Massachusetts probate filing cost: $100–$375

What the statute charges

Every line below is computed from the statutory schedule quoted at the end of this page. These are court charges only. They are not an estimate of the total cost of settling an estate.

Massachusetts charges the same $375 to open an estate, then prices the accounts by size and by year

G.L. c. 262, § 40 enumerates the fees of the registers of the probate and family court, and it flattens the opening step. A single $375 fee covers a petition for formal probate of a will, an adjudication of intestacy and appointment of a personal representative, a formal appointment of a successor personal representative, supervised administration, an informal probate of a will and/or appointment of a personal representative, and an informal appointment of a successor. Choosing the informal route does not save a filing fee in Massachusetts — it saves time and notice work.

What is not flat is the accounting. The fee for filing an account turns on the gross value shown in Schedule A and, above a point, is charged for each year or fraction of a year the account covers. There is no fee where the gross value accounted for is $1,000 or less. Between $1,000 and $10,000 the fee is $75, and the statute caps the total at $170 "regardless of the time covered by the account."

Above $10,000 the cap disappears and the per-year charge begins: $100 a year from $10,000 to $100,000; $150 a year above $100,000 to $500,000; $200 a year above $500,000 to $1,000,000; $400 a year above $1,000,000 to $2,000,000; $750 a year above $2,000,000 to $5,000,000; $1,500 a year above $5,000,000 to $7,500,000; $2,500 a year above $7,500,000 to $10,000,000; and $3,500 a year above $10,000,000. A slow estate is a more expensive estate here in a way the opening fee never signals — a five-year administration of a $600,000 estate carries five $200 charges, not one.

Selling property is priced on the same sliding logic: a petition or application for sale of real or personal estate by a fiduciary costs $100 where the gross value accounted for is $100,000 or less, $250 up to $250,000, $500 up to $500,000, $750 up to $1,000,000, and $1,000 above that. Petitions for leave to lease or to mortgage real estate are $75 each, removal of a fiduciary is $100, a subsequent bond or a petition for a new bond, discharge, modification or reduction of surety is $75, and a contempt summons is $5. The section also lists the filings that carry no fee at all, including the appointment of a guardian and the resignation of any fiduciary.

Source: G.L. c. 262, § 40, 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.