Arizona personal representative compensation
Arizona uses a reasonable-compensation standard rather than a fixed percentage.
Sources reviewed August 7, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch September 15, 2026.
In Arizona, the personal representative (executor) is the person the court appoints, or the will nominates, to administer the estate. Arizona compensation is governed by state statute and, where the statute permits, by the terms of the will or a court order, so the lawful Arizona fee is whatever those authorities set — not a national rule of thumb.
The amount is not computable from estate value alone. This page therefore publishes no percentage result; it reports the reasonable-compensation standard the reviewed record supports instead.
Arizona does not set one statutory percentage to multiply by the estate. Do not substitute a neighboring state's rate or an informal fee table. The amount depends on the services and accounting in the particular administration, and the will may affect the compensation analysis where the governing rule allows it.
A personal representative is entitled to reasonable compensation for his services.
Arizona uses a reasonable-compensation standard rather than a fixed percentage.
Keep the estate accounting, time and task log, receipts, and any will or compensation agreement together. Before taking a fee, ask the Superior Court how compensation is presented for review in this estate and whether an order or account approval is required. This page cannot decide what a court will consider reasonable.
Arizona’s compensation section, A.R.S. § 14-3719, is the uniform text: reasonable compensation for services, a right to renounce a will’s compensation provision before qualifying where no contract with the decedent governs, a right to renounce all or part of the fee, and a written renunciation that may be filed with the court. There is no Arizona percentage schedule.
The review provision is where Arizona is worth reading closely. Section 14-3721 lets the court review, after notice to all interested persons, the propriety of employing any person, the reasonableness of that person’s compensation, and the reasonableness of the compensation the representative set for their own services. The petition may come from an interested person “including any person employed by the personal representative” — so the professionals the estate is paying are themselves among those who can put the fee arrangement in front of a judge.
The section ends with a clawback rather than a warning: “Any person who has received excessive compensation from an estate for services rendered may be ordered to make appropriate refund.” Payment already taken is not settled by having been taken.
Where administration is supervised, no petition is needed at all — the court may act on appropriate motion. In practice that means an Arizona representative who sets their own fee has done something provisional until the accounting is approved.
Source: A.R.S. §§ 14-3719, 14-3721, read from the enacting state’s own published code on 2026-09-17. Quoted wording is the statute’s; the surrounding explanation is this site’s reading of it and is not legal advice.
Arizona compensation map
A percentage is not a fee answer until its base is known. This Arizona map identifies the compensation standard and the accounting figure it uses, while keeping court approval and extraordinary work outside an invented total.
| Question | Recorded Arizona answer | Carry into the case |
|---|---|---|
| What route is being screened? | Affidavit for collection of personal property | Confirm that the will, prior appointment, family facts, and asset titles fit this route. |
| What property and basis count? | personal probate property only; net of enforceable liens and encumbrances. | Keep real property, liens, beneficiary transfers, and survivorship transfers classified separately. |
| What is the amount screen? | $200,000 | Use the counted property, not a bank-balance shortcut. |
| What is the time or deadline record? | 30 days after death; No deadline is recorded here: The creditor-notice and claim-bar deadlines have not been verified to this site's primary-source standard, so no number is published. | Keep the event that starts each clock with the date; do not combine separate periods into one number. |
| What does the cost record establish? | $149 is the recorded statewide amount. | Ask the Superior Court about local surcharges, copies, publication, bond, and later filings. |
| What does compensation use? | Arizona uses a reasonable-compensation standard rather than a fixed percentage. The relevant base is the estate accounting. | Keep the will, task log, receipts, and accounting base together; extraordinary work is separate. |
Compensation record
This is the registry view of the compensation rule, separate from the calculator result. It shows whether a rate schedule exists and what accounting base the schedule names. A blank band is not permission to borrow a percentage from another state.
Arizona has no tier table this site can price from the accepted record. The controlling record is A.R.S. § 14-3719; read its quoted standard and ask the court how the fee is presented for approval.
Because Arizona does not publish a percentage table here, the useful output is a record of the work and the accounting figure the court can review. Keep the will or appointment order, the the estate accounting the rule names, a dated task log, receipts, and a separate list of extraordinary work. This worksheet does not predict what the Superior Court will approve.
A personal representative is entitled to reasonable compensation for his services.
| Record to assemble | Why it matters to the Arizona review |
|---|---|
| Will, appointment, or compensation agreement | Shows whether a document states a fee or leaves the amount to the reviewed standard. |
| Accounting base | Separates the estate accounting from the gross asset list. |
| Dated task and time record | Connects the requested amount to the administration work actually performed. |
| Receipts and extraordinary-work list | Keeps expenses and separately reviewable services out of an unexplained round number. |
Arizona has more than one estate-administration question in the same file. The personal-property affidavit uses a $200,000 net-of-liens ceiling after 30 days; the separate real-property affidavit uses a $300,000 ceiling after six months. Neither ceiling answers what compensation is reasonable for the work performed.
Keep the affidavit route, the probate filing route, and the compensation request as separate entries in the estate ledger. A $149 opening filing fee or a surviving-spouse wage affidavit is not evidence of what a court should award a personal representative.
Case-file context
A route answer is easier to use when the facts that can change it stay in the same record. These are the reviewed Arizona descriptions adjacent to this page\'s main question; they are not a substitute for the source quotations or the receiving court\'s instructions.
Arizona has separate affidavit procedures for personal and real property, with different limits and waiting periods.
The personal-property route uses a $200,000 ceiling after 30 days, measured after liens and encumbrances. A separate real-property affidavit uses a $300,000 ceiling after six months.
Opening a probate case costs $149. The personal-property affidavit route does not require a court filing.
$149 is the recorded statewide amount.
No deadline is recorded here: The creditor-notice and claim-bar deadlines have not been verified to this site's primary-source standard, so no number is published.
Court-material note: Arizona publishes no single statewide small-estate affidavit form. Superior court clerks in each county publish their own affidavit packets built on A.R.S. § 14-3971. County surcharges are added to the statutory filing fee, so the published statewide schedule is the figure to confirm locally.
Arithmetic illustration
The recorded Arizona ceiling is $200,000, and it is tested against personal probate property only, on a basis this site records as net of enforceable liens and encumbrances. Counted that way, $150,000 sits below the Arizona figure and $250,000 sits above it. Both are comparisons to a published number rather than legal outcomes: two estates holding the same total can land on opposite sides of this line, because what Arizona counts and how it values it are decided before the comparison is made.
| Illustrative counted amount | Comparison to the Arizona ceiling | What it does not decide |
|---|---|---|
| $150,000 | Below $200,000 | Title, liens, waiting period, appointment, or creditor duties |
| $250,000 | Above $200,000 | Whether another statutory route or court process applies |
Next evidence to collect
Official material
Arizona publishes no single statewide small-estate affidavit form. Superior court clerks in each county publish their own affidavit packets built on A.R.S. § 14-3971.
County surcharges are added to the statutory filing fee, so the published statewide schedule is the figure to confirm locally.
Source trail
Each legal input links to the government source reviewed for this page. Source text can change; confirm the current rule before acting.
Reviewed source note: A personal representative is entitled to reasonable compensation for his services.