.337 §1, effective 1 Nov 2025 — pre-2025 figures are stale | 9 Aug 2026 |
| BondExecutor’s bond — two or more sureties | Set by the court after a sworn examination
|
Court’s order, on a sworn examination of probable value | 58 O.S. §§171, 174, 176, 177 and 178 Pages 33 to 35 of the Title 58 PDF; §178 is unamended since 1910 | 6 Aug 2026 |
Two Oklahoma figures carry dates. The $10.00 Records Management and Preservation charge runs only until 1 November 2027, after which the court total falls by ten dollars. And the publication rates were amended by Laws 2025 c.337 §1 with effect from 1 November 2025, so any per-word figure published before then is out of date. Both are on our re-check calendar.
How the Oklahoma sources are linked. The Oklahoma Legislature publishes each title as one complete PDF, so the sources above open the whole title and the section number is given beside each. Use your reader’s find command on the section number. We link the Legislature’s own PDFs rather than the per-section pages on the court network, because those addresses carry query parameters that break when copied.
What can change the bill — allowances, waivers and one-off charges
- Nothing is refundable. The statute says in terms that none of the flat civil filing fees shall ever be refunded, whatever happens to the case afterwards.
- Selling estate property costs again — $43.00 for any proceeding for the sale or lease of real or personal property or a mineral interest in a probate.
- Revoking the probate of a will — $43.00. Judicial determination of death — $58.00.
- Posting and service are charged separately. $30.00 for posting notices and filing the certificates required by statute, $10.00 for mailing a writ, order, process or notice for each person, and $50.00 for serving each writ or notice per person. Where posting is required by statute, twenty cents a mile is paid out of the local court fund to whoever does it.
- A poverty affidavit removes the fees entirely. Where a litigant files one and the court is satisfied, no fees or costs are required.
- The extraordinary-service allowance cannot exceed the commission. Oklahoma caps its own escape hatch, which very few states do — so the statutory figure is effectively both the fee and the limit on any uplift.
28 O.S. §152(A)(5), (6) and (7), (F), (G) and (H); §§152.1 and 152.2; 58 O.S. §527 — Oklahoma Statutes, Title 28 · Verified 6 Aug 2026
What changes YOUR number in Oklahoma
- The percentages are the executor’s, not the lawyer’s
- Oklahoma’s probate title has no attorney-fee section whatsoever. That is a stronger negative than most states, which at least carry a designation or review provision. Applying five, four and two and a half percent to a legal bill has no statutory basis here, and it is the error this page exists to prevent.
- The base is what the executor accounts for
- Not gross estate value — the amount of the whole estate accounted for by the representative, excluding all property not ranked as assets. Property that never comes under the representative’s control is outside the base.
- The bonus is capped at the fee
- The district judge may allow a further sum for extraordinary service, but the total of that allowance must not exceed the amount of commissions allowed by the section. So the most an Oklahoma executor can take is double the schedule, and no more.
- Two executors share one fee
- Co-executors and co-administrators are entitled as a unit to the same fee a single executor would be allowed, divided as the court determines. Appointing a second representative does not double the cost.
- A will’s figure stands unless renounced in writing
- Where the will makes some other provision for compensation, that is full compensation — unless the executor renounces all claim to it by a written instrument filed in the district court. It is a filed document, not a conversation.
- The bond looks at rent as well as value
- Oklahoma is the only state in this database that names annual rents as a factor in setting the bond. The judge examines the applicant on oath about the probable value of the personal property and the probable value and annual rents of the real property, so an estate with rental property can carry a larger bond than its cash suggests.
- A waived bond can be reimposed later
- Even where the will expressly excuses it, the executor may at any time afterwards be required to file a bond if it appears from any cause necessary or proper. The waiver is not permanent.
- You can price the notice yourself
- Because Oklahoma charges by the word rather than by the column inch, the cost of a notice is computable from the notice. Count the words, remembering that each group of letters or numerals counts as one, multiply by twenty-two cents for the first insertion and twenty for the second, and apply the $25.00 minimum.
Oklahoma has three short routes, at $50,000, $150,000 and $200,000
Most states publish one small-estate figure. Oklahoma publishes three, sitting at different levels and doing different jobs — and two further routes that ignore value altogether.
- Affidavit — $50,000.00 net, no court case at all. Ten or more days after the death, anyone indebted to the person who died, or holding tangible personal property or an instrument evidencing a debt, obligation, stock or chose in action, must pay or deliver to a claiming successor on presentation of an affidavit. The affidavit states that the fair market value of the Oklahoma property subject to disposition by will or intestacy, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed $50,000.00; that no application to appoint a personal representative is pending or granted anywhere; the successors’ proportions; and that all taxes and debts are paid, provided for, or barred.
- Dispensing with regular proceedings — $150,000.00. Tested twice: on filing the petition and again on the return of the inventory. Where the whole estate, real and personal, does not exceed the figure, the court shall dispense with the regular proceedings or any part of them, order notice to creditors and set a hearing on the final accounting, heirship, distribution and discharge. Claims must be filed within thirty days of publication, the notice runs once each week for two consecutive weeks, and the hearing is set not less than thirty-five days after first publication.
- Summary administration — $200,000.00. A real probate, but a short one, available where the value of the estate is less than or equal to the figure.
- Two routes into summary administration ignore value entirely: where the person has been deceased for more than five years, or where they resided in another jurisdiction at the time of death. Check both before checking the value.
- A false affidavit is a criminal offence — a fine of not more than $3,000.00 or up to six months’ imprisonment, or both, plus restitution.
58 O.S. §393(A) and (E), §241 and §245 — Oklahoma Statutes, Title 58 · Verified 6 Aug 2026
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Oklahoma probate cost questions
How much does an executor get paid in Oklahoma?
Oklahoma publishes the commission and it works to the dollar: five percent of the first thousand dollars, four percent of the next five thousand, and two and a half percent of everything above six thousand. So an estate accounted for at five hundred thousand dollars produces twelve thousand six hundred, and one of a hundred thousand produces two thousand six hundred. The base is the whole estate the executor actually accounts for, excluding property not ranked as assets. The judge can allow more for extraordinary service, but that extra can never exceed the commission itself, and co-executors share one fee rather than each taking one.
Does Oklahoma set probate attorney fees by statute?
No — and unlike most states there is no attorney-fee section in the probate title at all. The lawyer is paid as a necessary expense of the care, management and settlement of the estate, and the district court decides what is reasonable when it approves the account. The five, four and two and a half percent figures Oklahoma does publish belong to the executor, not the lawyer, and applying them to a legal bill is the most common Oklahoma mistake.
What does it cost to file for probate in Oklahoma?
One hundred and thirty-five dollars, flat, whatever the estate is worth, and the statute says that flat fee is meant to be the only charge for court costs. In practice the mandatory add-ons bring it to one hundred and seventy-eight: six dollars for the law library, twenty-five for the court information system, ten for court-appointed special advocates and two split between two funds. Until the first of November 2027 a further ten dollars goes to records preservation, and your county may add up to ten more. None of it is refundable, and a poverty affidavit removes it all.
Does an executor need a bond in Oklahoma?
Usually, but not always. A bond to the State of Oklahoma with two or more sufficient sureties is required before letters issue, and the judge fixes the amount after examining the applicant on oath about the probable value of the personal property and the probable value and annual rents of any real property. The same section lets the judge order that no bond is required where the circumstances indicate none is necessary, and a will that expressly excuses the bond is honoured unless the court sees good cause. A waived bond can still be imposed later if it becomes necessary or proper.
Does Oklahoma have a small estate affidavit?
Yes, and two other short routes besides. The affidavit route covers estates up to fifty thousand dollars net of liens and encumbrances, ten days after the death, with no court case at all. Up to one hundred and fifty thousand the court can dispense with the regular proceedings once the inventory comes back. Up to two hundred thousand the estate can go through summary administration — and summary administration is also available whatever the value where the person died more than five years ago or lived in another state. Signing a false affidavit is a criminal offence carrying a fine of up to three thousand dollars.
Sources & verification
Every figure on this page was checked against the official source on the date shown. The Oklahoma Legislature publishes each title as one complete PDF rather than one page per section, so each link below opens the whole title and the section number is printed beside it.
- Attorney fee — the stated absence — 58 O.S. §525 www.oklegislature.govVerified 6 Aug 2026 · page 94 · §§521 to 527 are the whole expenses-and-compensation block and none is an attorney-fee provision · annual statutory re-check
- Executor’s commission — 58 O.S. §527 www.oklegislature.govVerified 6 Aug 2026 · pages 94 and 95 · last amended Laws 1992 c.395 §10 · annual statutory re-check
- Court filing fee and the add-ons — 28 O.S. §152, with §§152.1 and 152.2 www.oklegislature.govVerified 6 Aug 2026 · pages 30 to 33 · last amended Laws 2025 c.87 §1 effective 1 Nov 2025 · the records-preservation charge ends 1 Nov 2027 and is on the re-check calendar
- Publication rate — 28 O.S. §121 www.oklegislature.govVerified 9 Aug 2026 · pages 26 and 27 · history runs to Laws 2025 c.337 §1 effective 1 Nov 2025 · this section has been amended roughly every four years since 1967 · annual re-check
- Publication schedule and the qualifying newspaper — 58 O.S. §331, with 25 O.S. §106 www.oklegislature.govVerified 9 Aug 2026 · Title 58 PDF pages 61 and 62; Title 25 PDF page 36 · annual statutory re-check
- Bond — 58 O.S. §§171, 174, 176, 177 and 178 www.oklegislature.govVerified 6 Aug 2026 · pages 33 to 35 · §171 last amended Laws 1963 c.101 §1; §178 unamended since 1910 · annual statutory re-check
- The three small-estate routes — 58 O.S. §393, §241 and §245 www.oklegislature.govVerified 6 Aug 2026 · pages 43 to 46 and 78 · §393 amended Laws 2017 c.73 §2; §241 Laws 2004 c.114 §1; §245 Laws 2014 c.155 §1 · annual statutory re-check
Researched and verified by John Terra · Methodology
This page is information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws and fee schedules change; every figure here was verified on the date stamped beside it. For advice about your own situation, consult an attorney licensed in Oklahoma. Full terms: /disclaimer/ · Privacy
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