Publication
Newspaper pricing is commercial rather than a statewide fee.
Kentucky court costs
Kentucky probate filing cost: not published
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.
not published is not published as a current figure, because the statute states its amounts apply before adjustment by another authority. Sources reviewed August 9, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch September 15, 2026.
What the statute charges
Kentucky does not fix this amount in a single statewide schedule, so this site reports it as unknown rather than publishing an estimate that no source supports.
Kentucky publishes no component breakdown for this cost.
The controlling amount is set below the statute, so this site reports it as unknown rather than estimating it. The linked source explains where the figure comes from.
Costs no statute prices
These are the costs executors most often meet after the filing fee. None of them has a statewide statutory amount, so this site does not estimate them.
Bond
Premiums depend on the bond amount, the estate, and the applicant.
Copies and local charges
Certified copies, recording, inventory, accounting, and county surcharges are billed separately.
Professional fees
Attorney, accountant, and appraiser fees are negotiated or court-reviewed.
State-specific limits
- 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.
Use this as a starting point.
This is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Probate law varies by state and county and changes over time. Verify the current rule with the court or a licensed attorney in the relevant state.
How to verify the amount for this case
Name the proceeding before asking for a total. A small-estate affidavit, an application for letters, formal administration, a later inventory or account, and a certified copy can each carry a different charge. Asking only “what does probate cost?” invites an answer for the wrong filing.
- Identify the county where the proceeding will be filed.
- Identify the exact route or petition you expect to use.
- State the value basis the schedule uses; it is not always the gross estate value.
- Ask the clerk to separate the opening fee, mandatory surcharges, copies, publication, bond, and later filings.
- Record the schedule date or rule cited.
- Record whether payment is due at filing.
Kentucky does not provide one operative statewide total for this page. The exact answer must come from the receiving District Court and its current local schedule; this site will not turn a base charge into a made-up statewide estimate.
Keep that clerk quote with the estate record and compare it with the itemised statutory lines above. For the broader budget, use the probate cost-line guide; court filing is only one category.
Kentucky prices a will by the page, and exempts it from the surcharge
Kentucky’s recording costs sit in KRS 64.012(1)(a), a long list of instruments that share one price. Recording and indexing any of them — including, at subdivision w., a "Will or other probate document pursuant to KRS Chapter 392 or 394" — costs $33.00 "if the entire thereof does not exceed five (5) pages."
Above five pages the statute charges $3.00 for each additional page, but it writes an exception straight into the surcharge: the per-page charge applies to everything in the subsection "except any will or other probate document pursuant to KRS Chapter 392 or 394 under subdivision w. of this subparagraph, or any court-ordered name change pursuant to KRS Chapter 401 under subdivision x." A long Kentucky will therefore records for the same $33.00 as a short one. A separate $4.00 applies "for each additional reference relating to same instrument."
The $33 is split by statute rather than kept whole: $27 is retained by the county clerk, and $6 "shall be paid to the affordable housing trust fund established in KRS 198A.710," remitted within ten days after the end of the quarter in which it was received and accompanied by a summary report on a form prescribed by the Kentucky Housing Corporation.
This is a county clerk charge, not the District Court’s. It is the line that attaches to putting the will and probate documents on the public record, and it is separate from whatever the District Court collects to open the estate.
Source: KRS 64.012, 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 filing-cost map
Separate the Kentucky filing charge from the estate budget
The Kentucky filing record prices a proceeding, not every cost of settling an estate. This map connects the published amount or schedule to its value basis and identifies the local items that still need a clerk or court schedule.
| Question | Recorded Kentucky answer | Carry 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? | $30,000 | Use 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. |
Filing record
What the Kentucky cost record can answer
Kentucky has no single statewide schedule in the accepted record.
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. This page therefore names the local confirmation path instead of turning a base charge into a statewide estimate.
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.
Compensation context
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.
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.
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 amount | Comparison to the Kentucky ceiling | What it does not decide |
|---|---|---|
| $22,500 | Below $30,000 | Title, liens, waiting period, appointment, or creditor duties |
| $37,500 | Above $30,000 | Whether another statutory route or court process applies |
Next evidence to collect
Name the proceeding and ask for mandatory surcharges, copies, publication, and later filings separately.
- Record the date of death, the county, and the exact proceeding or affidavit being considered.
- Classify each asset by title, beneficiary, trust, real-property status, and the value basis shown above.
- Open the official court material below and keep its form or schedule with the estate record.
- 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