Across several states, courts now treat the paperwork of death as a major revenue stream, with probate fees becoming a quiet but important part of how the justice system pays its bills. Probate is the court process that confirms a will is valid and allows an executor to manage and distribute the estate, and in most cases it is a routine administrative task. Yet as governments face budget pressure, these once modest charges have grown into significant income, particularly in larger states with many high value estates moving through the system each year.
In Victoria, the Supreme Court collected about $31.7 million in probate fees in the last financial year, which accounted for more than a third of its operating budget. Fee scales in that state now climb as high as $17,298 for estates worth more than $7 million. In practical terms, an estate of just over $1 million attracts close to $2,500 in Victorian fees and a $5 million estate pays more than $12,000. New South Wales also leans heavily on probate, raising more than $30 million in the year to 31 December from more than 30,000 applications, with fees on a typical $1 million estate sitting around $2,500 and about $7,000 for a $5 million estate. Other states such as Queensland and Western Australia take a simpler approach with flat fees usually under $1,000, which puts them in stark contrast to the stepped charges in Victoria and NSW.
This financial dependence appears to be reshaping how courts allocate time and resources. The NSW Supreme Court has increased its processing effort and has cleared nearly 20% more probate matters in a year, while applications rose by about 13.5% compared with 2020. Even with these gains, the court’s own tracking system notes ongoing delays caused by sheer application volume and the limited availability of registrars. In Victoria, investment in a digital probate platform that was introduced during the pandemic to enable remote processing shows how part of this revenue is recycled back into court technology and staffing, while the rest helps offset the wider cost of running the justice system.
However, the heavier financial burden is falling first on executors, who must usually pay these fees upfront before they can access estate funds. For people managing estates worth $1 million or more, finding several thousand dollars at short notice is not always straightforward, especially when assets are tied up in property or investments. Some law firms now help executors apply to banks for hardship access to estate funds and in NSW a small industry of estate funding providers has emerged, lending money to cover probate and administration costs, then getting paid back once the estate is distributed. It looks like a system where the courts’ push for financial sustainability is creating new costs and financial products around death itself, and it remains unclear how far these rising fees can go before they trigger broader reform.
