Updated September 5, 2026. Quick answer: Louisiana’s civil-law system has no common-law elective share at all. What it has instead is a means-tested ‘marital portion’ under La. Civil Code art. 2432, available only if the deceased spouse died wealthier than the survivor, capped at $1,000,000 and computed as a fraction of usufruct or ownership, not a flat percentage of everything.
What Louisiana actually sets out
| What the statute sets out | What it says |
|---|---|
| La. Civil Code art. 2432 (right to marital portion) | “When a spouse dies rich in comparison with the surviving spouse, the surviving spouse is entitled to claim the marital portion from the succession of the deceased spouse. … The marital portion is one-fourth of the succession in ownership if the deceased died without children, the same fraction in usufruct for life if he is survived by three or fewer children, and a child’s share in such usufruct if he is survived by more than three children. In no event, however, shall the amount of the marital portion exceed one million dollars.” |
| What protects the surviving spouse instead | not a common-law elective share; a means-tested civil-law ‘marital portion’ (only if the deceased spouse died ‘rich in comparison with’ the surviving spouse): one-fourth (1/4) of the succession in full ownership if no children, the same fraction in usufruct for life if survived by 3 or fewer children, a child’s share in usufruct if more than 3 children; capped at $1,000,000 |
| Regime type | no common-law elective share; civil-law marital portion instead |
| Can it be waived | not independently verified this session against a specific waiver article |
| Time limit to file | 3-year prescriptive period from the date of death (per secondary confirmation of art. 2436) |
How it works in practice
- The actual protection here is the civil-law marital portion, and it only applies at all if the deceased spouse died wealthier than the surviving spouse; it is not available on request the way a common-law elective share is.
- Not applicable here: there is no elective share to plan around in the first place.
- Waiver: Not independently verified this session against a specific waiver article.
- The election has to be affirmatively filed on a deadline: 3-year prescriptive period from the date of death (per secondary confirmation of art. 2436).
The national picture, including the Uniform Probate Code sliding-scale schedule that a minority of states actually use, is on the elective share calculator page; this page is the record for Louisiana specifically, and its own numbers above should be used instead of the calculator’s national default for a Louisiana estate. The one thing that reliably defeats an elective share in every state that has one is explained on whether a prenup can waive the elective share. A newly widowed reader working through the fuller list of irreversible decisions, of which this is one, can start from the surviving spouse checklist.
What this page does not settle
- This session confirmed the core figure above against a primary or verbatim-mirror source, with one open point: Time limit confirmed only via search summary, not a direct fetch.
- A state can amend or repeal this section without the page around it changing, and a detail specific to a reader’s own situation, such as a pending divorce, a premarital agreement, or property held jointly with right of survivorship, can change which part of the statute actually applies.
- Whether a revocable trust changes the outcome in Louisiana is explained above; that answer is specific to this state and does not generalize to any other one.
- Every quotation here was read against the source on September 5, 2026. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and the exact dollar or percentage amount a court awards depends on facts this page cannot know.
Whether this statute reaches a given family’s actual facts is decided by a court, not by this page. Nothing here is legal advice, and no one should sign a waiver or forgo an election on the strength of a web page.
Sources
The sources above were retrieved and read against the state text on September 5, 2026. Every quotation on this page was checked against those bytes.