Every probate court fee, in one table
Probate court fees in England and Wales are published, fixed and short enough to list in full. The headline number is £526 to apply for a grant where the estate is worth more than £5,000, and nothing where the estate is £5,000 or less. Everything else in the non-contentious probate schedule is an optional extra costing between £2 and £22. Here is the whole thing, taken from GOV.UK's probate fees guidance and the probate search service as at 3 August 2026. This page is general information rather than legal or financial advice.
| What you are paying for | Fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Application for a grant, estate over £5,000 | £526 | Same fee online or on paper, with or without a will |
| Application for a grant, estate £5,000 or less | No fee | The threshold is the estate value, not the value passing under the will |
| Extra sealed copy of the grant, ordered with the application | £2 each | Order one per institution you will have to deal with |
| Extra sealed copy, ordered after the application is submitted | £16 each | Eight times the price for identical paper |
| Second application where a grant has already been issued | £22 | For example a grant of double probate to a later-acting executor |
| Entering a caveat | £4 | Lasts 6 months, extendable |
| Standing search | £4 | Tells you if a grant issues in the next 6 months |
| Copy of a probate record or will from the search service | £16 | Public records, anyone can order |
Because the fee is flat rather than banded, the estate's size stops mattering the moment it passes £5,000. Our probate cost calculator adds these court fees to the other outlays an estate typically faces, and the fuller cost picture, including everything that is not a court fee, sits in how much does probate cost? and what probate costs for a simple estate.
The fee changed on 13 July 2026
If you are working from an older guide, a printed leaflet or a family member's memory of doing this a few years ago, the number will be wrong. The application fee rose from £300 to £526 on 13 July 2026, part of a package the Ministry of Justice described in its court and tribunal fees update as recovering the cost of the service. The same package cut the price of copies ordered alongside the application to £2, which is why ordering early now saves so much.
Two things did not change: the £5,000 no-fee threshold, and the flat structure. Proposals for a probate fee banded by estate value were floated in 2017 and 2018 and dropped both times.
The copies arithmetic, worked through
Fergal Kavanagh, a retired teacher, agreed years ago to act as executor for a neighbour and found himself doing it this spring. The estate came to about £268,000: a terraced house, a current account and Premium Bonds.
- Application fee: £526
- Two sealed copies ordered with the application, one for the bank and one for NS&I: £4
- Four further copies ordered six weeks later, once HM Land Registry, a dormant savings account, an old workplace pension and a life insurer all surfaced: £64
- Total court fees: £594
All six copies ordered up front would have cost £12 instead of £68. Institutions will not accept photocopies, and they process in parallel rather than queueing politely for a single original, so err high. Our guide to how many copies of the grant you need gives a counting method.
Help with fees
The £526 is not unavoidable for everyone. The Help with Fees scheme can reduce or remove court fees, including the probate fee, for applicants on a low income or receiving certain benefits (income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Universal Credit while earning under £6,000 a year, or Pension Credit Guarantee Credit). The tests look at savings and monthly income: broadly, up to £4,250 in savings where the fee is £1,420 or less, and a monthly income at or below £1,420 for a single applicant or £2,130 for a couple, with allowances of £425 per child aged 0 to 13 and £710 per child aged 14 or over. Applicants aged 66 and over are assessed against a higher savings limit.
Three practical points. You apply online or on form EX160, ideally before submitting the probate application. If you apply for probate online you have to pay the full fee up front and receive a refund later if the help with fees claim succeeds. And the scheme never covers the cost of extra copies of the grant, so budget for those regardless.
Want this checked against your specific situation?
Leave your details and a one-line summary. A probate specialist will reply within 24 hours, with no obligation.
Who actually writes the cheque
The fee is paid by whoever applies, normally the executor named in the will or, on an intestacy, the person entitled to administer the estate. It is a legitimate expense of administering the estate and is reimbursed from estate funds, ranking ahead of anything paid to beneficiaries. The awkwardness is sequencing: accounts are usually frozen once a death is notified, and the grant that unfreezes them is what the fee buys. Most banks will release funds before the grant to cover funeral costs, inheritance tax and probate fees if asked directly, so ask before reaching for your own card. Either way, keep the receipt and show the payment in the estate accounts.
Scotland and Northern Ireland are separate systems
Everything above applies to England and Wales only. The other two jurisdictions do not simply charge a different amount, they charge on a different basis.
Scotland does not grant probate at all. The equivalent process is confirmation, obtained through the sheriff court, and its fees are banded by estate value. Per the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service fee tables, from 1 April 2026 there is no fee where the estate does not exceed £50,000, £351 where it falls between £50,000 and £250,000, and £705 above £250,000. Certificates of confirmation cost £10 each when ordered with the inventory. So a £180,000 estate is cheaper to administer in Scotland than in England, and a £900,000 estate is dearer. Our note on the Scottish inheritance tax position covers the tax side, which is UK-wide even though the court process is not.
Northern Ireland runs its own probate registry with fees set by the Department of Justice rather than the Ministry of Justice. nidirect confirms a fee is payable only where the assets exceed £10,000, a higher no-fee threshold than the £5,000 used in England and Wales, and that a separate fee applies to caveats. The amounts themselves sit in the Department of Justice's court fees schedules, revised from 1 April 2026, and should be checked there rather than assumed from the English figures.
Where the real money is
Court fees are the one part of probate with a published price list, which makes them the easiest part to get right. On the estate above, £594 of court fees sat alongside a valuation, a property sale and months of the executor's own time. If your estate has something awkward in it, business assets, missing beneficiaries or a grant already stopped by a caveat, the fee schedule will be the smallest line on your list, and we can introduce you to a probate specialist who will price that work properly before you commit. If it is straightforward and you plan to apply yourself, start with the forms and our probate guide, and order more copies than you think you need.