Texas Probate Information

Texas probate turns on three questions the family should answer before anyone opens a court file: what the estate actually holds and owes, whether there is a will, and which of the three kinds of court the decedent's county has. The asset and debt picture decides the path. If there is a will that authorizes independent administration, or all the distributees will agree to one, the estate can run almost entirely outside court supervision under Estates Code chapters 401 to 405. If the estate owes no unpaid debt other than a debt secured by a lien on real estate, a will can be admitted as a muniment of title with no administration at all (257.001). If there is no will and the estate assets, excluding homestead and exempt property, do not exceed $75,000, a small estate affidavit may do the whole job 30 days after the death (205.001). Those tests are asked about assets and debts, not about paperwork, which is why the inventory work comes first.

Property held with a right of survivorship, payable-on-death and beneficiary-designated accounts, life insurance and retirement accounts, trust property, and real estate covered by a transfer on death deed recorded before death under Estates Code chapter 114 all pass outside probate. So does the homestead and other exempt property in the small-estate calculation, which counts only property that would be eligible to be set aside under Estates Code 353.051 (205.009). Before filing anything with the county clerk, identify every asset and every debt and confirm how each asset is titled and valued, because the answers decide the path, the fee exposure, and whether an attorney is needed. Do it early: a will generally cannot be admitted to probate after the fourth anniversary of the death (256.003(a)), and Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step.

Texas probate runs through the county's own court, and which court that is depends on the county. The Texas Estates Code 32.002 sets out the split, and its subsections run in the reverse of the order people expect. Subsection (a): in a county with no statutory probate court and no county court at law exercising original probate jurisdiction, the county court has original jurisdiction of probate proceedings. Subsection (b): in a county with no statutory probate court but with a county court at law exercising original probate jurisdiction, that court and the county court have concurrent original jurisdiction. Subsection (c): in a county with a statutory probate court, the statutory probate court has original jurisdiction. Estates Code 22.007(b) then makes "county court" and "probate court" synonymous terms, which is why the code's bare phrase "probate court" is a function word rather than the name of an institution. This knowledge base carries a separate page for each of the 254 counties, because the court, the contested-matter path, the counter, the local forms, and the local practice differ even though the statutes do not.

Twenty-five statutory probate courts sit in twelve counties: Bexar, Cameron, Collin, Dallas, Denton, El Paso, Galveston, Harris, Hidalgo, Montgomery, Tarrant, and Travis. The Office of Court Administration's Court Structure of Texas chart of December 2025 states "Statutory Probate Courts (25) ... (in 12 counties)", and Government Code Chapter 25 confirms it court by court. Everywhere else the question is whether the county has a statutory county court, usually called a county court at law. Government Code 25.0003(d) gives every statutory county court "concurrent with the county court, the probate jurisdiction provided by general law for county courts", so a builder does not have to hunt for a county-specific grant; 25.0003(e) carves out counties that have a statutory probate court, and 25.0003(f) makes clear that a statutory county court never has the jurisdiction of a statutory probate court. The Legislature has switched the default off in a couple of places, most notably Parker County, whose county courts at law do not have the jurisdiction of a probate court except over contested matters (Government Code 25.1863). In the remaining counties, and they are the majority, the only probate court is the county court, presided over by the elected County Judge, who need not be a lawyer.

That last point is what makes the contested-matter rule matter so much. In a statutory probate court county the statutory probate court has exclusive jurisdiction of all probate proceedings, contested or uncontested (Estates Code 32.005(a)). In a county court at law county the County Judge may on the judge's own motion, or shall on the motion of any party, transfer the contested matter to the county court at law, and may transfer the entire proceeding (32.004). In a constitutional county court county the County Judge may on the judge's own motion, or shall on a party's motion, either request the assignment of a statutory probate court judge under Government Code 25.0022 or transfer the contested matter to the district court (Estates Code 32.003(a)). A motion for assignment beats a transfer: if a party files one before the judge transfers the matter, the county judge shall grant it and may not transfer the matter to the district court unless the party withdraws the motion (32.003(b)). The county court keeps the rest of the case while the contested matter is elsewhere, and the matter comes back when it is resolved (32.003(e), (f), and (g)).

Filings go to the county clerk in every county and for every court type. The county clerk is the constitutional clerk of the county court (Texas Constitution article V, section 20), and Government Code 25.0030(b) provides that "The county clerk shall serve as clerk of each statutory probate court", so there is no district-clerk involvement in probate even in the twelve statutory probate court counties. Where a county court at law shares a split clerkship with the district clerk, the district clerk takes matters of concurrent jurisdiction with the district court and the county clerk takes all other cases, and probate is always in the second group. In counties with a population of less than 8,000 the voters may have one officer holding both offices (Government Code 51.501). Venue is the county where the decedent lived, if the decedent had a domicile or fixed place of residence in Texas (Estates Code 33.001(a)(1)); for a decedent with no Texas domicile or fixed residence, venue depends on where the death happened and where the estate or the nearest of kin are (33.001(a)(2)). If applications are filed in two courts with concurrent venue, the first commenced proceeding retains jurisdiction to the exclusion of the others (33.052).

Probate jurisdiction is split three ways by county, so find the county first. Under the Texas Estates Code 32.002 a county with a statutory probate court sends probate there (32.002(c)); a county with a county court at law exercising original probate jurisdiction gives that court and the constitutional county court concurrent original jurisdiction (32.002(b)); and every other county sends probate to the county court, meaning the elected County Judge, who need not be a lawyer (32.002(a)). Twenty-five statutory probate courts sit in twelve counties: Bexar, Cameron, Collin, Dallas, Denton, El Paso, Galveston, Harris, Hidalgo, Montgomery, Tarrant, and Travis. Estates Code 22.007(b) makes "county court" and "probate court" synonymous terms, so the code's bare phrase "probate court" is a function word, not the name of an institution.

The contested-matter route depends on which of the three courts the county has. In a statutory probate court county the statutory probate court has exclusive jurisdiction of all probate proceedings, contested or uncontested (Estates Code 32.005(a)). In a county court at law county the County Judge may on the judge's own motion, or shall on a party's motion, transfer the contested matter, and may transfer the entire proceeding, to the county court at law (32.004). In a constitutional county court county the County Judge may on the judge's own motion, or shall on a party's motion, request the assignment of a statutory probate court judge under Government Code 25.0022 or transfer the contested matter to the district court (32.003(a)). An assignment motion filed first beats a transfer (32.003(b)), the county court keeps the rest of the case meanwhile (32.003(g)), and the matter returns to the county court when it is resolved (32.003(e) and (f)).

Everything is filed with the county clerk, never the district clerk. The county clerk is the constitutional clerk of the county court (Texas Constitution article V, section 20), and Government Code 25.0030(b) provides that "The county clerk shall serve as clerk of each statutory probate court", so the counter is the same office in all three kinds of county. Where a county court at law shares a split clerkship, the district clerk takes matters of concurrent jurisdiction with the district court and the county clerk takes all other cases, and probate is always in the second group. A district clerk sees a probate matter only after a contested matter has been transferred to the district court under Estates Code 32.003, at which point the district clerk may perform the functions a county clerk would (32.003(i)).

Independent administration is the Texas default in practice, and it is why Texas probate is comparatively cheap. Once the court has appointed an independent executor and the inventory or the affidavit in lieu of it has been filed, "further action of any nature may not be had in the probate court except where this title specifically and explicitly provides for some action in the court" (Estates Code 402.001), and any action a supervised representative could take with or without a court order may be taken without one (402.002). A testator creates it by will (401.001(a)) or can forbid it (401.001(b)). Failing that, all of the distributees may agree to it, testate (401.002) or intestate (401.003), and the court shall grant it unless that would not be in the estate's best interest. Bond is required in the agreement cases unless the court waives it on application (401.005).

Intestate independent administration needs an heirship judgment first. Estates Code 401.003(b) provides that the court "may not appoint an independent administrator to serve in an intestate administration unless and until the parties seeking appointment ... have been determined, through a proceeding to declare heirship under Chapter 202, to constitute all of the decedent's heirs". A chapter 202 heirship proceeding involves citation and, ordinarily, an attorney ad litem for unknown heirs, which is why an intestate estate takes longer, costs more, and more often needs counsel than a testate one.

The inventory deadline now reads "before the 91st day", and the affidavit in lieu of it is a privacy tool. Estates Code 309.051(a), as recast effective September 1, 2025, requires the representative to file the inventory and appraisement with the court clerk "before the 91st day after the date the personal representative qualifies" unless the court grants a longer period. Do not quote "within 90 days" as statutory text. An independent executor with no unpaid debts other than secured debts, taxes, and administration expenses may file an affidavit in lieu of inventory instead, stating that those debts are paid and that all beneficiaries have received a verified, full, and detailed inventory and appraisement (309.056). The point for families is privacy: the affidavit keeps the estate's asset list out of the public record.

The creditor-notice section numbers are the most-mistaken cites in Texas. Publication is Estates Code 308.051 and it is due within one month after letters. 308.052 is the proof of publication, not the secured-creditor section. The required notice to a secured creditor is 308.053 and it is due within two months after letters. The permissive notice to an unsecured creditor is 308.054, and its bar is 121 days from receipt, not four months; in an independent administration the operative bar is 403.055. 308.055 lets one co-representative give the notice for all, and 308.056 makes the representative and the sureties liable for damage caused by a failure to give the 308.051 or 308.053 notice.

Muniment of title moves a will without an administration, but gives no ongoing authority. A court may admit a will as a muniment of title where it is satisfied the estate does not owe an unpaid debt other than any debt secured by a lien on real estate, or finds for another reason that there is no necessity for administration (Estates Code 257.001; the conditions are joined by "or"). The order itself is sufficient legal authority for anyone holding estate property or owing the estate money to pay or transfer without administration (257.102), and the applicant files a compliance affidavit by the 180th day (257.103). Nobody is appointed and no letters issue, so if a debt surfaces or an institution refuses the order, someone must go back and open an administration; a later appointment is expressly not precluded (257.151).

The small estate affidavit is narrower than families expect. It is available only where the decedent died intestate, 30 days have elapsed since the death, no petition for a personal representative is pending or granted, and the value of the estate assets on the date of the affidavit, excluding homestead and exempt property, does not exceed $75,000 (Estates Code 205.001). Approval is discretionary: the judge "may approve" a conforming affidavit (205.003). It does not transfer real property except a homestead that is the only real property in the estate, and then only if the affidavit is recorded in the deed records of a county where the homestead is located (205.006(a); 205.008(b)). "Homestead" and "exempt property" mean only property that would be eligible to be set aside under Estates Code 353.051 (205.009). A family with a will cannot use this route at all.

The base filing fee is statutory and identical statewide. Local Government Code 135.102(a)(1) sets $223 on filing any probate case and 133.151(a)(1) sets $137, both in the amounts effective January 1, 2024 under S.B. 1612 of the 88th Legislature, so the base cost of opening a probate is $360 in every county, and a later adverse or contested probate action is $120 (135.102(a)(2) plus 133.151(a)(2)). The per-service clerk fees are also statutory (118.052). What genuinely differs county to county is service and posting fees set by the commissioners court within a statutory cap (118.131), newspaper publication charges, and ad litem deposits.

No state estate tax and no state inheritance tax. Texas does not impose a state inheritance tax or a state estate tax. The Texas inheritance tax was tied to a federal credit that Congress phased out; the Comptroller's Manual of Accounts records that it was "Not collected on dates of death on or after January 1, 2005" and was "Repealed by S.B. 752, 84th Leg., R.S.", and that act repealed Tax Code Chapter 211 in full effective September 1, 2015. No Texas tax clearance, consent to transfer, or waiver exists or is required for any transfer, because the chapter that housed those mechanisms is gone. Out-of-state transfer agents sometimes ask for one anyway; the correct answer is that Texas issues none. A large estate may still owe federal estate tax, which applies only above the federal exclusion of $15 million per individual for deaths in 2026 (Public Law 119-21, signed July 4, 2025).

Attorney e-filing is mandatory statewide; self-represented filers are not required to e-file. Supreme Court of Texas Misc. Docket No. 13-9164, signed December 9, 2013, which superseded and vacated the Court's earlier e-filing orders, requires e-filing by attorneys in all non-juvenile civil cases "including family and probate cases" at the district courts, statutory county courts, constitutional county courts, and statutory probate courts. Its phase-in ran by 2010 census population and finished on July 1, 2016, so every county has been covered for a decade. Paragraph 4 of the order and Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(1) both provide that persons not represented by an attorney may e-file but are not required to. Whether a particular county clerk takes a paper or mail filing from an unrepresented party, and how, is a local question: some counties publish the carve-out expressly and some publish a mandatory-e-filing notice with no carve-out at all. Ask the county clerk.

The original will is the procedural trap. Wills are not required to be filed electronically (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(4)(A)), and rule 21(f)(12) requires that when a party electronically files an application to probate a document as an original will, the original will must be filed with the clerk within three business days after the application is filed. Rule 21(f)(13) requires the clerk to retain that original in a numbered file folder, and rule 21c(a) exempts wills from the sensitive-data redaction requirement. The practical sequence is to e-file the application with a scanned copy of the will attached and then deliver or mail the wet-ink original to the county clerk. Some courts will not let a hearing be set until the original is on file. On a venue transfer the clerk must send the original will by a qualified delivery method (Estates Code 33.105(a)(2)).

re:SearchTX is statewide but tiered, and it is not a free document search. re:SearchTX at research.txcourts.gov is run by the Office of Court Administration with Tyler Technologies. Registration is required and is free, but documents are charged at $1.00 for a document of 1 to 10 pages and 10 cents per page after that, with parties and attorneys of record not charged on their own cases (re:SearchTX FAQ, verified July 2026). Access is tiered: a general registered user reaches back to 11/1/2018 while judges, clerks, and licensed attorneys reach back to 1/1/2016. For decedents' estates the public tier is generous, covering the index and images for dependent and independent administration, foreign will, letters testamentary, muniment of title, and small estate proceedings, but the public gets no index and no documents for guardianship matters. Coverage genuinely differs between counties, because the date a court's data becomes available is set by its clerk. The site's own notice calls what it shows an unofficial copy and names the clerk of the court as the official custodian. Several large counties run deeper portals of their own, and a county's real-property records portal is not a probate case search.

There is no state-published probate procedure form set, and the Legislature asked for two of the missing forms eleven years ago. The Texas Judicial Branch forms page lists only will-drafting forms under Probate and Guardianship. Government Code 22.020(b)(1) directs the Supreme Court of Texas to promulgate, "as the court considers appropriate", forms for a small estate affidavit proceeding under Estates Code chapter 205 and for the probate of a will as a muniment of title under chapter 257. Neither has been promulgated since the directive was added in 2015. Individual county clerks and statutory probate courts publish their own forms, checklists, and local rules to fill the gap, and some of those local forms are mandatory in their own courts, so check the county before drafting.

A Texas attorney is advisable in more situations than families expect, for a structural reason: Texas publishes no state probate procedure forms, so the application, the proof of death and other facts, the order, the oath, and the inventory are drafted rather than filled in. Counsel is close to necessary when the estate is or may become contested, because the matter then moves under Estates Code 32.003, 32.004, or 32.005 depending on the county's court; when there is no will, because an intestate independent administration requires a chapter 202 heirship judgment first and usually an attorney ad litem for unknown heirs (401.003(b)); when the estate is insolvent, when claims are disputed, or when a secured creditor's election under 403.052 is in play; when real property or a business interest must be valued or sold; when the will surfaces near or after the fourth anniversary of the death and the applicant must prove that they were not in default (256.003(a)); and when the estate is large enough to need a federal estate tax return. Several Texas courts also publish policies restricting who may appear without a lawyer in probate matters, so check the county's court before assuming you can file alone. For a straightforward muniment of title (chapter 257) or a qualifying small estate affidavit (chapter 205), and where everything passes by survivorship, beneficiary designation, or a recorded transfer on death deed, many Texas families finish without counsel. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney when the situation requires counsel.

Find the accounts and assets. During estate settlement, Sunset searches more than 2,300 financial institutions and Texas public records to surface bank and credit union accounts, retirement plans, brokerage holdings, life insurance, Texas real estate, mineral interests, vehicles, business interests, and unclaimed property, and flags how each asset is titled so the family can tell what passes outside probate, what is community and what is separate, whether the estate fits the $75,000 small estate affidavit ceiling measured excluding homestead and exempt property (Texas Estates Code 205.001), and whether it comes anywhere near the federal estate tax exclusion of $15 million per individual for deaths in 2026.

Generate the probate packet. Texas publishes no state probate procedure form set, so Sunset assembles the estate settlement documents for the path that fits, whether the application for independent administration, the muniment of title application, or the small estate affidavit, drafted to the Estates Code contents and ready to file with the county clerk in the county where the decedent lived (33.001(a)(1)), and tracks what follows: the original will to the clerk within three business days (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(12)), publication within one month (308.051), secured creditor notice within two months (308.053), the beneficiary notice by the 60th day (308.002), and the inventory or the affidavit in lieu of it before the 91st day (309.051(a); 309.056).

Find a local probate attorney. When the situation calls for counsel, such as a contested matter headed for assignment or transfer under Estates Code 32.003, an intestate estate that needs a chapter 202 heirship judgment before an independent administrator can be appointed, an insolvent estate, or a real property sale, Sunset connects families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving the relevant county.

Sunset is free for families. Revenue comes from bank partners that pay Sunset while estate funds sit in an FDIC-insured estate account ($3M coverage).