Route context
Nebraska permits collection of qualifying personal property by affidavit after 30 days.
The value of all probate personal property, less liens and encumbrances, must not exceed $100,000.
Nebraska personal representative compensation
Nebraska executor fee calculator
Nebraska uses a reasonable-compensation standard rather than a fixed percentage.
Sources reviewed August 7, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch September 15, 2026.
How Nebraska executor compensation works
In Nebraska, the personal representative (executor) is the person the court appoints, or the will nominates, to administer the estate. Nebraska compensation is governed by state statute and, where the statute permits, by the terms of the will or a court order, so the lawful Nebraska fee is whatever those authorities set — not a national rule of thumb.
Nebraska does not set a statewide percentage schedule.
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.
What this state does not set
Nebraska 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.
The governing compensation standard
A personal representative is entitled to reasonable compensation for his services.
How the amount is fixed
Nebraska 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 County 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.
Nebraska is one of the few uniform states that wrote the fee factors into the statute
Nebraska’s compensation section, § 30-2480, is the uniform text word for word: a personal representative is entitled to reasonable compensation for services; where a will fixes compensation and there is no contract with the decedent about it, the representative may renounce that provision before qualifying and take reasonable compensation instead; and the representative may renounce all or part of the fee, with a written renunciation filed with the court. Read on its own it tells you nothing Arizona, Montana, Massachusetts or North Dakota do not also say.
What makes Nebraska different is the next section. Section 30-2482(2), added by Laws 1980, LB 694, § 10, lists seven factors as guides to the reasonableness of a fee: the time and labour required, the novelty and difficulty of the questions involved and the skill needed to do the work properly; the likelihood, if apparent to the representative, that taking the work will preclude other employment; the fee customarily charged in the locality for similar services; the amount involved and the results obtained; the time limitations imposed by the representative or by the circumstances; the nature and length of the relationship between the representative and the person doing the work; and the experience, reputation and ability of that person.
The Nebraska Supreme Court has read those factors as legislative direction rather than decoration. In In re Estate of Gsantner, 288 Neb. 222, 846 N.W.2d 646 (2014), the court held that the section 30-2482 factors “provide an indication of what facts the Legislature intended to be considered when determining a reasonable fee,” that weighing the relevant ones is within the trial court’s discretion, and that a personal representative’s right to reasonable compensation exists independently of the rights of the estate.
One jurisdictional point catches people out. In In re Estate of Koetter, 312 Neb. 549, 980 N.W.2d 376 (2022), the court held that the county court, not the district court, decides whether a representative or nominated representative is reimbursed by the estate for attorney fees incurred in a will contest — even where the contest itself began in county court and was then transferred to the district court.
Source: Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 30-2480, 30-2482, 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.
Nebraska compensation map
Which figure the Nebraska fee rule actually measures
A percentage is not a fee answer until its base is known. This Nebraska map identifies the compensation standard and the accounting figure it uses, while keeping court approval and extraordinary work outside an invented total.
| Question | Recorded Nebraska 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? | $100,000 | Use the counted property, not a bank-balance shortcut. |
| What is the time or deadline record? | 30 days after death; Nebraska bars pre-death creditor claims two months after first publication of notice (triggered by appointment and due within thirty days of it), or three years after death where no notice is given. The clocks run from different events and are published separately. | Keep the event that starts each clock with the date; do not combine separate periods into one number. |
| What does the cost record establish? | $22 is the recorded statewide amount. | Ask the County Court about local surcharges, copies, publication, bond, and later filings. |
| What does compensation use? | Nebraska 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
The Nebraska 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.
Nebraska has no tier table this site can price from the accepted record. The controlling record is Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2480; read its quoted standard and ask the court how the fee is presented for approval.
Prepare a reasonable-compensation request
Because Nebraska 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 County Court will approve.
A personal representative is entitled to reasonable compensation for his services.
| Record to assemble | Why it matters to the Nebraska 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. |
Nebraska branches to keep in the request
Nebraska\'s compensation standard sits beside an informal-probate cost path rather than replacing it. Nebraska charges $22 for proceedings commenced and closed informally; formal proceedings use another schedule. Section 33-125 charges $22 for each subsequent petition or application within the proceeding, so a case with several filings costs more than the opening fee.
The personal-property affidavit is limited to $100,000, while the creditor record uses the first publication of notice and a separate outer limit when notice is not given. Preserve those route and deadline facts with the task log instead of treating a $22 filing as the fee for the administration itself.
Case-file context
Keep the Nebraska 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 Nebraska descriptions adjacent to this page\'s main question; they are not a substitute for the source quotations or the receiving court\'s instructions.
Cost context
Nebraska charges $22 for proceedings commenced and closed informally; formal proceedings use another schedule.
$22 is the recorded statewide amount.
Deadline context
Nebraska bars pre-death creditor claims two months after first publication of notice (triggered by appointment and due within thirty days of it), or three years after death where no notice is given. The clocks run from different events and are published separately.
- The affidavit route covers personal property, not real property.
- The $22 amount applies to the informal-probate track.
Court-material note: Nebraska publishes separate statewide affidavits for personal property and for real property, so the route depends on what the decedent owned.
Arithmetic illustration
See the Nebraska amount screen without mistaking it for a result
The recorded Nebraska ceiling is $100,000, 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, $75,000 sits below the Nebraska figure and $125,000 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 Nebraska counts and how it values it are decided before the comparison is made.
| Illustrative counted amount | Comparison to the Nebraska ceiling | What it does not decide |
|---|---|---|
| $75,000 | Below $100,000 | Title, liens, waiting period, appointment, or creditor duties |
| $125,000 | Above $100,000 | Whether 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.
- 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
- Affidavit for Transfer of Personal Property without ProbateNebraska Judicial Branch
- Nebraska court fines and costsNebraska Judicial Branch
Nebraska publishes separate statewide affidavits for personal property and for real property, so the route depends on what the decedent owned.
Source trail
Records used by this Nebraska map
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-24,125Nebraska Revised Statutes, Collection of Personal Property; reviewed August 7, 2026
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 33-125(1)(a)(i)Nebraska Revised Statutes, County Court Fees; reviewed August 7, 2026
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2480Nebraska Revised Statutes, Personal Representative Compensation; reviewed August 7, 2026
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2485Nebraska Revised Statutes, Limitations on Presentation of Claims; reviewed August 7, 2026
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2483(a)Nebraska Revised Statutes, Notice to Creditors; reviewed August 7, 2026
Compensation source
Each legal input links to the government source reviewed for this page. Source text can change; confirm the current rule before acting.
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 30-2480
Reviewed source note: A personal representative is entitled to reasonable compensation for his services.