How to Make a Will in Texas (2026): Requirements, Witnesses, Self-Proving Affidavit

Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer for Texas: nobody publishes a reliable, state-specific median for what a will costs here, and the figures you will see quoted — including ours — are national. Anyone showing you a precise Texas number is estimating. What is genuinely Texas-specific, and what actually decides whether your will works, is how it has to be executed. The detail worth knowing before you sign anything: Texas demands a handwritten will be written wholly by hand — a filled-in printed form fails here, where states like California need only the signature and the material provisions to be handwritten.

Putting a loan in writing? The interest limit, the signing rules and the time limit to sue, from the state’s own statutes: Texas promissory note.

The honest position on Texas pricing

We publish a national attorney median for a simple will of $625 (middle 50% $450–$1,000) and a DIY platform range of $129–$599. Attorney figures are the national medians from the LegalTemplates 2026 survey of 909 firms, verified July 23, 2026. They are national, not state-specific — see the note on state pricing below. Geographic multipliers are widely republished, but the primary source for them blocks automated verification, so we will not apply one to Texas and present the result as a Texas figure. When a defensible state-level dataset exists, this page will carry it and say where it came from.

What Texas law actually requires

This is the part that is genuinely state-specific, and the part that decides whether the document works at all. Every line below is read from the statute, with the citation attached:

• Witnesses: 2. Tex. Est. Code § 251.051(3)
• If a beneficiary witnesses it: the gift to that witness is void only if the will cannot otherwise be established, the witness still takes up to the value of any share they would have received on intestacy, and the gift is not void if a disinterested and credible person corroborates the witness’s testimony. Tex. Est. Code § 254.002(a)-(c)
• Notary required for the will to be valid: no. A notary is not what makes a will valid here — the witnesses are. Tex. Est. Code § 251.051
• Self-proving affidavit: available. Signing one at the same time as the will is what saves your executor from tracking witnesses down years later. Tex. Est. Code § 251.104
• Handwritten (holographic) wills: recognised. Written wholly in the testator’s own handwriting; attesting witnesses not required. Tex. Est. Code § 251.052
• Electronic wills: not recognised. Tex. Est. Code ch. 251 (subchapters A-C only; no electronic-will subchapter)

The full 44-jurisdiction comparison is on what each state requires for a will to be valid.

Does Texas give you a free form?

No. We found no complete statutory will form in the Texas code. California, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico and Wisconsin each print one in their own codes. In Texas your realistic routes are a DIY platform, a flat-fee attorney will, or an hourly engagement if the estate is complicated.

What skipping it costs in Texas

A will does not avoid probate — it directs it. What it prevents is the estate being distributed by Texas’s intestacy statute instead of by you, and it lets you name the executor rather than leaving the court to appoint one. The arithmetic on the other side is on what probate costs in Texas, and what the executor is paid in Texas.

What a will costs nationally — every route priced, and the four situations where DIY fails.

Statutory text read at the state’s own legislature or official code site. Pricing figures are national and dated above. General information, not legal advice.