Probate in Nebraska

Contents

1. What probate reaches
2. The informal path
3. The small estate affidavit
4. Why trusts are sold as the alternative
5. The county inheritance tax
6. A tax unlike any other state’s
7. The 2023 reform
8. The debate since
9. The order of events
10. Before any of it begins

Brent O’Mara works with business owners and multigenerational families, work that often reaches into business succession, past the portfolio, and succession of any kind in Nebraska eventually passes a registrar’s window at a county courthouse. Probate is the name for what happens there. Fortune defines it plainly as the court supervised process by which a deceased person’s assets are distributed and debts are settled.¹⁰ The word comes from the Latin for proving, since the first task is to prove that a will is genuine, and the process is as old as the state: Nebraska has supervised the settling of estates through its county courts since statehood, and its inheritance tax, the one levy most families meet in probate, dates to 1901.⁶

What probate reaches

Probate does not touch everything a person owned. The University of Illinois Extension separates the total estate, everything owned, from the probate estate, the subset controlled by the will or by intestacy law when there is no will.⁹ Property in a trust, accounts with named beneficiaries, payable or transfer on death designations and jointly owned property all pass outside the process.⁹ What remains, typically property held in the decedent’s sole name with no designation, is what a personal representative administers.

The informal path

Nebraska’s probate code offers two routes, formal and informal, and the informal one is what most estates use. Instead of a hearing before a judge, an application goes to the registrar of the county court. Nebraska Revised Statute 30 2414 sets out what every such application must contain: the applicant’s interest, the decedent’s name, date of death, age and domicile, the names and addresses of the spouse, children, heirs and devisees, any personal representative already appointed elsewhere, and whether any demand for notice of the proceeding has been received.¹ An application to probate a will must add that the original accompanies it or sits with the court, that the applicant believes it was validly executed, and that no later instrument revoking it is known.¹

Figure

What an informal application must state

1. 01
   InterestA statement of the applicant's interest in the estate.
2. 02
   The decedentName, date of death, age, county and state of domicile, and the names and addresses of the spouse, children, heirs and devisees, with the ages of any minors.
3. 03
   Other representativesAny personal representative already appointed in Nebraska or elsewhere whose appointment has not ended.
4. 04
   Demands for noticeWhether the applicant has received or knows of any demand for notice of a probate proceeding for the decedent.
5. 05
   The willFor a will, that the original is in the court's possession or accompanies the application, that the applicant believes it was validly executed, and that no revoking instrument is known.

The same statute governs the appointment of the person who will do the work. Nebraska calls that person a personal representative rather than an executor, and an application to appoint one must describe the will by its date of execution and state the applicant’s priority for appointment.¹ When there is no will, the application for an administrator in intestacy must state that no unrevoked will is known and name anyone with a prior or equal right to serve.¹ The duties that follow the appointment are set out in what an executor must do.

The small estate affidavit

For modest estates Nebraska offers a path around probate entirely. The state’s judicial branch publishes an affidavit for transfer of personal property without probate, usable when the fair market value of the whole estate, less liens and encumbrances, is $100,000 or less, at least thirty days have passed since death, no personal representative has been appointed or applied for, and no real estate needs to be transferred.² The heir signs before a notary and presents the affidavit to each bank or holder of property; it is never filed with a court, and a separate affidavit exists for real property.² The person who collects property this way remains answerable to the decedent’s creditors up to the value received, for three years after death or one year after distribution, whichever is later.²

Figure

Collecting a small estate by affidavit

1. 01
   ValueThe whole estate, less liens and encumbrances, is worth $100,000 or less.
2. 02
   TimingAt least thirty days have passed since the death.
3. 03
   No representativeNo personal representative has been appointed or applied for, and no real estate needs to change hands.
4. 04
   SignThe heir signs before a notary, one original per account or holder of property.
5. 05
   PresentThe affidavit goes to each bank or holder, never to a court, and the heir stays answerable to creditors up to the value received.

Why trusts are sold as the alternative

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explains that one reason people set up a revocable living trust is to avoid probate, which it calls public, and potentially expensive and slow.⁸ Whether that description fits a given Nebraska estate depends on which path it takes. An informal probate of a simple estate may be neither slow nor costly, while a contested formal proceeding over a business or farm can be both. The trade is examined in revocable living trusts.

The county inheritance tax

The tax most Nebraska families meet in probate is not the federal estate tax, which, as the exemption entry explains, reaches very few estates, but a state inheritance tax paid by the people who inherit. University of Nebraska Lincoln extension economists describe it as depending on how closely the recipient was related to the person who died: the closest relatives pay the lowest rate, more remote relatives a higher one, and everyone else the highest.³ A surviving spouse pays nothing.³ Determining the tax is part of settling the estate; property is appraised at its fair market value, the tax is paid to the county where the property sits, and generally property may not be inherited until it is paid.³

A tax unlike any other state’s

Nebraska Public Media reported in 2025 that Nebraska was one of five states with an inheritance tax and the only one where it is collected exclusively by counties, Iowa having ended its tax at the start of that year.⁴ The Nebraska Examiner put the count at six states and noted that much of the county revenue funds bridges and roads.⁵ A county supervisor told the Revenue Committee that his county had reduced property taxes by about $2 million over five years because of the inheritance tax, and that without it property taxes would rise or services would be cut.⁴

Figure

Nebraska inheritance tax before and after LB310

	Deaths before 2023	Deaths on or after January 1, 2023
Children, parents, siblings, grandchildren	1% above $40,000	1% above $100,000
Aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews	13% above $15,000	11% above $40,000
All others	18% above $10,000	15% above $25,000
Surviving spouse	Exempt	Exempt
Heirs under 22	Taxed by relationship	Exempt

The 2023 reform

The Legislature rewrote the rates in 2023. LB310 passed 37 to 1 after its sponsor, who had sought to cut the tax in half or phase it out, accepted a compromise with county governments.⁶ The Lincoln Journal Star reported that counties had collected about $70 million a year for six years and that the bill would reduce collections to about $60 million.⁶ For deaths on or after January 1, 2023, immediate relatives still pay 1 percent but their exemption rose from $40,000 to $100,000; more remote relatives pay 11 percent rather than 13 above an exemption raised from $15,000 to $40,000; unrelated heirs pay 15 percent rather than 18 above $25,000 rather than $10,000.⁷ Heirs under 22 were exempted entirely.³ Douglas County, the state’s largest, expected to lose about $2 million a year.⁷

Figure

The inheritance tax in the county budget

year the tax dates to

1901

collected by counties in each of the six years before 2023

$70 million

projected collections after LB310

$60 million

final vote on LB310

37 to 1

The debate since

The reform did not end the argument. In 2025 one senator introduced a constitutional amendment that would bar the state and its subdivisions from levying any inheritance tax, subject to a vote of the people, while another proposed a flat 1 percent rate above $100,000 for everyone.⁴ The latter advanced 27 to 10 that April, with lost county revenue to be replaced by higher fees on vehicle inspections and marriage licenses and by other tax changes, at a time when the state budget shortfall was growing.⁵ One senator described the tax as something people with enough resources could avoid with fairly trivial steps, leaving everyone in the middle to pay it.⁵ How much of any estate passes through probate, and which path fits, turns on individual circumstances; mapping it is work that qualified professionals in estate law and tax do for a living.

The order of events

Taken together, a Nebraska death sets off a sequence. Accounts with designations pay out on a death certificate. Small estates clear by affidavit after thirty days. Everything else goes to the registrar, who appoints a personal representative, and that person gathers, values, pays and distributes while the county assesses its share. It is a process built for the moment after death.

Before any of it begins

The process has one blind spot. Probate begins only at death, so none of its machinery helps a living person who has lost the ability to manage money or make medical choices. For that interval the law relies on a different pair of instruments, signed in advance, and they are where the next entry begins, powers of attorney and health care directives.