Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: Massachusetts sets no statutory percentage for executor compensation. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 190B, § 3-719 entitles a personal representative to reasonable compensation for services, and that is all the section itself says; no factors are listed in the statute. What counts as reasonable in a given estate is left to the Probate and Family Court.
The statute, and what it does not do
§ 3-719 entitles a personal representative to reasonable compensation for services. It sets no percentage and no schedule, and unlike some other states’ versions of this same model provision, it does not add a factor list within the section itself.
Who actually decides
The Probate and Family Court decides what reasonable compensation means in a given estate; no statutory factor list is given in this section itself to guide that decision. § 3-719 was adopted verbatim from the model Uniform Probate Code §3-719 as part of the Massachusetts Uniform Probate Code, effective 2012. If a will sets the personal representative’s compensation and there is no contract with the decedent about it, the personal representative may renounce that provision before qualifying and take reasonable compensation instead; a personal representative may also renounce all or part of any compensation by written filing with the court.
What that means in practice
With no statutory factors to point to, a Massachusetts personal representative and any interested party disputing the fee are working from the bare reasonable-compensation standard and whatever the Probate and Family Court applies to it in that case. If a will’s compensation clause looks worse than reasonable compensation would be, renouncing it has to happen before qualifying as personal representative, not afterward, and any renunciation of compensation, in whole or in part, should be filed with the court in writing.
What the whole process costs in this state: Massachusetts probate cost. Every state’s fee model side by side: probate cost by state.
Work out the number: the executor fee calculator. How the standard is applied where no schedule exists: reasonable-compensation states. Whether to take the fee at all: when the executor is also an heir, and how the fee is taxed.
Statutory text read at each state’s own legislature or official code publisher. General information, not legal advice; a court retains the final say on what compensation is allowed.
Related: whether Massachusetts requires the executor to post a bond.