Cost of a Will and Estate Planning Statistics (2026)

A simple will made online costs between nothing and a few hundred dollars at list price. FreeWill charges nothing and says more than 2,400 nonprofits partner with it to keep its tools free; it reports more than 1.6 million wills created and more than $15.2 billion committed to nonprofits (FreeWill, company figures). LegalZoom lists individual wills at $129 (Basic), $149 (Pro) and $299 (Premium), and couples' packages at $229, $249 and $399 (LegalZoom, company list prices as of 2026-11-08).

Trust & Will lists its Will Plan from $199 for an individual and $299 for a couple, and charges a $49 annual membership, with attorney support available as a $299 add-on (Trust & Will, company list prices as of 2026-11-08). The higher LegalZoom tiers bundle attorney consultation plans that renew at $25 a month (Pro, after 30 days) or $199 a year (Premium, after one year).

Attorney-drafted plans cost more. Trust & Will's Complex Needs plan, which matches the customer with an attorney, starts at $1,499. Walnut found no government or bar association figure for what lawyers nationally charge to draft a will, so the online list prices above are the most precise public benchmark; attorney fees vary by state, firm and how complicated the estate is.

A revocable living trust costs more than a will because it involves retitling assets into the trust. LegalZoom lists its Basic Trust at $399 for an individual and $499 for a couple, and its Premium Trust at $549 and $649 (LegalZoom, company list prices as of 2026-11-08). Trust & Will's Trust Plan starts at $499 for an individual and $599 for a couple (Trust & Will).

Living trusts are less common than wills. In the 2025 Caring.com survey, 13% of respondents reported a living trust, the same share as in 2020 (Caring.com, 2020). A trust is used mainly to avoid probate and keep the estate out of the public court record, which matters more in states where probate fees are set as a percentage of the estate (see the statutory fee schedules below).

Fewer than half of American adults have a will, and the exact share depends on who asks. In the 2025 Caring.com Wills and Estate Planning Study, a company survey of more than 2,500 adults run with YouGov, 24% said they have a will, 13% reported a living trust and 4% had other estate planning documents (Caring.com). More than half of respondents had no will at all.

Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research organization, asked 8,750 adults in September 2025 which end-of-life documents they had created: 32% had a will, 31% a living will or advance health care directive, and 20% had made arrangements for their own burial or funeral (Pew Research Center).

Gallup, which polled by telephone, found a higher figure: 46% of US adults had a will in its May 2021 survey of 1,016 adults, and three earlier Gallup readings since 1990 ranged from 44% to 51% (Gallup). The gap between the two series reflects different methods (online panel versus phone, and different question wording), so the trend within each series is more reliable than a comparison across them.

Most people say a will matters. In Caring.com's 2024 survey, 64% said having a will is very or somewhat important, and 1 in 4 of those who called it very important still did not have one (Caring.com 2024).

Caring.com's survey has tracked a decline. In 2017, 42% of adults said they had a will or another estate planning document; by 2020 that had fallen to 32%, a drop of nearly 25% in three years (Caring.com 2020). The share edged up to 33% in 2021 and 2022 and 34% in 2023, then fell back to 32% in 2024 (Caring.com 2023, 2024).

The 2025 edition reports wills on their own: 24% of respondents, compared with 33% with a will in 2022 (Caring.com). In 2020, when Caring.com also broke out the document types, 23.9% had a will, 13% a living trust and 6.2% an advance health care directive (Caring.com 2020), so the 2025 will-only figure sits close to where it was five years earlier.

The pandemic produced a brief bump. In 2021, 1 in 4 respondents said COVID-19 motivated them to engage in estate planning, but only 5% of the total population said it led them to actually obtain a will or other document (Caring.com 2021).

Age is the strongest predictor of having a will. Gallup found 76% of adults 65 and older had one in 2021, compared with 53% of those 50 to 64, 36% of those 30 to 49 and 20% of those 18 to 29 (Gallup).

Pew's 2025 survey shows the same climb with age: 46% of adults in their 60s and 66% of those in their 70s have a will, and about eight in ten of those 80 and older, while about a third or fewer of adults under 60 have one. Among adults 70 and older, 83% of those with upper incomes have a will, against 51% of those with lower incomes (Pew Research Center).

Caring.com's survey shows younger adults catching up. The share of 18- to 34-year-olds with a will or estate plan rose from 16% in 2020 to 26% in 2023 and stood at 24% in 2024 (Caring.com 2023, 2024). Adults 55 and older remained the most likely group at 46% in 2023, while 35- to 54-year-olds were at 27%, only one point above the youngest group.

Adults in middle age have lost ground. The share of 35- to 54-year-olds with a will fell from 37% in 2019 to 22.5% in 2021, and the 2025 survey found adults with children under 18 made up the largest group without wills or other estate documents (Caring.com 2021, 2025). More than 1 in 3 adults (36%) said in 2024 that people should have a will by 35, yet fewer than 1 in 4 do.

Higher income goes with higher will ownership. Gallup found 61% of adults in households earning $100,000 or more had a will in 2021, compared with 49% at $40,000 to $99,999 and 30% under $40,000 (Gallup). In Caring.com's 2023 survey, 49% of adults earning $80,000 or more had an estate plan, compared with 22% of those earning under $40,000 (Caring.com 2023).

Lower-income adults have moved further away from estate planning. Among Americans earning $40,000 or less, the share with a will fell from 25% in 2020 to 21% in 2024, a 16% drop (Caring.com 2024). Of those who said they lack enough assets to leave anyone, 49% earn $40,000 or less.

Education shows the same pattern. Gallup found 57% of college graduates had a will versus 40% of non-graduates. In Caring.com's 2024 survey, more than half of adults with a postgraduate degree had a will, compared with 23% of those with a high school education or less, and the gap between the two groups grew from 41% in 2021 to 81% in 2024 (Caring.com 2024).

Gallup found 55% of white adults had a will in 2021, compared with 28% of nonwhite adults (Gallup).

Caring.com's survey breaks the groups out further. Hispanic Americans were the least likely of the three largest groups to have an estate plan in 2023, at 23%, down from a peak of 32% in 2021 (Caring.com 2023). In 2022, 29% of Black Americans and 27% of Hispanic Americans had a will or other estate planning document (Caring.com 2022).

The 2024 survey reported estate planning among Black Americans up 8% from 2023 and 19% from 2020, while the rate among white Americans fell 12% from 2023 and among Hispanic Americans fell 21% from 2020 (Caring.com 2024). Those are relative changes as published, not percentage-point changes.

Procrastination is the most common reason. In Caring.com's 2024 survey, 43% of adults without a will said they "just haven't gotten around to it," up from 40% in 2022 and 42% in 2023, and the 2025 edition held at 43% (Caring.com 2024, 2025). Higher earners cite it most: 54% of those making $80,000 or more gave procrastination as their main reason in 2023.

The second reason is a sense that there is nothing to pass on. In 2024, 40% said they do not have enough assets to leave anyone, up from 33% in 2022 (Caring.com 2024). Cost is a smaller barrier: 14% cited the cost of creating an estate plan in 2023 and 13% said in 2022 that the process is too expensive, while 12% in 2022 said they did not know how to get a will (Caring.com 2023, 2022). In 2024, 17% of postgraduate-degree holders without a will said it costs too much to set up.

A large group does not plan to act. Nearly a quarter of respondents in 2025 said nothing could motivate them to begin estate planning, close to 24% in 2023 and 23% in 2024 (Caring.com). In 2023, 1 in 3 adults earning under $40,000 gave that answer.

Health is the most cited trigger. Among adults without estate documents, 37% said in 2025 that a medical diagnosis would motivate them to get a will, down from 43% in 2024, followed by buying a significant asset such as a home and retiring (Caring.com). Only 8% said national events such as natural disasters or political shifts would make them consider one.

Among people who already have a will, retirement or an age milestone was the top reason they made it, and family expansion through birth or marriage ranked third (Caring.com). Income shapes that last trigger: 31% of adults earning more than $80,000 said family expansion prompted their will, versus 10% of those earning $40,000 or less (Caring.com 2024).

Online content reaches younger adults. In 2024, 34% of adults 18 to 34 said something they saw in the media or online motivated them to create an estate plan, compared with 3% of adults 55 and older, and 22% of the youngest group made a will before traveling, against 5% of the oldest (Caring.com 2024).

Health care documents are about as common as wills. A Health Affairs systematic review of 150 studies covering 795,909 people, published 2011 to 2016, found 36.7% of US adults had completed an advance directive, including 29.3% with a living will (Health Affairs, 2017). Completion was similar for patients with chronic illnesses (38.2%) and healthy adults (32.7%).

Pew's 2025 survey put the share with a living will or advance directive at 31%, rising to 64% of adults in their 70s (Pew Research Center). Gallup reported that 45% of US adults had a living will in a 2020 survey, cited in its 2021 article on wills (Gallup). Awareness is a barrier: nearly 1 in 5 respondents (19%) in Caring.com's 2024 survey did not know what an advance health care directive is (Caring.com 2024).

Documents that cover incapacity, such as a financial power of attorney, also shape who controls an older person's money. The risks that come with that control are covered in elder financial abuse statistics.

Some states set probate fees by statute as a percentage of the estate. In California, the attorney for the personal representative receives 4% of the first $100,000, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000, 1% of the next $9 million and 0.5% of the next $15 million, with a court-set amount above $25 million (California Probate Code 10810). The executor is paid on the identical schedule (Probate Code 10800), and both are computed on the inventory value without subtracting mortgages or other debts.

By Walnut's arithmetic on those rates, a $500,000 California estate carries $13,000 in attorney fees and $13,000 in executor fees, $26,000 combined; a $1 million estate carries $46,000 combined. Florida presumes as reasonable an attorney fee of $1,500 for estates up to $40,000, rising by tiers to 3% of the value between $100,000 and $1 million, and an executor commission of 3% of the first $1 million (Florida Statutes 733.6171, 733.617). New York sets executor commissions at 5% of the first $100,000, then 4%, 3%, 2.5% and 2% on higher tiers (New York SCPA 2307).

Probate also takes time. The California courts' self-help guide says formal probate typically takes 9 to 18 months and that administration costs are often well over $1,000 (California Courts). In a 2018 survey of more than 1,200 executors by EstateExec, a company that sells estate-settlement software, settling an estate took an average of 16 months and 570 hours of the executor's time, and 80% of estates were settled within 18 months (EstateExec, industry survey).

Opening a probate case carries a court filing fee. In California the fee to file a petition for probate is typically $435 (California Courts). Florida charges $395 for formal administration and $340 for summary administration of estates worth $1,000 or more (Florida Statutes 28.2401). New York scales its fee with the estate, from $45 for an estate under $10,000 to $1,250 for one worth $500,000 or more (New York SCPA 2402).

Smaller estates can often skip full probate. California allows a small estate affidavit for estates up to $208,850 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, and a simplified court petition for a primary residence worth up to $750,000 (California Courts). Florida allows summary administration when the estate subject to administration, less exempt property, does not exceed $150,000 (Florida Statutes 735.201). New York's voluntary administration covers personal property of $50,000 or less (New York SCPA 1301).

Wills are often written once and left alone. In the 2025 Caring.com survey, nearly a quarter of respondents with a will had not updated it since it was created, while 62% had updated theirs between six months and five years earlier (Caring.com).

Financial changes drive most updates: 30% updated a will after a large raise, an inheritance or a property purchase, and 23% after a birth or marriage. Medical diagnoses accounted for 10% of reasons for an update and preparing for a serious medical procedure for 7%. About 1 in 10 respondents no longer live in the state where they created their estate plan, which matters because inheritance law differs by state.

Very few estates owe federal estate tax. The basic exclusion is $15 million per person for deaths in 2026, up from $13,990,000 in 2025, under the July 2025 tax law (Public Law 119-21, commonly called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which the IRS refers to as the Working Families Tax Cuts) (IRS). The IRS has published the 2027 figure: $15,480,000 under Revenue Procedure 2026-35 (IRS).

The annual gift exclusion is $19,000 per recipient in 2026 and rises to $20,000 in 2027, and the annual exclusion for gifts to a spouse who is not a US citizen rises from $194,000 to $201,000 (IRS).

In filing year 2024, 7,195 estate tax returns were filed and 2,663 were taxable (IRS SOI), against 3,072,666 deaths in the US in 2024 (CDC/NCHS). Returns and deaths fall in different years, but the comparison shows taxable estates are fewer than 1 in 1,000. Rates, revenue, the exemption's history and state estate and inheritance taxes are covered in estate tax statistics.

For most households the cost question is about probate and paperwork, not tax: the federal exemption covers all but a few thousand estates a year, while a will made online costs $0 to $299 at list price and probate fees in states like California are set as a percentage of the gross estate. Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance pass outside a will; ownership and coverage figures are in life insurance statistics.

How much people actually inherit, and how the coming handoff from older generations is split, is covered in great wealth transfer statistics. Walnut, an AI investing app, can read a connected brokerage account to show how the investments in an estate are doing.