Probate forms explained: which forms you actually need

Two questions decide your entire form set

Probate paperwork looks sprawling from the outside, but for a death in England and Wales it collapses into two questions. First: did the person leave a valid will? That decides whether you apply with PA1P (will) or PA1A (no will). Second: does the estate qualify as an excepted estate for inheritance tax? That decides whether you can apply straight away, reporting the estate's values inside the application itself, or must first send HMRC the full IHT400 account and wait for a unique code. Answer both and you know your complete form set, because the old third form, IHT205, no longer exists for deaths since 1 January 2022.

This guide walks through each form, maps common scenarios to the exact paperwork they need, and covers the fee changes that took effect in July 2026. It is general information about the process, not legal or financial advice for your specific estate, and estates with unusual assets or tax positions deserve professional eyes. Once you know your form set, our probate timeline estimator will give you a realistic sense of how long the whole process should take from where you are now.

The scenario-to-form matrix

Most guides describe one form at a time and leave you to assemble the picture. Here is the whole decision in one table, for deaths on or after 1 January 2022:

Your scenario	Probate application	Inheritance tax paperwork
Will, excepted estate (no IHT due)	Online service or paper PA1P	None separate: values go in the application
Will, IHT due or not excepted	Online service or paper PA1P	IHT400 + schedules to HMRC first, then apply with HMRC's unique code
No will, excepted estate	Online service or paper PA1A	None separate: values go in the application
No will, IHT due or not excepted	Online service or paper PA1A	IHT400 + schedules to HMRC first, then apply with HMRC's unique code
Death on or before 31 December 2021	PA1P or PA1A	Old rules: IHT205 for excepted estates, IHT400 otherwise
Death in Scotland	Confirmation, form C1 (different system)	Handled within the confirmation process

The grant you receive differs too: a PA1P application leads to a grant of probate, while a PA1A application leads to letters of administration, because there is no will appointing an executor. Both do the same job of proving your authority to deal with the assets. If you are unsure which side of the will/no-will line you fall on (for example, there is a will but no surviving executor), our companion piece on choosing between PA1P and PA1A works through the edge cases.

PA1P and PA1A: the application itself

PA1P is the postal application used, in the words of the GOV.UK form page, by "an executor named in the will of someone who's died, or as a beneficiary if there are no executors". PA1A is its mirror image for intestacy, used by the person entitled to administer the estate under the intestacy rules, usually the closest surviving relative. Both forms ask for broadly the same information:

• Details of the person who died: full name, dates of birth and death, last address, and whether they held assets under other names.
• Details of the applicant or applicants, and their entitlement to apply.
• The will and any codicils (PA1P only), sent as originals with the application.
• The estate's gross and net values for inheritance tax and for probate. Since the 2022 reporting changes, this section does the job the IHT205 used to do for excepted estates.
• For estates that needed an IHT400: the unique code HMRC sends you once the inheritance tax process is underway.

You will need the death certificate and several supporting documents before you start; our checklist of documents you need to apply for probate covers the full pile. And because value questions run through the whole form, it pays to have finished valuing the estate before you open the application, not during it.

What happened to IHT205

For deaths on or before 31 December 2021, an excepted estate had to complete a short inheritance tax return, form IHT205, alongside the probate application. The Inheritance Tax (Delivery of Accounts) (Excepted Estates) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 swept that away: for deaths on or after 1 January 2022, IHT205 is abolished, and excepted estates simply declare their values within the probate application (online or on PA1P/PA1A). One application now does the work of two forms.

An estate generally counts as excepted, per GOV.UK's guidance on checking the type of estate, where no inheritance tax is due and one of these applies:

• Its value is below the £325,000 inheritance tax threshold;
• It is worth £650,000 or less and the unused threshold of a spouse or civil partner who died first is being transferred;
• Everything above the threshold passes to a surviving UK spouse or civil partner, or to a qualifying charity, and the estate is worth less than £3 million; or
• The person was living permanently abroad and their UK assets are worth £150,000 or less.

Fall inside one of those gates and you skip HMRC forms entirely. Fall outside them, or owe tax, and the full account is unavoidable. The dividing line has enough traps (foreign assets, certain trusts, large lifetime gifts can all disqualify an otherwise small estate) that we cover it separately in do you need to complete IHT205 or IHT400 before probate.

IHT400: the full account and its schedules

Form IHT400 must be completed "if there's Inheritance Tax to pay, or the deceased's estate does not qualify as an 'excepted estate'". It is the heavyweight of the set: the main account is supported by up to 24 supplementary schedules (IHT401 to IHT436) covering specific asset types and claims, including houses, bank accounts, stocks and shares, pensions, foreign assets, gifts, trusts, business and agricultural relief, and the residence nil rate band.

The sequencing matters more than the length. Per GOV.UK's before-you-apply guidance, the IHT400 must be filled in and sent "within 12 months of the person dying and before applying for probate", and where tax is due you start making payments to HMRC, after which "HMRC will then send you a unique code, which you need before applying". Applying for probate before that code arrives is one of the classic ways applications get stopped. Excepted estates, by contrast, "can apply for probate straight away".

Online or paper?

The paper forms are now the fallback, not the default. GOV.UK's application guidance is blunt: "It takes longer to process paper applications than online applications. Apply online if you can." The online service handles the same will and no-will scenarios as PA1P and PA1A, and HMCTS says you will usually get probate within 12 weeks of submitting, though complex or stopped applications take longer. Paper remains the right route if you have no internet access or your case falls outside what the online service supports, and free support is available by phone for people who struggle with the digital route. Whichever channel you use, our guide to how long probate takes sets out the full timeline either side of submission.

Fees: what the application costs in 2026

The probate application fee in England and Wales rose on 13 July 2026 from £300 to £526, confirmed in the Ministry of Justice's July 2026 fee update. The current position, per GOV.UK's fees page:

• £526 if the estate is worth more than £5,000; no fee if it is £5,000 or less.
• Extra sealed copies of the grant: £2 each when ordered with the application, but £16 each if requested afterwards. Banks, insurers and the Land Registry often each want a sealed copy, so order generously up front.
• A second application after probate has already been granted costs £22.
• A help with fees scheme (form EX160 or online) can reduce or remove the fee for applicants on low incomes or certain benefits, though not the cost of extra copies.

The fee is the same online and on paper, and it is only one line in the wider cost picture; see how much probate costs for the full breakdown including professional fees.

A worked run-through: one estate, three forms considered, one used

Priya and her brother Dev are joint executors of their mother's will. The estate: a house worth £340,000, savings of £95,000, a car and contents worth £10,000, and £8,000 of debts, giving a gross estate of £445,000 and a net estate of £437,000. Their late father left everything to their mother years ago, so his unused £325,000 threshold transfers, giving a combined threshold well above the estate's value.

Working the two questions: there is a will, so the application route is PA1P or the online service. No inheritance tax is due and the estate is under £650,000 with a transferred threshold, so it is excepted. Result: no HMRC forms at all. Priya applies online, enters the gross and net values directly into the application, claims the transferred threshold, uploads nothing to HMRC, pays the £526 fee plus £8 for four extra sealed copies, and posts the original will to the registry. Had their mother's estate instead included a £400,000 investment portfolio, tax would have been due, and the sequence would have changed completely: IHT400 plus schedules to HMRC first, tax payments started, wait for the unique code, and only then the probate application.

Where form errors actually happen

Stopped applications cluster around a few avoidable mistakes: estate values in the probate application that contradict the IHT400 figures, applying before HMRC's unique code has arrived, missing or damaged original wills, and the wrong person applying (an executor exists but a beneficiary applies, or vice versa). Each stop adds weeks. We cover the fixes, and how to avoid the stops in the first place, in how to fill in the probate application form correctly, and the wider process from death certificate to distribution lives in our probate pillar guide.

If the estate you are handling refuses to fit the matrix above (assets abroad, trusts, business property, or a tax position you cannot pin down), that is the signal to stop form-filling and get the form set confirmed before anything goes to HMRC or the registry. A probate specialist can look at the estate as a whole, tell you exactly which paperwork applies, and take the stopped-application risk off your shoulders. Getting the right forms in the right order at the start is far cheaper than unpicking the wrong ones later.