North Carolina personal representative compensation
The clerk may allow compensation up to 5% of receipts and expenditures.
Sources reviewed August 7, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch October 3, 2026.
This is a ceiling, not an automatic award.
The calculator applies the North Carolina schedule to the value you enter, measured against the money the estate actually received and paid out. Extraordinary services such as litigation, tax work or managing real property are approved separately on top, and a fee the will fixes controls unless the court is asked to change it.
G.S. § 28A-23-3(a) entitles personal representatives, collectors and public administrators to commissions “to be fixed in the discretion of the clerk of superior court not to exceed five percent (5%) upon the amounts of receipts, including the value of all personal property when received, and upon the expenditures made in accordance with law.” The 5% is a ceiling on a discretionary award, not an entitlement, and it is applied to two flows — receipts and expenditures — rather than to a single closing value.
The statute lets the clerk take professional fees into account when setting the maximum: fees paid by the estate for services performed in the ordinary course of administration, including services by attorneys and accountants, may be considered. It then expressly says the clerk “is not required to reduce the maximum commissions allowed by the aggregate fees paid to professionals on a dollar-for-dollar basis.” Hiring professionals influences the award but does not mechanically net against it.
Subsection (b) directs the clerk to consider the time, responsibility, trouble and skill involved in managing the estate. Where real property is sold to pay debts or devises, the commission is computed only on the proceeds actually applied in payment of debts or devises — not on the gross sale price. Subsection (d)(2) bars commissions on distributions of the shares of heirs or devisees altogether.
Two further features shape the timing and the floor. Under subsection (c) the clerk may allow commissions from time to time during administration, but the total is determined on final settlement and may not exceed the statutory limit. And if the gross value of an estate is two thousand dollars ($2,000) or less, the clerk may instead fix an amount the clerk deems just and adequate, escaping the percentage entirely on very small estates.
Source: N.C. G.S. § 28A-23-3, 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.
Reviewed source note: (a) Personal representatives, collectors or public administrators shall be entitled to commissions to be fixed in the discretion of the clerk of superior court not to exceed five percent (5%) upon the amounts of receipts, including the value of all personal property when received, and upon the expenditures made in accordance with law.
North Carolina record: 5/5 verified, 21 matched checks, latest source re-fetch October 3, 2026. Source record · method · report a correction