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South Dakota personal representative compensation

South Dakota executor fee calculator

SDCL § 29A-3-719 entitles personal representatives (and their attorneys, accountants, appraisers, and agents) to "reasonable compensation for services", determined on statutory factors including the time and labor involved, the novelty and difficulty of the questions, the fee customarily charged locally, and the nature and value of the estate's assets. There is no percentage schedule.

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

South Dakota estate snapshot

Gross probate propertyNot yet counted
Court chargeSet locallySDCL § 16-2-29(1) directs that the clerk of courts "shall charge and collect the following fees: (1) For the probate of an estate, seventy-five dollars". This is a clean statewide statutory probate filing fee of $75. The § 29A-3-1201 affidavit route requires no court filing.
Scheduled executor compensationMore information needed2 asset entries have no value entered.SDCL § 29A-3-719 entitles personal representatives (and their attorneys, accountants, appraisers, and agents) to "reasonable compensation for services", determined on statutory factors including the time and labor involved, the novelty and difficulty of the questions, the fee customarily charged locally, and the nature and value of the estate's assets. There is no percentage schedule.

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 South Dakota executor compensation works

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

South Dakota 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

South Dakota 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

29A-3-719 . Compensation of personal representative. (a) Personal representatives, attorneys, accountants, appraisers, and other agents of the personal representative are entitled to reasonable compensation for services.

How the amount is fixed

SDCL § 29A-3-719 entitles personal representatives (and their attorneys, accountants, appraisers, and agents) to "reasonable compensation for services", determined on statutory factors including the time and labor involved, the novelty and difficulty of the questions, the fee customarily charged locally, and the nature and value of the estate's assets. There is no percentage schedule.

Keep the estate accounting, time and task log, receipts, and any will or compensation agreement together. Before taking a fee, ask the Circuit 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.

South Dakota’s compensation rule is not quoted here

South Dakota publishes its codified laws through a single-page web application. Every route tried on the date below — the human-facing statute page, the chapter endpoint, and two documented API paths — returned the same 5,982-byte application shell titled "Loading…" rather than any statutory text.

South Dakota has adopted the Uniform Probate Code, and its neighbours North Dakota and Montana carry the uniform compensation provision essentially word for word. That makes a guess tempting and unusually risky: uniform-code states diverge in exactly the places that matter, and this site has already found and documented several such divergences between Montana, North Dakota, Arizona, Idaho and Nebraska.

So the family resemblance is stated and the text is not. Assuming South Dakota tracks its neighbours would be an inference presented in the typography of a quotation.

The clerk of the circuit court in the county of venue applies the current South Dakota provision and is the authority for what it now says.

Authority that would settle this: S.D. Codified Laws tit. 29A (Uniform Probate Code). The access attempt described above was made on 2026-09-17. Nothing is quoted from it, because nothing could be read from it; a figure restated from a secondary summary would look like a sourced answer without being one.

South Dakota compensation map

Which figure the South Dakota fee rule actually measures

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

QuestionRecorded South Dakota answerCarry into the case
What route is being screened?Collection of personal property by affidavit (SDCL § 29A-3-1201)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?$100,000Use the counted property, not a bank-balance shortcut.
What is the time or deadline record?30 days after death; South Dakota runs multiple independently-triggered claim deadlines that cannot honestly collapse into one number: a four-month bar from first publication of the notice to creditors (§ 29A-3-801(a)); an actual-notice period of four months from appointment or 60 days from mailing of written notice, whichever is later (§ 29A-3-801(b)); and an outer bar of three years after death (§ 29A-3-803(a)(3)). Publishing a single figure would mislead.Keep the event that starts each clock with the date; do not combine separate periods into one number.
What does the cost record establish?$75 is the recorded statewide amount.Ask the Circuit Court about local surcharges, copies, publication, bond, and later filings.
What does compensation use?SDCL § 29A-3-719 entitles personal representatives (and their attorneys, accountants, appraisers, and agents) to "reasonable compensation for services", determined on statutory factors including the time and labor involved, the novelty and difficulty of the questions, the fee customarily charged locally, and the nature and value of the estate's assets. There is no percentage schedule. The relevant base is the estate accounting.Keep the will, task log, receipts, and accounting base together; extraordinary work is separate.

Compensation record

The South Dakota 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.

South Dakota has no tier table this site can price from the accepted record. The controlling record is S.D. Codified Laws § 29A-3-719; read its quoted standard and ask the court how the fee is presented for approval.

Prepare a reasonable-compensation request

Because South Dakota 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 Circuit Court will approve.

29A-3-719 . Compensation of personal representative. (a) Personal representatives, attorneys, accountants, appraisers, and other agents of the personal representative are entitled to reasonable compensation for services.

Record to assembleWhy it matters to the South Dakota review
Will, appointment, or compensation agreementShows whether a document states a fee or leaves the amount to the reviewed standard.
Accounting baseSeparates the estate accounting from the gross asset list.
Dated task and time recordConnects the requested amount to the administration work actually performed.
Receipts and extraordinary-work listKeeps expenses and separately reviewable services out of an unexplained round number.

Case-file context

Keep the South Dakota 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 South Dakota 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

South Dakota is a Uniform Probate Code state. Personal property of a decedent whose estate (net of liens and encumbrances) does not exceed $100,000 can be collected by affidavit under SDCL § 29A-3-1201, thirty days after death, with no court filing; a decedent's real property worth $50,000 or less can be transferred by an affidavit filed with the register of deeds under SDCL § 29A-3-1203 sixty days after death. Probate proceedings are filed in the Circuit Court, where the statewide probate filing fee is $75 under SDCL § 16-2-29. Personal representatives receive reasonable compensation under § 29A-3-719 — South Dakota sets no statutory percentage commission schedule.

South Dakota allows collection of a decedent's personal property by affidavit under SDCL § 29A-3-1201 when "the value of the entire estate, wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed $100,000", thirty days have elapsed since death, no application or petition for appointment of a personal representative is pending or has been granted, and the decedent has not incurred any indebtedness to the Department of Social Services for medical assistance for nursing-home or other medical institutional care. A separate route, SDCL § 29A-3-1203, lets a successor perfect title to the decedent's real property by an affidavit filed with the register of deeds sixty days after death, where the decedent's interest in all South Dakota real property does not exceed $50,000.

Cost context

SDCL § 16-2-29(1) directs that the clerk of courts "shall charge and collect the following fees: (1) For the probate of an estate, seventy-five dollars". This is a clean statewide statutory probate filing fee of $75. The § 29A-3-1201 affidavit route requires no court filing.

$75 is the recorded statewide amount.

Deadline context

South Dakota runs multiple independently-triggered claim deadlines that cannot honestly collapse into one number: a four-month bar from first publication of the notice to creditors (§ 29A-3-801(a)); an actual-notice period of four months from appointment or 60 days from mailing of written notice, whichever is later (§ 29A-3-801(b)); and an outer bar of three years after death (§ 29A-3-803(a)(3)). Publishing a single figure would mislead.

Court-material note: Probate in South Dakota is handled by the Circuit Court. The Unified Judicial System publishes statewide self-help resources and a form/file search. The $75 probate filing fee is fixed statewide by SDCL § 16-2-29(1) (current through SL 2026, ch 92); the § 29A-3-1201 personal-property affidavit and the § 29A-3-1203 real-property affidavit are private/register-of-deeds instruments, not court probate filings.

Arithmetic illustration

See the South Dakota amount screen without mistaking it for a result

The recorded South Dakota 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 South Dakota 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 South Dakota counts and how it values it are decided before the comparison is made.

Illustrative counted amountComparison to the South Dakota ceilingWhat it does not decide
$75,000Below $100,000Title, liens, waiting period, appointment, or creditor duties
$125,000Above $100,000Whether 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

Probate in South Dakota is handled by the Circuit Court. The Unified Judicial System publishes statewide self-help resources and a form/file search. The $75 probate filing fee is fixed statewide by SDCL § 16-2-29(1) (current through SL 2026, ch 92); the § 29A-3-1201 personal-property affidavit and the § 29A-3-1203 real-property affidavit are private/register-of-deeds instruments, not court probate filings.

Source trail

Records used by this South Dakota map

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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