Check your own number first

The table is the reference. The checker is the answer: it asks the questions your state’s statute actually turns on — the value, and where it matters the year of death, who inherits, and which route you are taking — and tells you whether you are under the line.

What being under the limit actually buys you

Usually the whole court process

In most states the small-estate route is an affidavit: you sign, you wait out the statutory period, and the bank or the registry hands the asset over. No petition, no letters, no personal representative, and none of the fees that follow from having one. Tennessee’s route goes further than most and shuts creditors out entirely — they cannot file claims at all.

Sometimes a lighter court case, not no court case

Iowa’s route is a simplified court administration: the court still appoints a representative and still issues letters. South Carolina’s affidavit needs the probate judge’s approval and countersignature, so it is not self-executing. Hawaii’s second route has the court clerk run the estate and charges three per cent for it. Read what the route is before you assume it means no court.

A waiting period, always

Thirty days is the common figure. Arkansas and Indiana want forty-five, California forty, Oklahoma’s affidavit only ten, and Arizona’s real property route six months rather than thirty days. New Hampshire’s affidavit cannot be filed before six months after appointment and not later than a year.

Nothing, if a representative has already been appointed

Almost every affidavit statute is blocked once an application or petition for a personal representative is pending or granted, in any jurisdiction. If full probate has started, the shortcut usually closes.

All fifty states

The headline figure for each state, with the base it is measured on underneath. Where a state runs more than one route, the note names the others. Click a state for the statute, the conditions and the verification date.

Six patterns the limits fall into

Maine sits outside all six. Maine publishes the formula, not the number. The base is $40,000, adjusted for inflation to the year before the year of death and rounded down to the next $100 — the court applies the current result. We do not compute it, because a figure we produced ourselves would be our figure rather than the state’s.

Every state page

Each carries the small-estate route in full, alongside the court fee, the executor rule, the creditor notice and the bond.

Being under the limit removes the process. It does not remove the question of what the estate is worth, and it does not decide whether a route fits your facts — that is a question for a licensed attorney in your state. The whole cost picture is on the probate cost pillar.

Three tools, in the order most people need them

Small estate questions

What is a small estate affidavit?

It is a sworn form that lets the person entitled to the property collect it without opening a full probate. In most states you sign it, wait out a statutory period, and present it to whoever holds the asset. Forty-eight states publish a dollar limit for a route of this kind, and the limit is the whole test in most of them.

What is the small estate limit in my state?

The table above lists all fifty. The spread runs from $15,000 in Rhode Island to $400,000 in Wyoming, and the base each is measured on is not the same, so two states showing the same number are not offering the same thing. Maine and New Hampshire publish no operative figure at all.

Is the limit measured on the gross estate or after debts?

It depends on the state, and this is the most common mistake. Many states measure the entire estate less liens and encumbrances, which is a net test. Wisconsin’s affidavit route is measured gross, before debts, while its summary assignment route on the same $50,000 is measured net. Indiana takes off liens, encumbrances and reasonable funeral expenses. Read the base note beside the figure.

Does the house count?

Often not, and that is what makes the route reachable. Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah and Washington all limit their route to personal property, so a house cannot pass under it however small the estate is. Connecticut goes further and bars the route entirely where there is real property. Arizona, California, New Mexico and South Dakota publish separate real property routes with their own ceilings.

Does the date of death matter?

In several states, yes. The limit depends on the date of death, not on when you file. Indiana’s ceiling turns on whether the death was after 30 June 2022, California’s on deaths from 1 April 2025, and Colorado’s and Michigan’s figures are re-set every year, so a death in 2026 is measured against the 2026 number.

Which states have no dollar limit?

Maine publishes the formula, not the number. The base is $40,000, adjusted for inflation to the year before the year of death and rounded down to the next $100 — the court applies the current result. New Hampshire sets no value cap at all: its test is who inherits, not what the estate is worth. Florida, Idaho and Louisiana each carry a second route with no dollar limit alongside the one that has one.

How these figures are verified

Every figure on this page is carried from a state page, and every figure on a state page was checked against the official source — the statute, the court rule, or the court’s own published fee schedule — on the date stamped beside it. No figure appears anywhere on this site that has not been opened and read at its source first. Where a source publishes no figure, we print that absence rather than filling the gap with an estimate.

The sources for each figure are listed on that state’s own page, with a direct link and a date. Our re-check cadence, and what we do when a statute changes, are set out at /methodology/.