Updated September 5, 2026. Quick answer: Tennessee is a genuine marriage-length sliding-scale state: the share rises with years married rather than sitting at one flat number. married less than 3 years: 10% of net estate; 3-6 years: 20%; 6-9 years: 30%; 9+ years: 40%
What Tennessee actually sets out
| What the statute sets out | What it says |
|---|---|
| Tenn. Code Ann. Sec. 31-4-101 (schedule) | “less than 3 years 10% of the net estate … 9 years or more 40% of the net estate” |
| The share and what it is measured against | married less than 3 years: 10% of net estate; 3-6 years: 20%; 6-9 years: 30%; 9+ years: 40%; measured against net estate; decedent’s real and personal property passing by will/intestacy, reduced by secured debts, funeral expenses, administration costs and certain allowances; not a full non-probate-inclusive augmented estate. |
| Regime type | marriage-length percentage in fixed bands |
| Can it be waived | waivable through a properly executed antenuptial agreement under Tenn. Code Ann. Sec. 36-3-501 |
| Time limit to file | per consistent secondary reporting: within 9 months after the date of death (the section’s own text could not be located this session) |
How it works in practice
- The share is measured against net estate; decedent’s real and personal property passing by will/intestacy, reduced by secured debts, funeral expenses, administration costs and certain allowances; not a full non-probate-inclusive augmented estate.
- No. This state’s formula is deliberately built to reach revocable trusts, payable-on-death accounts and other lifetime transfers, precisely so the elective share cannot be defeated by moving assets out of probate before death.
- Waiver: Waivable through a properly executed antenuptial agreement under Tenn. Code Ann. Sec. 36-3-501.
- The election has to be affirmatively filed on a deadline: per consistent secondary reporting: within 9 months after the date of death (the section’s own text could not be located this session).
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 Tennessee specifically, and its own numbers above should be used instead of the calculator’s national default for a Tennessee 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: Tennessee’s code is a Lexis-gated commercial publication; verified via a 2021 public-domain Internet Archive bulk release, not confirmed current for 2026; the 9-month time-limit figure is secondary-sourced only.
- 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 Tennessee 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.