Ask what probate costs in California and most articles hand you the statutory percentage table and stop. The table is correct. It is also the smaller half of the answer, because two facts around it change the number families actually pay, and both get left out constantly.
First: the fee is computed on the gross estate. Second: the estate ordinarily pays the schedule twice.
The schedule itself
For ordinary services, Probate Code section 10800 pays the personal representative on the value of the estate accounted for:
- 4 percent of the first 100,000 dollars
- 3 percent of the next 100,000 dollars
- 2 percent of the next 800,000 dollars
- 1 percent of the next 9,000,000 dollars
- One half of 1 percent of the next 15,000,000 dollars
- Above 25,000,000 dollars, a reasonable amount set by the court
Section 10810 then gives the estate’s attorney the identical schedule. Not a similar one. The same percentages, on the same base. So the working number for an ordinary probate is the table doubled: a 500,000 dollar estate generates about 13,000 dollars for the executor and about 13,000 dollars for the attorney, roughly 26,000 dollars together. A 1,000,000 dollar estate generates about 46,000 dollars. These are fees fixed by statute and reviewed by the court; they are not this practice’s fees, which are posted separately on our fee schedule.
The gross-value trap
Now the part that produces the sticker shock. Section 10800 subdivision b defines the fee base as the appraisal value of the inventory, plus gains over appraisal on sales, plus receipts, less losses on sales, without reference to encumbrances or other obligations on estate property.
Read that twice, because it means the mortgage does not exist for fee purposes. A home appraised at 800,000 dollars with a 400,000 dollar loan against it is an 800,000 dollar asset in the fee math. The family’s equity is 400,000 dollars; the statutory fees are computed as if it were the full 800,000. On heavily leveraged property, the fees can be startling next to what the heirs actually receive, and nothing in the statute softens that. This is the single most common way families misjudge what a probate will cost.
The smaller lines that still add up
Two more numbers belong in an honest total. The court filing fee for a first probate petition is 435 dollars on current county fee schedules. You will see 355 dollars quoted online because that is the figure the statute recites; state surcharges bring the collected amount to 435, and later petitions and objections generally carry the same fee. And the probate referee who appraises the non-cash assets earns one tenth of one percent of the appraised value under section 8961, with a 75 dollar minimum and a 10,000 dollar cap per estate under section 8963, plus expenses.
Extraordinary services sit on top of all of it. Selling real property, running the decedent’s business, handling litigation or tax problems: the court can award additional compensation for those under sections 10801 and 10811, in an amount it finds just and reasonable. Ordinary fees are the floor of a probate’s cost, not the ceiling.
What keeps an estate out of this math
The fee base only reaches what passes through probate. Assets in a funded living trust, joint accounts with survivorship, and beneficiary-designated accounts never enter it. Small estates have statutory exits of their own: the 208,850 dollar affidavit for personal property, and the 750,000 dollar primary-residence petition for deaths on or after April 1, 2025. Which doors are open depends entirely on how the assets were titled at the date of death, and that is a factual question worth answering before anyone files.
For the process itself, see our guides to how long probate takes in California and what an executor actually does. And when a family needs a neutral, licensed professional to serve as personal representative and see the numbers handled correctly, that is the work of our decedent-estate and probate support practice.