Settling an estate in Arkansas
An executor in Arkansas has to work through the Circuit Court (Probate Division) and a long list of tasks that have nothing to do with the court. This page sets out what Arkansas law actually requires at each step, with the section it comes from and the date we last read it.
- Probate court
- Circuit Court (Probate Division)
- Small-estate shortcut
- Estates of $100,000 or less may qualify for a simplified small-estate procedure (personal property only — it will not transfer real estate).
- Creditor claim period
- 6 months
- Typical timeline
- 6–12 months
- State death tax
- None — no state estate tax and no state inheritance tax
Immediate
Obtain certified death certificates
Arkansas gates the cause of death separately, and that is what catches families out. Under Ark. Code § 20-18-305(1) a certified copy goes, on written application, to the registrant, spouse, child, parent or guardian, or their authorized designated representative. Others are admitted on demonstrating the record is needed for the determination or protection of their personal or property rights. But subdivision (4) says a certified copy of a death certificate containing cause-of-death information shall not be issued except in listed cases. Those are: the specific request of a spouse, child, parent or other next of kin, or an authorized representative. A documented need for the cause of death to establish a legal right or claim. A request made by or for an organization that provides benefits to the decedent’s survivors or beneficiaries. Approved agency or research use, or a court order. If an insurer needs the cause, say so when you order. Two practical notes. The funeral director usually orders the first batch as part of their service, so ask them how many they have already requested before you order more — families routinely pay twice. And order more than you think: banks, insurers and transfer agents often keep the copy you give them rather than returning it. Confirm the current fee on the state’s own page at the moment you order, because fees change without notice.
Ark. Code § 20-18-305·last read 2026-08-25
Locate the will (or confirm there is none)
Arkansas gives an heir a step that does not need a judge. Under Ark. Code § 28-40-105(b)(1), on the written motion of an interested person the clerk shall issue a citation against anyone alleged to possess the will, directing that the alleged will be produced at a time the citation specifies. That is a filing at the counter rather than a hearing you have to win, and it is the fastest formal move available to a family that believes a will is being held back. The underlying duty is in subsection (a): after the death, the person having custody of the will shall deliver it to the court that has jurisdiction of the estate or to the executor named in the will. There is no deadline stated and no request required to make the duty bite. Under subsection (b)(2) a person who wilfully refuses or fails to deliver a will after being duly ordered by the court is guilty of contempt of court, and is separately liable to any aggrieved party for damages sustained by the refusal or failure. Ask in writing first and keep a dated copy, then take the citation route if nothing moves.
Ark. Code § 28-40-105·last read 2026-08-25
Short-term
Claim the family allowances you are entitled to
Arkansas gives some of the smallest figures we cover, and the amount depends on who is arguing about it. Under Ark. Code § 28-39-101 the surviving spouse and minor children, or either in the absence of the other, may have personal property assigned to them worth $4,000 as against distributees but only $2,000 as against creditors. So against the estate’s own beneficiaries it is $4,000, and against a creditor it halves. Separately, during the two months after the death they are entitled to a reasonable sum for sustenance, not exceeding $1,000 in the aggregate, judged by the usual living standards of the family. One provision is genuinely useful: the right vests in the surviving spouse at the moment of death, does not terminate if they later die or remarry, and becomes their absolute property or their estate’s. Ask early, because the sustenance allowance only covers the first two months.
Ark. Code § 28-39-101·last read 2026-08-21
Notify beneficiaries and keep them informed
Arkansas gives you a month after the first publication to reach people individually. Under Ark. Code § 28-40-111 the personal representative must, promptly after letters are granted, publish notice of the appointment, and then serve it on the heirs, devisees and known creditors within one month after that first publication. The notice gives the date of your appointment and your mailing address, and, where a will was probated, the date it was admitted. Two clocks travel with it. Claims must be filed within six months from the date of the first publication or be forever barred. And the notice must state that a contest of the order of probate can be effected only by filing a petition within the time provided by law — so an heir who means to challenge the will learns of the deadline from the same document. Getting this wrong rarely costs money directly — it stalls the case. An estate that cannot show notice was properly given can be held open, and the appointment itself can be reopened, so keep proof of what you sent, to whom, and on what date.
Ark. Code § 28-40-111·last read 2026-08-25
Determine if probate is required
Arkansas’s small-estate route (Ark. Code Ann. § 28-41-101) applies where the property, less encumbrances, does not exceed $100,000 — and the homestead and any statutory allowances for the spouse and minor children are excluded from that count, so more estates qualify than the headline figure suggests. At least 45 days must have passed since the death. Note Arkansas has no free deep-linkable official statute site, so verify the current figure against the official code portal before relying on it.
Ark. Code Ann. § 28-41-101·last read 2026-08-19
Legal Process
File a petition with the probate court
Arkansas lets you ask for the will and the appointment in one document. Under Ark. Code § 28-40-107 an interested person may petition the court to admit a will to probate, to appoint an executor, or to appoint an administrator — and the section expressly allows a petition for probate to be combined with a petition for the appointment of a personal representative. What the petition must contain is a long list. The deceased’s name, age, residence and the facts of the death. The names and addresses of the heirs and devisees, and the values of the property. A description of any property in this state where the deceased was a non-resident, and the facts establishing venue where that matters. The contents of the will, or a statement of them where the will is not available. And the names of any executors nominated, with the name, relationship and qualifications of the person sought to be appointed. One practical point: the word your state uses for this office is not decoration — asking for the wrong one wastes a trip and a phone call. And where a registrar or clerk can grant it, no judge is involved and no hearing is set, so nothing in the system will prompt you: the case moves only when you file.
Ark. Code § 28-40-107·last read 2026-08-25
Inventory all assets and debts
Arkansas gives two months, and the family can agree to skip it. Under Ark. Code § 28-49-110 the personal representative must, within two months after qualification or as the court directs, file an inventory of all property owned by the deceased at the time of death, except such interests as terminated by reason of the death. Each item is described in detail and appraised at its fair market value as at the date of death, with an affidavit attached confirming that the inventory is complete and accurate to the best of the representative’s knowledge. The filing may be waived where all competent distributees, and the guardians of any who are incompetent, file a written waiver. That waiver does not hold where the court finds an inventory necessary, or where a person asserting a claim demands one in writing. Two things that apply everywhere. Values are as of the date of death, not today — a house that has risen since is still listed at what it was worth then. And the inventory is the document everything else is measured against: fees, bond, and every later distribution. It is also what beneficiaries most often challenge, so take the time to get it right rather than filing a rough figure you intend to fix later.
Ark. Code § 28-49-110·last read 2026-08-25
Publish notice to creditors
Arkansas gives six months, with a five-year backstop for estates nobody ever opened. Under Ark. Code § 28-50-101 all claims are forever barred against the estate, the personal representative, the heirs and the devisees unless verified to the personal representative or filed with the court within six months after the date of the first publication of notice to creditors. The subsection that follows closes the door on dormant estates: claims barrable under that rule are barred at the end of five years after the date of death, unless within that period letters have been issued and notice to creditors published. So an estate that was never administered does not stay open to creditors indefinitely — but five years is a long exposure for a family that assumed doing nothing had ended the matter. Two things to hold on to. Publication is what starts the clock in most states, so an estate where nobody published can stay exposed to claims far longer than the family expects. And a known creditor usually has to be told directly — publication alone does not bind someone whose name and address you could reasonably have found. A SECOND CLOCK IF YOU USE THE SMALL-ESTATE AFFIDAVIT. Where the estate you collect includes real property, you must publish notice of the death and of the affidavit within 30 days of filing it, and claims not presented to you within three months of that first publication are barred. That three-month bar belongs to the small-estate route and is not the six-month general bar described above.
Ark. Code § 28-50-101·last read 2026-09-14
Administration
Identify and close digital accounts
Arkansas names the small-estate affidavit and spells out which letters it will take. Under Ark. Code § 28-75-107 the content of electronic communications is disclosed where the deceased person consented or a court directs it. The personal representative gives the custodian a written request, a certified copy of the death certificate, and a certified copy of Letters Testamentary, Letters of Administration, or a small-estate affidavit or court order. Unless the person gave direction through the provider’s online tool you must also produce the will, trust or power of attorney evidencing consent. The custodian may then ask for an account identifier, evidence linking the account to the person, or a finding by the court. Among the findings available is that disclosure is reasonably necessary for administration of the estate, which is the route to use where consent was never recorded anywhere. The rule to hold on to everywhere: without consent you generally get only the catalogue — who was contacted, when, and at what address — not what was actually said. “The executor can get into the accounts” is not what these laws do. And if you are advising someone still living, the provider’s own online tool is where this should be set, because it beats the will.
Ark. Code § 28-75-107·last read 2026-08-25
Financial Settlement
Pay valid debts and expenses
Arkansas runs a short list — four classes, not the usual six or seven. Under Ark. Code § 28-50-106 the order is as follows. First, the costs and expenses of administration. Then reasonable funeral expenses, the reasonable medical and other expenses incident to the last illness, and the wages of the deceased’s employees. Then claims based on a liability of the deceased for any state tax debt assessed against them, due at the time of death, or due from the estate as a result of the death. And then all other claims allowed. Two things follow from how short the list is. The funeral bill and the last hospital bill sit in the same class, so if there is not enough for both they share rather than one being paid first. And the statute adds the standard closing rule: no preference is given to any claim over another of the same class, nor is a claim due and payable entitled to a preference over claims not due. Paying a lower-ranked debt before a higher-ranked one can leave you personally liable for the difference. So where the estate may not cover everything, stop before paying anything beyond the funeral and administration costs, and take advice.
Ark. Code § 28-50-106·last read 2026-08-27
File required tax returns
Arkansas keeps an estate tax section that cannot produce a bill. Ark. Code § 26-59-106 imposes a tax on the transfer of real estate and personal property of every kind owned by a person who at the time of death was an Arkansas resident — in an amount equal to the federal credit allowable under the federal estate tax laws as in effect on 1 January 2002. That is the tell: the section is pinned to a version of federal law under which the credit still existed. Congress replaced the credit with a deduction, and the statute itself provides that no Arkansas estate tax applies where no federal estate tax is imposed. Arkansas has no inheritance tax. It does tax income, so an estate that earns income during administration will have an Arkansas fiduciary return to file — ask the Department of Finance and Administration for the current form and threshold. None of that removes the federal returns: the deceased’s final income tax return, and Form 1041 for income the estate itself earns during administration. And it does not help with property in another state, which may carry that state’s own death tax and its own filing.
Ark. Code § 26-59-106·last read 2026-08-25
Distribution
Distribute assets to heirs
Arkansas is one of the few states that still keeps dower and curtesy, and it has a rule about the length of the marriage that catches people badly. Where there are descendants, the surviving spouse takes a one-third life estate in the real property and one third of the personal property outright. Where there are no descendants, the spouse normally takes everything — but if the couple were continuously married for less than three years before the death, the spouse takes only fifty percent, and the rest goes to the deceased’s surviving parents. A short second marriage changes the answer completely, and nothing about the family looks different. Two Arkansas rules can stop somebody taking, and both are narrower than their equivalents elsewhere. Under Ark. Code § 28-11-204, headed murder of spouse, a spouse convicted of murdering the other is not endowed in the real or personal estate of the spouse they killed — and where that spouse died intestate, the convicted murderer’s descendants cannot benefit from the estate either, unless they are also descendants of the murdered spouse. That second limb is unusual: it reaches past the killer to their children. Separately, § 28-9-209 gates a father’s inheritance rather than barring conduct. Where a child was born out of wedlock, the father and his kindred take from or through that child only where paternity was established under subsection (d), and subsection (f) puts timing limits on doing so. Arkansas has no desertion or abandonment bar of the kind Missouri next door has, where Mo. Rev. Stat. § 474.140 bars a spouse who abandoned the deceased without reasonable cause and lived apart for the whole year before the death.
Ark. Code Ann. §§ 28-9-209, 28-9-214, 28-11-204, 28-11-301 et seq.·last read 2026-08-26
Close Estate
File a final accounting and close the estate
Arkansas asks for a verified account at five different moments, and the clerk chases you if one is late. Under Ark. Code § 28-52-103 the personal representative must file with the court a verified account of the administration: on filing a petition for final settlement, on revocation of letters, on applying to resign, annually during the administration, and whenever the court directs. So the final account is one of a series rather than a single event, and an estate that runs long generates an account each year. The section sets no deadline for the account itself, but supplies the consequence of missing one — where the representative fails to present an account when it is due, the clerk must issue a citation requiring the account to be presented for settlement within thirty days. Discharge is dealt with elsewhere in the chapter, not in this section. Closing is what ends your exposure, so do not simply stop when the money runs out — an estate left open leaves the representative personally on the hook. And filing a closing statement is not the same as being discharged. In several states the appointment only terminates some months later, if nobody objects. Keep the file, the receipts and the proof of what you sent until then.
Ark. Code § 28-52-103·last read 2026-08-25
Work through this as a checklist
The free Arkansas checklist tracks where you are across every step, keeps your documents in one place, and tells you what is due next. No payment, no card.
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EstateMate is not a law firm and this is not legal advice. Every note above cites the section it came from and the date it was last read, so you can check it yourself. Statutes change, and the right answer can turn on facts specific to your family — when something looks close to the line, talk to a Arkansas probate attorney.