Tennessee route screening

Tennessee small-estate limit: $50,000

Sources reviewed August 9, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch October 3, 2026.

1. Where and when

StateTennesseeFixed to this page. Open the navigator to compare another state.Date of deathRequired. Without it no waiting period can be tested and the route stays undecided.

2. What they left

Asset 1

DescriptionValue$Not entered. A blank amount is not counted as zero.Enforceable liens or mortgage$Not entered. Enter 0 if there is no lien.OwnershipThis is real property

Asset 2

DescriptionValue$Not entered. A blank amount is not counted as zero.Enforceable liens or mortgage$Not entered. Enter 0 if there is no lien.OwnershipThis is real propertyWill it be sold during administration?Some court charges are assessed on sale proceeds and exclude real property that is kept, so this changes the amount.

Ownership determines whether an asset usually enters probate. Choose “Not sure” when title or beneficiary status has not been confirmed.

Private by design: entries stay in this browser.

Your working estimate

Tennessee estate snapshot

Route check

More information is needed

Counted probate estate: not yet counted

A valid date of death is required before any waiting period can be tested.

Gross probate propertyNot yet counted

Court chargeSet locallyTennessee probate/small-estate filing fees are county-clerk fees under Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-21-401 and vary by county; the Small Estates Act itself only cross-references that fee authority rather than stating a dollar amount.

Scheduled executor compensationMore information needed2 asset entries have no value entered.Tennessee has no statutory percentage schedule; the personal representative receives reasonable compensation fixed by the court. The section named in the task, Tenn. Code Ann. § 30-2-323, was verified (Justia discovery) to govern 'advances for property maintenance expenses' (Acts 1997, ch. 426), NOT compensation — so it must not be cited for the compensation standard. No enacted Public Chapter restating a Tennessee PR-compensation standard was located (GA 100–114), and the codified provisions are LexisNexis-only, so the operative standard is not quoted from a verified primary source and is recorded as UNKNOWN.

This route check is general information, not legal advice. It does not test every eligibility condition, creditor issue, will provision, local fee, or asset-title fact.

Tennessee's small-estate procedure was REPLACED by 2023 Public Chapter 297, which deleted Title 30, Chapter 4 in full and substituted "The Small Estate Probate Act." The former clerk-certified affidavit route (2022 Pub. Ch. 665) is superseded. Under the current Act a "small estate" is a probate estate in which the value of the probate property (personal property only) does not exceed fifty thousand dollars ($50,000). After the expiration of forty-five (45) days from the decedent's death — provided no petition for appointment of a personal representative has been filed — one or more competent adult heirs (or, if testate, the named executor) file a PETITION with the court for the issuance of "limited letters of administration of a small estate" (or limited letters testamentary). The court, not the clerk by affidavit, issues the limited letters; the recipient is the personal representative, a bond equal to the estate value may be required, and limited letters expire about one year after issuance. Upon good cause shown the court may waive the 45-day wait. If assets discovered during administration exceed $50,000, the matter may be converted to full probate.

Threshold evidence and currency

What the reviewed source establishes

Currency: Small-estate procedure CORRECTED: 2023 Pub. Ch. 297 replaced the affidavit route with a court petition for limited letters of administration/testamentary of a small estate. Threshold ($50,000) and 45-day wait are unchanged (with a new good-cause waiver of the wait). The full codified chapter text remains Lexis-locked, but the enacted public chapter is the controlling primary source.

Controlling citation: Tenn. Pub. Ch. 297 (2023) (HB 337; Tenn. Code Ann. tit. 30, ch. 4) — PUBLIC CHAPTER NO. 297.

Verbatim threshold text from that source:

Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 30, Chapter 4, is amended by deleting the chapter and substituting: 30-4-101. This chapter is known and may be cited as "The Small Estate Probate Act."

How the Tennessee screen is measured

Procedure	Small estate probate — petition for limited letters of administration/testamentary (Tenn. Code Ann. tit. 30, ch. 4, "The Small Estate Probate Act," enacted by 2023 Pub. Ch. 297)
What counts	Personal property only; real property is outside this route
Value basis	Gross value; liens are not subtracted
Waiting period	45 days after death

The Tennessee caveats that can change this answer are listed once, on the Tennessee overview.

The official Tennessee path

Tennessee Courts Self-Help Center — Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts
Tennessee Chancery Courts (probate jurisdiction) — Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts

What a small-estate screen can and cannot decide, and which assets never enter it, is explained once in small-estate affidavit or probate and what counts as a probate asset.

The Tennessee small-estate ceiling is not quoted here, and this is why

Tennessee’s small-estate provisions sit in Title 30, Chapter 4 of the Tennessee Code Annotated. Unlike the uniform-code states covered elsewhere on this site, Tennessee has no government-hosted copy of that chapter: the state’s advertised free access point is a LexisNexis landing page that hands off to a JavaScript application.

A dollar ceiling is exactly the kind of figure that moves by amendment and then circulates unchanged in secondary summaries for years afterwards. Publishing one that could not be read from the code would give a stale number the appearance of a verified one.

The state’s own self-help material was checked as an alternative on the date below; the Tennessee courts self-help pages that responded carried general orientation rather than the chapter text, so they cannot substitute for the provision.

For a specific estate, the clerk of the probate court in the county of venue can confirm both the current ceiling and whether the estate’s asset mix qualifies — which is the part a published ceiling would not answer anyway.

Authority that would settle this: Tenn. Code Ann. tit. 30, ch. 4 (small estates). The access attempt described above was made on 2026-09-17. Nothing is quoted from it, because nothing could be read from it; a figure restated from a secondary summary would look like a sourced answer without being one.

Controlling source

Session law

Tenn. Pub. Ch. 297 (2023) (HB 337; Tenn. Code Ann. tit. 30, ch. 4)

Reviewed source note: Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 30, Chapter 4, is amended by deleting the chapter and substituting: 30-4-101. This chapter is known and may be cited as "The Small Estate Probate Act."

What this means: Enacted session law (primary), obtained free from the Tennessee Secretary of State. This 2023 act deleted Title 30, Chapter 4 in full and substituted 'The Small Estate Probate Act,' replacing the former clerk-certified affidavit route (2022 Pub. Ch. 665) with a court-petition/limited-letters procedure. It restates the $50,000 small-estate ceiling (new § 30-4-102(9)) and the 45-day wait (new § 30-4-103), and provides a good-cause waiver of the 45-day wait. The full codified chapter is otherwise behind the LexisNexis-contracted Tennessee Code, but the enacted public chapter is the controlling primary text.

Tennessee Secretary of State · Edition/currentness: PUBLIC CHAPTER NO. 297 · Verified October 3, 2026

Tennessee record: 4/4 verified, 16 matched checks, latest source re-fetch October 3, 2026. Source record · method · report a correction

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