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Montana court costs

Montana probate filing cost: $70

MCA § 25-1-201(1)(m) sets a probate-specific fee: on the filing of an application for informal, formal, or supervised probate or for the appointment of a personal representative, the clerk of district court collects $70 from the applicant, "which includes the fee for filing a will for probate". This probate-specific subsection governs over the general civil-commencement fee in § 25-1-201(1)(a), so the opening fee for a probate proceeding is $70. The § 72-3-1101 affidavit route requires no court filing.

$70 is the amount the statute states. Sources reviewed August 9, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch October 3, 2026.

What the statute charges

Montana states one statewide amount rather than a schedule of components, so there is no line-by-line breakdown to compute. The figure above is that amount. It is a court charge only, and it is not an estimate of the total cost of settling an estate.

Montana publishes no component breakdown for this cost.

The statute states one statewide amount rather than a schedule of parts, so there is nothing to itemise. The figure shown above is that amount, and the linked source is the text that sets it.

What the $70 is made of

Montana’s $70 figure is a single statutory charge, not a total assembled from parts. It is shown here with its own provision named, and with the neighbouring charges the Montana schedule prices separately — the ones a filer is most likely to add to it by mistake, or to be quoted alongside it.

  • $70Application for informal, formal or supervised probate, MCA s 25-1-201(1)(m)

Added together, these come to $70 — the figure this page headlines. If any component changed in the source, the sum would no longer match, and the build withholds the total rather than publishing a number whose parts no longer add up.

What the Montana figure leaves out

Other costs: probate cost lines.

Montana charges a general district-court filing fee, not a probate-specific one

Montana does not publish a separate probate tariff. MCA § 25-1-201(1)(a) charges the clerk of district court "at the commencement of each action or proceeding, except a petition for dissolution of marriage, from the plaintiff or petitioner, $90." A probate is a proceeding commenced in district court, so that is the opening line.

Two further charges attach to the shape of the case rather than to its subject. Subsection (1)(b) takes $60 "from each defendant or respondent, on appearance," and subsection (1)(c) takes $50 "on the entry of judgment, from the prevailing party." An uncontested Montana administration will usually never reach the second of those; a contested one can incur both repeatedly.

The routine administrative costs are metered per item, not bundled: $1 a page for the first ten pages of each file per request and 50 cents for each additional page, 25 cents per page when copies are supplied by facsimile, e-mail or other electronic means, $2 for each certificate with seal, and $1 for an oath and jurat with seal.

Record searches are priced by name and by year: $2 for each name for each year searched for up to seven years, plus $1 for each name for any additional year. A long title history therefore has a measurable, arithmetic cost in Montana rather than a flat one.

Source: MCA § 25-1-201, 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.

Filing-cost source

Montana record: 4/4 verified, 12 matched checks, latest source re-fetch October 3, 2026. Source record · method · report a correction

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