Texas pays 5% on cash that moves, and leaves out the cash that was already there
Tex. Est. Code § 352.002(a) gives the commission only to an executor or administrator “a court finds to have taken care of and managed an estate in compliance with the standards of this title”: five percent “on all amounts that the executor or administrator actually receives or pays out in cash in the administration of the estate.” Subsection (b) caps the total at five percent of the gross fair market value of the estate subject to administration.
The exclusions in subsection (b)(2) remove most of the money in a typical estate. No commission is earned on funds the decedent had on hand or held in a financial institution (a bank, trust company, savings bank, building and loan or savings and loan association, or credit union) or a brokerage firm at the death, including checking, savings, certificate of deposit and money market balances; on collecting life insurance proceeds; or on paying cash to an heir or legatee as such. What remains is money the administration actually generated or spent: sale proceeds, rents, debts collected and paid, and expenses.
An estate whose only assets at death were a $150,000 bank account and a $300,000 house that the executor sells, and which pays $20,000 of debts and expenses, earns five percent of the $300,000 sale and the $20,000 paid out, or $16,000. Nothing is earned on the bank balance or on handing the proceeds to the heirs, and the $16,000 is well under five percent of the $450,000 estate.
Section 352.003 lets the court allow reasonable compensation instead, including for unusual efforts to collect funds or life insurance, where the representative runs a farm, ranch, factory or other business of the estate, or where the § 352.002 figure is unreasonably low; the county court hears those applications from independent executors. Under § 352.004 the court may deny the commission in whole or part, on an interested person’s application or its own motion, if estate property was not managed prudently or the representative was removed. Expenses and reasonable attorney’s fees are allowed separately under § 352.051.
Source: Tex. Est. Code §§ 352.002–352.004, 352.051, read from the enacting state’s own official publication on 2026-10-13. Quoted wording is the statute’s; the surrounding explanation is this site’s reading of it and is not legal advice.