Updated September 7, 2026. Quick answer: In Arkansas, once the personal representative publishes notice to creditors, a creditor has 6 months to file a claim; and if notice is never published, the absolute deadline is 5 years from the date of death; and a creditor who is personally mailed notice gets 30 days.
What is the creditor-claim deadline in Arkansas?
| Once notice to creditors is published | 6 months |
| If notice is never published (absolute deadline) | 5 years from the date of death |
| Creditor personally mailed notice | 30 days |
“all claims against a decedent’s estate…shall be forever barred…unless verified to the personal representative or filed with the court within six (6) months after the date of the first publication of notice to creditors… all claims barrable under the provision of subsection (a) of this section shall be barred at the end of five (5) years after the date of the death of the decedent.”
Source: Ark. Code Ann. § 28-50-101
What makes Arkansas different
Arkansas layers three clocks: a 6-month publication bar, a 2-year backstop for known creditors never actually notified, and a 5-year absolute bar from death; one of the longest outer bars surveyed.
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 Arkansas’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 | Ark. Code Ann. § 28-50-101 |
| Arkansas courts (general reference) | Arkansas 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.