Pennsylvania Executor Fee Calculator

Pennsylvania takes the opposite approach from formula states like California. Its statute, 20 Pa.C.S. §3537, sets no schedule at all: it entitles the personal representative — the umbrella term for an executor named in a will or an administrator appointed without one — to compensation that is “reasonable and just” under the circumstances. The number courts and attorneys actually reach for came from a courtroom instead: Johnson Estate (4 Fid.Rep.2d 6), a 1983 Orphans’ Court decision that printed a fee schedule, and that schedule has been consulted and attached to fee petitions across the state ever since. It is a guideline with real gravity — and still only a guideline.

The Johnson schedule walks the probate estate’s value through stacking tiers: 5% of the first $100,000, 4% of the next $100,000, 3% of the next $800,000, 2% of the next $1 million, 1.5% of the next $1 million, 1% of the next $1 million, and 0.5% of the next $1 million. The printed schedule runs out at $5 million; fees on anything above that are negotiated or set by the court. The tiers stack — a larger estate doesn’t re-rate the earlier dollars, it just adds thinner slices on top.

Guideline rather than entitlement cuts both ways, and both are worth knowing. It gives families and executors a predictable starting point — a number nobody has to invent — and a fee inside the schedule is one courts are used to seeing approved. But a court can allow less when the estate mostly administered itself, and more when the work was genuinely hard, and corporate fiduciaries (bank trust departments) typically charge from their own published schedules rather than this one. An executor who keeps a clean record of what the work actually was holds the strongest hand in either direction.

A worked example

Take a $500,000 probate estate. The first $100,000 earns 5% = $5,000; the next $100,000 earns 4% = $4,000; the remaining $300,000 sits in the 3% tier = $9,000. The guideline fee: $18,000, or 3.6% of the estate. On a $1,000,000 estate the same walk gives $5,000 + $4,000 + $24,000 = $33,000 — a smaller share (3.3%) of a bigger number, because the later tiers are thinner. Run the entire $5 million schedule and it produces $83,000, about 1.7%, which is where the printed schedule stops.

Treat those figures as the middle of the conversation, not the end of it. A Pennsylvania court asked to approve a fee looks at what the estate required, and both directions are live: a $1,000,000 estate that was one house, one brokerage account, and no disputes may not support the full $33,000, while one with a contested will and a business to wind down may support more. The schedule’s job is to be the number everyone starts from.

Common questions

Is the Johnson Estate fee guaranteed? No — Pennsylvania has no statutory fee schedule, so nothing entitles an executor to these exact dollars. The statute asks for “reasonable and just,” the guideline is how courts commonly translate that into a number, and a court can land above or below it on the estate’s own facts. Corporate fiduciaries and unusual estates argue from their own evidence — published fee schedules, time records, the work itself.

Does this page compute the full Johnson schedule? It computes the headline schedule — the stacking percentages on the probate estate’s value. The full guideline is more granular: separate rates by asset class, such as reduced treatment for real estate that isn’t sold, and small rates for certain non-probate items an executor handles anyway, like jointly held accounts and life insurance. Those refinements can move the number in either direction, and applying them to a particular estate is the estate attorney’s territory.

Does the executor have to take the fee? No — it can be waived, wholly or partly, and family executors often do. The mechanics worth knowing: the fee is taxable income to the executor, while an inheritance generally isn’t. An executor who is also the main beneficiary may keep more after tax by waiving and inheriting instead. That’s a fact about how the two are taxed, not a recommendation — estates differ, and a tax professional can run your actual numbers.

This is the guideline arithmetic as of September 2026 — 20 Pa.C.S. §3537’s reasonable-compensation standard and the Johnson Estate schedule (4 Fid.Rep.2d 6, 1983), verified against the codes on Sep 2, 2026. It is mechanics, not legal or tax advice: courts approve fees, a guideline promises nothing, and your estate’s facts decide what applies.