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Kentucky personal representative compensation

Kentucky executor fee calculator

KRS 395.150 caps the personal representative’s compensation at five percent (5%) of the value of the personal estate of the decedent, PLUS five percent (5%) of the income collected. The base is the personal estate (plus income collected), not real property.

Sources reviewed August 9, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch September 15, 2026.

1. Where and when
Private by design: entries stay in this browser.
2. Compensation base

Ownership determines whether an asset usually enters probate. Choose “Not sure” when title or beneficiary status has not been confirmed.

Asset 1

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Your working estimate

Kentucky estate snapshot

Gross probate propertyNot yet counted
Court chargeSet locallyKRS 64.012 is a statewide statutory schedule of county-clerk fees; recording a will or other probate document of five pages or fewer is $33.00. This is a recording fee, not the District Court opening cost, so the court filing fee proper is published as UNKNOWN.
Scheduled executor compensationMore information needed2 asset entries have no value entered.KRS 395.150 caps the personal representative’s compensation at five percent (5%) of the value of the personal estate of the decedent, PLUS five percent (5%) of the income collected. The base is the personal estate (plus income collected), not real property.

This route check is general information, not legal advice. It does not test every eligibility condition, creditor issue, will provision, local fee, or asset-title fact.

How Kentucky executor compensation works

In Kentucky, the personal representative (executor) is the person the court appoints, or the will nominates, to administer the estate. Kentucky compensation is governed by state statute and, where the statute permits, by the terms of the will or a court order, so the lawful Kentucky fee is whatever those authorities set — not a national rule of thumb.

The calculator above applies Kentucky's reviewed statutory rule to the compensable estate value you enter. The Kentucky figure does not include extraordinary fees — services beyond routine administration (such as litigation, tax elections, or real-property management) that the court may approve separately on top of the ordinary compensation.

In Kentucky, the compensable amount is measured against the gross value of the probate estate, so two Kentucky estates with the same headline size can produce different lawful fees when what they are made of differs. Enter the figure that matches that basis rather than the gross number on the first account statement, or the Kentucky result will not reflect the rule the statute actually applies.

If the Kentucky will names a specific compensation amount or formula, that term controls unless a beneficiary or the representative petitions the court for modification. When no will exists, or the will is silent on the point, the Kentucky statutory rule becomes the presumptive measure of reasonable compensation for the work.

Kentucky’s 5% rule has stood unamended since 1942, and it taxes income separately

KRS 395.150(1) provides that the compensation of an executor, administrator or curator, for services as such, “shall not exceed five percent (5%) of the value of the personal estate of the decedent, plus five percent (5%) of the income collected by the executor, administrator or curator for the estate.”

Two boundaries follow from the wording. The base is the personal estate, so real property that is not sold in the course of administration is outside the percentage. And income collected during administration is a second, additive 5% base rather than being folded into the first — a long administration that generates rent or interest therefore increases the ceiling in a way a single closing-value percentage would not.

Subsection (2) supplies the escape valve. On proof that additional services have been performed, the court may allow such additional compensation as would be fair and reasonable, but only where the additional services were either (a) unusual or extraordinary and not normally incident to administering a decedent’s estate, or (b) performed in connection with real estate, or with estate and inheritance taxes claimed against property that is not part of the decedent’s estate but is included in it for the purpose of asserting those taxes. Paragraph (b) is how work on non-probate property that is nonetheless inside the taxable estate gets paid for, given that the subsection (1) base excludes it.

The section’s history line is unusually short: effective October 1, 1942, recodified by 1942 Ky. Acts ch. 208, sec. 1 from Ky. Stat. sec. 3883. The percentages have not been revisited since, which is worth knowing before treating the 5% figure as a current market rate rather than a statutory ceiling.

Source: KRS 395.150, 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.

Kentucky compensation map

Which figure the Kentucky fee rule actually measures

A percentage is not a fee answer until its base is known. This Kentucky map identifies the compensation standard and the accounting figure it uses, while keeping court approval and extraordinary work outside an invented total.

QuestionRecorded Kentucky answerCarry into the case
What route is being screened?Surviving-spouse/children $30,000 exemption (KRS 391.030); dispensing with administration when exemption plus preferred claims cover the estate (KRS 395.455)Confirm that the will, prior appointment, family facts, and asset titles fit this route.
What property and basis count?personal probate property only; gross value for this route.Keep real property, liens, beneficiary transfers, and survivorship transfers classified separately.
What is the amount screen?$30,000Use the counted property, not a bank-balance shortcut.
What is the time or deadline record?No waiting-period number verified; KRS 396.011 sets Kentucky's non-claim bar as one clock keyed to appointment: all pre-death claims are barred against the estate, the personal representative, and the heirs and devisees unless presented within six (6) months after the appointment of the personal representative, or where no personal representative has been appointed, within two (2) years after the decedent's death. Both periods are stated in months/years, so they are carried as descriptions rather than fixed day counts; the six-month period runs from appointment, and the two-year period is the outer bar when no representative is ever appointed.Keep the event that starts each clock with the date; do not combine separate periods into one number.
What does the cost record establish?No single statewide amount is published here; confirm the receiving court's current schedule.Ask the District Court about local surcharges, copies, publication, bond, and later filings.
What does compensation use?KRS 395.150 caps the personal representative’s compensation at five percent (5%) of the value of the personal estate of the decedent, PLUS five percent (5%) of the income collected. The base is the personal estate (plus income collected), not real property. The relevant base is gross probate property.Keep the will, task log, receipts, and accounting base together; extraordinary work is separate.

Compensation record

The Kentucky fee record, band by band

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.

Compensation bandRateRead with
All value above the prior band5%gross probate property

Case-file context

Keep the Kentucky answer with its neighboring conditions

A route answer is easier to use when the facts that can change it stay in the same record. These are the reviewed Kentucky descriptions adjacent to this page\'s main question; they are not a substitute for the source quotations or the receiving court\'s instructions.

Route context

Kentucky can dispense with administration entirely (KRS 395.455) when the surviving-spouse/children exemption (KRS 391.030, $30,000 of personal property) plus preferred claims cover the estate, in the District Court. Executor compensation is capped at 5% of the personal estate plus 5% of income collected (KRS 395.150). The county-clerk recording fee for a will is $33.00 (KRS 64.012); the District Court opening cost itself is not stated in that schedule and is published as UNKNOWN.

Kentucky does not use a single dollar-capped small-estate affidavit; two distinct mechanisms interact. (1) Surviving spouse/children exemption (KRS 391.030): personal property or money on hand or in a bank or other depository up to thirty thousand dollars ($30,000) is exempt and passes to the surviving spouse, or if none to the surviving children — a set-aside, not a whole-estate procedure. (2) Dispensing with administration (KRS 395.455): a SEPARATE court order. Where the exemption for the surviving spouse or children under KRS 391.030, alone or together with preferred claims, equals or exceeds the amount of distributable assets, the court may order that administration of the estate be dispensed with and the assets transferred to the surviving spouse or children (or to a preferred creditor who paid preferred claims). The $30,000 figure is the KRS 391.030 exemption that drives the § 395.455 arithmetic; it is not itself a filing threshold. The relevant base is personal property/money on hand or in a bank.

Cost context

KRS 64.012 is a statewide statutory schedule of county-clerk fees; recording a will or other probate document of five pages or fewer is $33.00. This is a recording fee, not the District Court opening cost, so the court filing fee proper is published as UNKNOWN.

No single statewide amount is published here; confirm the receiving court's current schedule.

Deadline context

KRS 396.011 sets Kentucky's non-claim bar as one clock keyed to appointment: all pre-death claims are barred against the estate, the personal representative, and the heirs and devisees unless presented within six (6) months after the appointment of the personal representative, or where no personal representative has been appointed, within two (2) years after the decedent's death. Both periods are stated in months/years, so they are carried as descriptions rather than fixed day counts; the six-month period runs from appointment, and the two-year period is the outer bar when no representative is ever appointed.

  • Filing fee: KRS 64.012 gives only the county-clerk RECORDING fee ($33); the actual District Court estate-opening cost is not in that schedule and remains UNKNOWN — do not present $33 as the court filing fee.
  • Creditor non-claim period now sourced from KRS 396.011: six months after appointment of the personal representative, or two years after death where none is appointed. Periods are stated in months/years and carried as descriptions, not fixed day counts.
  • No HTTP-200 court-resource URL for Kentucky (kycourts.gov WAF); a human must add it.

Court-material note: Probate in Kentucky is heard in the District Court. The Kentucky Court of Justice self-help/forms site (kycourts.gov) could NOT be pinned under the HTTP-200 rule: automated requests are intercepted by a WAF that returns 403 (no browser headers) or a 302 challenge/404 (with browser headers), never a clean 200. A human must add the kycourts.gov Legal Forms / self-help links. The only stably-reachable official Kentucky resource verified at HTTP 200 is the Legislature’s statute portal (apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/), which is the primary-law source rather than a court forms hub.

Arithmetic illustration

See the Kentucky amount screen without mistaking it for a result

The recorded Kentucky ceiling is $30,000, and it is tested against personal probate property only, on a basis this site records as gross value for this route. Counted that way, $22,500 sits below the Kentucky figure and $37,500 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 Kentucky counts and how it values it are decided before the comparison is made.

Illustrative counted amountComparison to the Kentucky ceilingWhat it does not decide
$22,500Below $30,000Title, liens, waiting period, appointment, or creditor duties
$37,500Above $30,000Whether another statutory route or court process applies

Next evidence to collect

Bring the stated accounting base and the will or court instructions to the compensation discussion.

  1. Record the date of death, the county, and the exact proceeding or affidavit being considered.
  2. Classify each asset by title, beneficiary, trust, real-property status, and the value basis shown above.
  3. Open the official court material below and keep its form or schedule with the estate record.
  4. Do not distribute property until the route, creditor position, and required approvals are resolved.

Official material

Kentucky publishes no court artifact in this registry. Probate in Kentucky is heard in the District Court. The Kentucky Court of Justice self-help/forms site (kycourts.gov) could NOT be pinned under the HTTP-200 rule: automated requests are intercepted by a WAF that returns 403 (no browser headers) or a 302 challenge/404 (with browser headers), never a clean 200. A human must add the kycourts.gov Legal Forms / self-help links. The only stably-reachable official Kentucky resource verified at HTTP 200 is the Legislature’s statute portal (apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/), which is the primary-law source rather than a court forms hub.

Probate in Kentucky is heard in the District Court. The Kentucky Court of Justice self-help/forms site (kycourts.gov) could NOT be pinned under the HTTP-200 rule: automated requests are intercepted by a WAF that returns 403 (no browser headers) or a 302 challenge/404 (with browser headers), never a clean 200. A human must add the kycourts.gov Legal Forms / self-help links. The only stably-reachable official Kentucky resource verified at HTTP 200 is the Legislature’s statute portal (apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/), which is the primary-law source rather than a court forms hub.

Source trail

Records used by this Kentucky map

  • KRS 395.455KRS 395.455 — Transfer of assets without administration; reviewed August 9, 2026
  • KRS 391.030KRS 391.030 — Descent of personal property; exemption; reviewed August 9, 2026
  • KRS 395.150KRS 395.150 — Compensation of representatives; reviewed August 9, 2026
  • KRS 64.012KRS 64.012 — Fees of county clerks; reviewed August 9, 2026
  • KRS 396.011KRS 396.011 — Presentation of claims against estate; time limitations; exceptions; reviewed August 9, 2026

The figure the Kentucky schedule is applied to

The rate is only half of the answer; the other half is the number the rate is applied to, and in Kentucky that number is specific. The reviewed rule measures compensation against the personal-estate-plus-income-collected. The 5% ceiling is on the value of the personal estate; a separate 5% applies to income collected. Do not apply it to real property value.

Entering a different figure — the gross value on a bank statement, the net estate after debts, or the total that passed to the heirs — produces a Kentucky number the rule does not support, even when the percentage is applied correctly. The base is the part most often got wrong.

Compensation source

Each legal input links to the government source reviewed for this page. Source text can change; confirm the current rule before acting.

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