Updated August 14, 2026. Quick answer: South Dakota fixes the petition filing fee at $25 by statute, and the periodic accounting is annual (both tracks); waivable/reducible for conservators only. Everything on this page is quoted from the jurisdiction’s own statute or an official court schedule, and where South Dakota publishes no figure this page says so rather than printing an estimate. What drives the rest of the bill — lawyers, an investigation, a capacity evaluation — is on what guardianship costs.
What South Dakota fixes by statute
| Item | What the text says | Where it says it |
|---|---|---|
| Petition filing fee | The clerk of courts charges $25 for filing a ‘Guardianship or conservatorship action’ (adult or minor; the statute does not price them separately). | SDCL § 16-2-29(3)(b) |
| Bond | For a guardian: bond may not be required except for good cause shown (i.e., presumptively no bond). For a conservator: the court must determine whether a bond is necessary, weighing estate value/income, whether accountings have been waived, whether income is paid directly to a care facility, whether a guardian’s reports have been current, and any nomination requesting bond be waived; amount, surety, and form are set by the court and may be modified. No rule anywhere in the chapter allocates who pays the bond premium — I scanned all 83 sections of SDCL ch. 29A-5 (raw html, 392,248 bytes total) for the string ‘premium’ and got zero hits. The closest general-expense hook is 29A-5-411(16), a conservator’s power ‘To pay taxes, assessments, and other expenses incurred in the collection, care, and administration of the estate’ (not bond-specific), and 29A-5-116’s general ‘reasonable compensation … including reimbursement for costs advanced’ for guardians/conservators/attorneys (also not bond-specific). | SDCL § 29A-5-111 |
| Guardian ad litem and attorney fees | The court may appoint an attorney, guardian ad litem, or court representative whenever it determines the appointment necessary (29A-5-117). Any such appointee — guardian, conservator, attorney for either, attorney for the minor/alleged incapacitated person, or ‘any other individuals appointed by the court’ — is ‘entitled to reasonable compensation from the estate, including reimbursement for costs advanced’ (29A-5-116). So the payer is the protected person’s/minor’s estate, not the petitioner or the state, and there is no statutory hourly-rate or flat-fee cap — ‘reasonable compensation’ is left to the court. | SDCL §§ 29A-5-116, 29A-5-117 |
| Periodic accounting or report | Guardian of a protected person: must file a report within 60 days of the first anniversary of appointment, and ‘at least annually thereafter’ (or on a calendar-year basis due by April 15), plus on resignation/removal/termination (29A-5-403) — explicitly annual, not biennial/triennial. Conservator: must file an accounting on the same 60-day/first-anniversary schedule and ‘at least annually thereafter’ (29A-5-408) — also explicitly annual. The court may waive accountings entirely or permit less-frequent-than-annual filing for a conservator (not for a guardian’s report) if it finds the burden outweighs the benefit, after weighing factors including the bond amount and whether the estate is small (29A-5-409). I found no separate filing fee for the periodic report/accounting itself in SDCL ch. 16-2’s clerk-of-courts fee schedule (16-2-29) — only the one-time $25 case-opening fee for ‘Guardianship or conservatorship actions’ is itemized there; there is no line item for subsequent reports or accountings. | SDCL §§ 29A-5-403, 29A-5-408, 29A-5-409 |
What the proceeding is called here. South Dakota codifies both proceedings together in the ‘South Dakota Guardianship and Conservatorship Act’ (SDCL ch. 29A-5, part of the state’s Uniform Probate Code). ‘Guardian’ governs the person of a minor or ‘protected person’ (an incapacitated adult); ‘conservator’ governs the estate/property of the same. The same or different individuals may hold both appointments for one protected person (SDCL 29A-5-118, 29A-5-304), and a guardian’s annual report may be incorporated into the conservator’s accounting when one person holds both roles (29A-5-403, 29A-5-408).
The filing fee
The clerk of courts charges $25 for filing a ‘Guardianship or conservatorship action’ (adult or minor; the statute does not price them separately).
(3) For any of the following, twenty-five dollars: … (b) Guardianship or conservatorship actions, adoption cases, or terminations of life estates;
Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: SDCL § 16-2-29(3)(b).
The bond
For a guardian: bond may not be required except for good cause shown (i.e., presumptively no bond). For a conservator: the court must determine whether a bond is necessary, weighing estate value/income, whether accountings have been waived, whether income is paid directly to a care facility, whether a guardian’s reports have been current, and any nomination requesting bond be waived; amount, surety, and form are set by the court and may be modified. No rule anywhere in the chapter allocates who pays the bond premium — I scanned all 83 sections of SDCL ch. 29A-5 (raw html, 392,248 bytes total) for the string ‘premium’ and got zero hits. The closest general-expense hook is 29A-5-411(16), a conservator’s power ‘To pay taxes, assessments, and other expenses incurred in the collection, care, and administration of the estate’ (not bond-specific), and 29A-5-116’s general ‘reasonable compensation … including reimbursement for costs advanced’ for guardians/conservators/attorneys (also not bond-specific).
The court may not require the filing of a bond by a guardian except for good cause shown.
The court shall determine whether the filing of a bond by a conservator is necessary.
Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: SDCL § 29A-5-111.
Who pays the premium is not answered. A surety bond carries a recurring premium and it is usually the largest ongoing cost of a guardianship of the estate. South Dakota states no express rule on who bears it in the chapter read for this page, and no figure for what one costs is published anywhere this project could verify. That is a gap in the law and in the published record, not a gap we have filled with a guess.
Guardian ad litem and attorney fees
The court may appoint an attorney, guardian ad litem, or court representative whenever it determines the appointment necessary (29A-5-117). Any such appointee — guardian, conservator, attorney for either, attorney for the minor/alleged incapacitated person, or ‘any other individuals appointed by the court’ — is ‘entitled to reasonable compensation from the estate, including reimbursement for costs advanced’ (29A-5-116). So the payer is the protected person’s/minor’s estate, not the petitioner or the state, and there is no statutory hourly-rate or flat-fee cap — ‘reasonable compensation’ is left to the court.
Any guardian, conservator, attorney for any guardian or conservator and the attorney for the minor or person alleged to need protection, and any other individuals appointed by the court in connection with a guardianship or conservatorship proceeding, are entitled to reasonable compensation from the estate, including reimbursement for costs advanced.
Nothing in this chapter precludes the appointment of an attorney, guardian ad litem, or court representative if the court determines that such an appointment is necessary.
Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: SDCL §§ 29A-5-116, 29A-5-117.
How often you have to account
Annual (both tracks); waivable/reducible for conservators only. Do not carry that assumption across a state line: the interval is set by each state separately, several are biennial or triennial, and your own appointing court can order more often than the statutory minimum. The document that governs you is your order.
Guardian of a protected person: must file a report within 60 days of the first anniversary of appointment, and ‘at least annually thereafter’ (or on a calendar-year basis due by April 15), plus on resignation/removal/termination (29A-5-403) — explicitly annual, not biennial/triennial. Conservator: must file an accounting on the same 60-day/first-anniversary schedule and ‘at least annually thereafter’ (29A-5-408) — also explicitly annual. The court may waive accountings entirely or permit less-frequent-than-annual filing for a conservator (not for a guardian’s report) if it finds the burden outweighs the benefit, after weighing factors including the bond amount and whether the estate is small (29A-5-409). I found no separate filing fee for the periodic report/accounting itself in SDCL ch. 16-2’s clerk-of-courts fee schedule (16-2-29) — only the one-time $25 case-opening fee for ‘Guardianship or conservatorship actions’ is itemized there; there is no line item for subsequent reports or accountings.
A guardian of a protected person shall file a report with the court within sixty days following the first anniversary of the appointment and: (1) At least annually thereafter;
A conservator shall file an accounting with the court within sixty days following the first anniversary of the appointment and: (1) At least annually thereafter;
Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: SDCL §§ 29A-5-403, 29A-5-408, 29A-5-409.
What an accounting has to contain, and the duties that come with it, are on the guardian accounting duties page.
What this page does not tell you
All four items this page set out to establish were read at primary and are stated above with their cites. What is missing everywhere, in every state, is a price: what an attorney charges to bring an uncontested petition, what a court-ordered capacity evaluation or investigation costs, and what a surety charges for the bond. None of it is published by any authority, and this page does not estimate it.
Where this fits
The filing fee is the smallest part of what a guardianship costs, and the national page sets out the costs that are larger and are not published anywhere. If nobody has been appointed yet, the comparison that actually matters is against the document that avoids this proceeding entirely — guardianship against a power of attorney.
Sources
| Item | Citation | Tier | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Petition filing fee | SDCL § 16-2-29(3)(b) | statute | 2026-08-12 |
| Bond | SDCL § 29A-5-111 | statute | 2026-08-12 |
| Guardian ad litem and attorney fees | SDCL §§ 29A-5-116, 29A-5-117 | statute | 2026-08-12 |
| Periodic accounting or report | SDCL §§ 29A-5-403, 29A-5-408, 29A-5-409 | statute | 2026-08-12 |
General consumer information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Guardianship and conservatorship are governed by STATE law and differ materially between states; every figure here is quoted from the cited source as read on the date shown and changes without notice. Read as of August 14, 2026.
Also on South Dakota: How Much Does a Will Cost in South Dakota?.