Updated September 7, 2026. Quick answer: In Hawaii, once the personal representative publishes notice to creditors, a creditor has 4 months to file a claim; and if notice is never published, the absolute deadline is 18 months from the date of death; and a creditor who is personally mailed notice gets 60 days.
What is the creditor-claim deadline in Hawaii?
| Once notice to creditors is published | 4 months |
| If notice is never published (absolute deadline) | 18 months from the date of death |
| Creditor personally mailed notice | 60 days |
“Four months after the date of the first publication of notice to creditors…or…Sixty days after the service of written notice…Within eighteen months after the decedent’s death, if notice to creditors has not been published…”
What makes Hawaii different
Hawaii’s outer bar when notice is never published is an unusually long 18 months, collapsing to 4 months after publication or 60 days after personal written notice once the personal representative acts.
Does this deadline apply the same way if the estate never opens probate?
These deadlines are creatures of the probate process itself; they run once an estate is opened (by publication, mailing, appointment, or the grant of letters, depending on Hawaii’s own rule above). A creditor of a decedent whose estate never enters probate at all is not cut off by this particular statute, though the underlying debt’s own ordinary statute of limitations still applies.
Sources
| Statute | Haw. Rev. Stat. § 560:3-803 (see also § 560:3-801) |
| Hawaii courts (general reference) | Hawaii judicial branch |
| Confidence | High |
Every statute quoted on this page was read directly from the state’s own legislature/code site this session, or, where that site blocked automated access, from a reputable legal-citation mirror quoting the same official text with its official citation (disclosed below). General information, not legal advice; the exact deadline in a given estate can turn on facts (whether a personal representative was appointed, whether notice was ever published or mailed) that only your own probate court file can confirm.