Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: Montana entitles a personal representative to reasonable compensation for services under Mont. Code Ann. § 72-3-631. There is no percentage schedule today. Montana used to cap compensation at 3% of the first $40,000 of estate value plus 2% of the excess, but Laws 2019, Ch. 313, §74 deleted that entire schedule, so any source still citing Montana’s old percentages is describing law that is no longer in effect.
The statute today: bare reasonable compensation
§ 72-3-631 currently entitles a personal representative to reasonable compensation for services, with no percentage and no schedule attached. The court decides what is reasonable in a given estate.
The 2019 repeal: why older sources are wrong about Montana
Montana used to be a schedule state. The prior version of § 72-3-631 set a hard cap of 3% of the first $40,000 of estate value plus 2% of the excess, with a minimum of the lesser of $100 or the gross estate, plus separate 2% caps for terminating joint tenancies and life estates. Laws 2019, Ch. 313, §74 amended the section and deleted the entire percentage schedule, leaving only the bare reasonable-compensation standard in place today. Any secondary source that cites Montana’s old 3%/2% schedule as current law is out of date. If a will sets compensation and there is no contract with the decedent about it, the personal representative may renounce that provision before qualifying and take compensation under § 72-3-631 instead.
What that means in practice
Do not rely on Montana’s old 3% and 2% figures; they were removed from the statute in 2019, and any calculator or article still using them is citing repealed law. A Montana personal representative today is working from the same bare reasonable-compensation standard used elsewhere in the state’s probate code, without a statutory percentage to fall back on, so the fee should be built and documented the same way a reasonable fee would be justified in any non-schedule state.
What the whole process costs in this state: Montana 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 Montana requires the executor to post a bond.