Updated September 5, 2026. Quick answer: Mississippi’s elective share is not the one-third-of-everything, marriage-length figure most national pages describe. an intestate share of the estate on renunciation, except capped at 1/2 of the real and personal estate if the decedent left no child or descendant
What Mississippi actually sets out
| What the statute sets out | What it says |
|---|---|
| Miss. Code Ann. Sec. 91-5-25 | “Thereupon she shall be entitled to such part of his estate, real and personal, as she would have been entitled to if he had died intestate, except that, even if the husband left no child nor descendant of such, the widow, upon renouncing, shall be entitled to only one-half (1/2) of the real and personal estate of her deceased husband.” |
| The share and what it is measured against | an intestate share of the estate on renunciation, except capped at 1/2 of the real and personal estate if the decedent left no child or descendant; measured against probate estate only; ‘his estate, real and personal’. |
| Regime type | an intestate share capped at a fraction |
| Can it be waived | antenuptial/postnuptial agreements generally understood enforceable, not confirmed against a specific statute this session |
| Time limit to file | renunciation must be filed within 90 days after probate of the will |
How it works in practice
- The share is measured against probate estate only; ‘his estate, real and personal’.
- Partially. This state’s formula is limited to the property described above, which does not reach a properly funded revocable trust the same way an augmented-estate state’s formula does, so trust planning can change the outcome here specifically, though it does not change the analysis in a state with an augmented-estate formula.
- Waiver: Antenuptial/postnuptial agreements generally understood enforceable, not confirmed against a specific statute this session.
- The election has to be affirmatively filed on a deadline: renunciation must be filed within 90 days after probate of the will.
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 Mississippi specifically, and its own numbers above should be used instead of the calculator’s national default for a Mississippi 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: No free official Mississippi statute site exists (Lexis-gated); Justia’s mirror used as the alternate route.
- 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 Mississippi 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.