Do I have to go through probate in Connecticut?

In Connecticut, estates worth $40,000 or less may qualify for a simplified small-estate procedure (personal property only). Estates above that generally require probate through the Probate Court.

How long do creditors have to make a claim in Connecticut?

The creditor claim period in Connecticut is generally 150 days. What starts that clock varies, so confirm which date applies before relying on it.

How long does probate take in Connecticut?

A typical Connecticut estate takes 6–18 months. Complications — a contested will, an unsold house, a late-surfacing creditor — extend it.

Does Connecticut have an estate or inheritance tax?

Connecticut has a state estate tax.

EstateMate › Probate by state › Connecticut

Settling an estate in Connecticut

An executor in Connecticut has to work through the Probate Court and a long list of tasks that have nothing to do with the court. This page sets out what Connecticut law actually requires at each step, with the section it comes from and the date we last read it.

Probate court: Probate Court
Small-estate shortcut: Estates of $40,000 or less may qualify for a simplified small-estate procedure (personal property only — it will not transfer real estate).
Creditor claim period: 150 days
Typical timeline: 6–18 months
State death tax: a state estate tax

Immediate

Obtain certified death certificates

Connecticut is one of the easiest states in the country for this. Under C.G.S. § 7-51a(a) any person eighteen years of age or older may purchase certified copies of death records in the custody of any registrar of vital statistics. No proof of relationship, and no statement of interest. Note the office as well: any registrar, which makes the town or city registrar a real route and usually a faster one than the state. Two limits are worth knowing. Uncertified copies of deaths occurring less than a hundred years ago go only to researchers approved by the department and to approved state and federal agencies. And the Social Security number is redacted from a certified copy issued to a genealogist, so if you need that number for a bank or for the Social Security Administration, order as family rather than through a genealogical society. 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.

C.G.S. § 7-51a·last read 2026-08-25

Locate the will (or confirm there is none)

Connecticut does not give you thirty days — it says forthwith. Under C.G.S. § 45a-282(a) anyone in possession of a will or codicil must, forthwith after learning of the testator’s death, deliver it either to a person designated as executor or to the judge, clerk or assistant clerk of the probate court that has jurisdiction. The thirty days people remember is only the point at which the penalty bites: under subsection (b), neglect for thirty days after knowledge of the death is punishable by a fine of up to one thousand dollars, imprisonment for up to a year, or both. A separate duty falls on the executor. Section 45a-283 requires a person who knows they are named to apply for probate within thirty days of the death, on penalty of a fine of up to two hundred and fifty dollars. If the will is in a safe deposit box, § 45a-284 governs opening it to search. If you believe someone is sitting on the will, the duty is already live — it began with their knowledge of the death. Make your request in writing and keep a dated copy.

C.G.S. §§ 45a-282, 45a-283·last read 2026-09-09

Short-term

Claim the family allowances you are entitled to

Connecticut leaves the amount to the Court of Probate but gives it unusually flexible tools. Under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 45a-320 the court may allow, out of any real or personal estate in settlement before it and including a small estate under § 45a-273, whatever amount it judges necessary for the support of the surviving spouse or the family during the settlement. The decree can run for the whole period of settlement or for a fixed term subject to renewal, and it can be paid as a lump sum. Two provisions are worth asking for by name. The court may order that an allowance to a surviving spouse vests retroactively as of the moment of death, which fixes it as a sum certain and means it does not lapse if the spouse later dies or remarries: it becomes their absolute property, or their estate’s. And the court may direct that the allowance be charged against the recipient’s right to the income the estate earns during settlement, so ask which way the decree is written. Subsection (c) also lets the court allow the family the use of any motor vehicle the deceased kept as a family car.

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 45a-320·last read 2026-08-21

Notify beneficiaries and keep them informed

Connecticut leaves the form of notice to the court, which means a beneficiary may never receive a personal letter. Under C.G.S. § 45a-286 a court of probate must hold a hearing before proving or disapproving a will, and notice of that hearing — public, personal, or both, as the court deems best — must have been given to all parties known to be interested in the estate. Publication alone can therefore satisfy the section. There are two ways it can be skipped altogether. All interested parties may sign and file a written waiver of notice. Or the court may dispense with notice for cause shown, and the statute says that a finding that the estate is not more than sufficient to pay the expenses of administration, the funeral and the last sickness is itself sufficient cause. If you are an heir here, watch the court file rather than the mailbox. 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.

C.G.S. § 45a-286·last read 2026-08-25

Determine if probate is required

Connecticut’s Affidavit in Lieu of Administration (Form PC-212) turns on two conditions, and the second is a hard gate. The aggregate value of solely owned tangible and intangible personal property must not exceed $40,000, and the person must have had no solely owned real property in Connecticut at death. Both halves have a useful refinement. The $40,000 counts only solely owned property and expressly excludes anything passing outside probate by operation of law, so joint accounts and beneficiary-designated assets do not count against it. And the real-property gate is limited to Connecticut land — real estate in another state does not by itself close this route, although that state will have its own process for it.

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 45a-273·last read 2026-08-18

Legal Process

File a petition with the probate court

Connecticut requires a hearing before a will is proved, but lets the court decide how much of one. Under C.G.S. § 45a-286 a court of probate must, before proving or disapproving any will or codicil, hold a hearing on it, with notice — public, personal, or both, as the court may deem best — given to all parties known to be interested in the estate. That notice may be waived where all the interested parties sign and file a written waiver, and the court may dispense with it for cause shown. A finding that the estate is not more than sufficient to pay the expenses of administration, the funeral and the last sickness is itself sufficient cause. Section 45a-283 supplies the deadline on your side of it. A person who knows they are named executor must apply for probate of the will within thirty days after the death, to the court of probate for the district where the testator was domiciled at death. The penalty is a fine of up to two hundred and fifty dollars. 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.

C.G.S. §§ 45a-283, 45a-286·last read 2026-08-25

Inventory all assets and debts

Connecticut gives two months and will not appoint an appraiser for you. Under C.G.S. § 45a-341 an inventory of all the property of the deceased — except real property situated outside the state — duly appraised, must be made and signed by the fiduciary under penalty of false statement, and filed in the probate court having jurisdiction within two months after acceptance of the trust. It is the fiduciary who appraises the property, or causes it to be appraised, at fair market value, and § 45a-346 prohibits court-appointed appraisers outright. For a non-resident’s estate the inventory covers only the interest they had in Connecticut real and tangible personal property, plus intangibles, and the intangibles drop out where the Connecticut proceeding is ancillary to one elsewhere. Section 45a-343 lets an interested person object to the inventory or the appraisal, with notice and a hearing. 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.

C.G.S. §§ 45a-341, 45a-343, 45a-346·last read 2026-08-25

Publish notice to creditors

Connecticut does not bar creditors at all in the ordinary case, and mistaking that costs executors money. Under C.G.S. § 45a-354 it is the Court of Probate, not you, that causes newspaper notice to be published, within fourteen days after the appointment of the first fiduciary. Then § 45a-356 sets a period of one hundred and fifty days from that appointment — but read what it does. It does not extinguish a late claim. It provides that no fiduciary shall be chargeable for assets paid or distributed in good faith before the claim was presented, and good faith is assumed unless the creditor proves you had actual knowledge of the claim when you paid. The only true bar is optional and yours to trigger: under § 45a-357 you may give notice to a person you have reason to believe may have a claim, setting a date not less than ninety days ahead, after which they are forever barred. 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.

C.G.S. §§ 45a-354, 45a-356, 45a-357·last read 2026-08-25

Administration

Identify and close digital accounts

Connecticut wrote the executor into the text, which is the thing to plan around if you avoided probate. The chapter is the Connecticut Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, short-titled at § 45a-334b, and § 45a-334h governs the content of a deceased person’s electronic communications. Content is disclosed only where the person consented or a court directs it. The custodian must then be given a written request, a certified copy of the death certificate, and a certified copy of the certificate of appointment as executor. The section names no small-estate affidavit and no alternative for a family that never opened an estate, so the realistic routes there are the online tool or a court order. Unless the person used the online tool you must also produce the will, trust or power of attorney evidencing consent. Connecticut also keeps a separate, older provision at § 45a-334a on access to a decedent’s electronic mail account, sitting alongside the uniform act rather than replaced by it. 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.

C.G.S. §§ 45a-334b, 45a-334h·last read 2026-08-25

Financial Settlement

Pay valid debts and expenses

Connecticut puts the funeral first, ahead of the costs of settling the estate — the reverse of the order most guidance assumes. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 45a-365 ranks. (1) Funeral expenses. (2) Expenses of settling the estate. (3) Claims for the last sickness. (4) All lawful taxes and claims due Connecticut and the United States. (5) Wages of any laborer or mechanic for work done in the three months before the death. (6) Other preferred claims. (7) All other claims, paid in proportion to their amounts. Note this order is stated generally rather than only for insolvent estates. Connecticut also has an unusual rule at § 45a-366: if a married person’s estate cannot cover the funeral and last-illness expenses, the surviving spouse must pay them personally. 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.

Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 45a-365, 45a-366·last read 2026-08-27

File required tax returns

Connecticut no longer names a figure of its own — it points at the federal one. Under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 12-391(g), for deaths on or after 1 January 2023 the whole schedule is two lines: nothing on a Connecticut taxable estate up to the federal basic exclusion amount, and 12 per cent of the excess above it. Subsection (c)(4) defines that phrase as the dollar amount the Internal Revenue Service publishes annually, at which a decedent would be required to file a federal estate tax return. So the Connecticut threshold tracks the federal one automatically and there is no separate state figure to look up. For deaths in 2026 the IRS puts the basic exclusion at $15,000,000, up from $13,990,000 for 2025, so an estate owing nothing federally will generally owe nothing to Connecticut either. The rate is flat rather than graduated: 12 per cent on everything above the line, with no lower brackets to ease into. One more rule catches families who kept a home in two states. Under subsection (h)(1) every decedent is presumed to have died a Connecticut resident, and the burden of proof in an estate tax proceeding falls on the estate claiming otherwise. If the person divided their time, expect to have to prove where they were domiciled rather than simply asserting it. 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.

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 12-391(c)(4), (g), (h); IRC § 2010(c)(3)·last read 2026-09-09

Distribution

Distribute assets to heirs

Connecticut has the uniform shape but much smaller numbers, and one tier with no dollar figure at all. Under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 45a-437 the surviving spouse takes the entire intestate estate absolutely if the deceased left no issue and no parent. If there is no issue but a parent survives, the spouse takes the first $100,000 plus three quarters of the balance. If all the issue are also the spouse’s issue, the spouse takes the first $100,000 plus half the balance. And if one or more of the issue are not the spouse’s, the spouse takes half of the intestate estate — with no $100,000 off the top. That last tier is the one to watch in a second marriage: the fixed sum disappears entirely, so a stepchild’s existence can cost the surviving spouse $50,000 or more. These shares are worked out after any support allowance paid from principal under § 45a-320. Connecticut’s disqualification section is wider than most in two ways worth knowing. Under C.G.S. § 45a-447 the bar catches a person finally adjudged guilty, as principal or accessory, of any of a listed set of crimes — and equally someone finally found NOT GUILTY BY REASON OF MENTAL DISEASE OR DEFECT under § 53a-13 of those same crimes. Such a person cannot inherit any part of the deceased victim’s estate under the intestacy rules, or as devisee or legatee, or take property as beneficiary or survivor. It also reaches what they would have taken from ANY OTHER PERSON where the homicide or death ended an intermediate estate or hastened the time of enjoyment. An interested person may bring an action in the Superior Court to have guilt determined for this purpose, and the section provides for a petition to override the prohibitions. Connecticut has no desertion, abandonment or adultery bar on a spouse, and no bar on an absent parent. These shares apply only where there is no valid will — a will overrides all of it. And do not distribute anything until the creditor period has run and the debts are settled: a representative who pays the family early can be personally liable for what is still owing. Connecticut rewrote who counts as a child with effect from 1 January 2022, and the current sections are gender-neutral. Under § 45a-438(b) a child qualifies to inherit from or through a parent where parentage is established under the Connecticut Parentage Act or by adoption, and § 45a-438b applies the same test in reverse for a parent and the parent’s kindred inheriting from a child. The 2021 amendment replaced the old “father and his kindred” wording, so these no longer turn on which parent is which. Adoption is dealt with in § 45a-731, and it cuts both ways. Subdivisions (5) and (6) terminate the legal relationship between the adopted person and the biological parents and THEIR relatives “for all purposes”, and give neither side any right of inheritance from or through the other. The exception is the adoptions described in § 45a-724(a)(2) or (3) and § 45a-734(c) or (d), which is where the stepparent and adult-adoption cases sit. Subdivision (4) is worth knowing if there is a will rather than an intestacy: the words “child”, “children”, “issue”, “descendant”, “heir”, “grandchild” and the rest, used in any will or trust instrument, include legally adopted persons unless the document clearly indicates otherwise. And Connecticut sets hard conditions for a posthumously conceived child. Under § 45a-785 that child is treated as born in the deceased’s lifetime only where the deceased signed and dated a document, countersigned by the surviving spouse, specifically permitting posthumous use of their sperm or eggs and giving the spouse custody and control of them. The child must also have been in utero not later than one year after the death.

Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 45a-437, 45a-438, 45a-438b, 45a-447, 45a-731, 45a-785·last read 2026-09-09

Close Estate

File a final accounting and close the estate

Connecticut settles the forum in statute and leaves the timetable to the court’s rules. Under C.G.S. § 45a-175(a) the Probate Courts have jurisdiction of the interim and final accounts of executors and administrators, alongside those of testamentary trustees, court-appointed trustees, conservators and guardians. The same section allows the court to appoint an auditor to examine accounts. Note what does not apply to you: § 45a-177, the periodic three-year accounting rule, reaches conservators, guardians and trustees rather than the executor of a decedent’s estate. What the statutes do not supply is the deadline for an executor’s final account or the mechanics of discharge — those sit in the Probate Court Rules of Procedure, which we have not read. Ask the Probate Court which rule applies, what form it wants, and what it will require before it discharges you. 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.

C.G.S. §§ 45a-175, 45a-177·last read 2026-08-25

Work through this as a checklist

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Open the free Connecticut checklist

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 Connecticut probate attorney.