How Much Does a Trustee Cost in Florida?

The Short Answer: Florida Has No Trustee Fee Schedule

Florida sets a statutory fee schedule for the attorney in a probate case (you can run those numbers in our probate cost calculator), but it sets nothing similar for trustees. There is no statute that says a Florida trustee earns 1%, or 2%, or any other number. Instead, when the trust says nothing about compensation, the trustee is entitled to compensation that is reasonable under the circumstances, and if the trustee and the beneficiaries disagree about what reasonable means, a court decides.

Even when the trust does name a fee, the court can allow more or less, whether the job turned out substantially different from what the person who created the trust expected, or the stated fee is unreasonably low or high. Florida law makes that review power one of the few trust rules the document itself cannot switch off, so no fee clause puts a trustee’s pay beyond question.

What Reasonable Compensation Means Under Florida Law

The rule has three layers, and they cover almost every situation.

• The trust is silent. The trustee is entitled to reasonable compensation under the circumstances. This is the default for most family trusts.
• The trust states a fee. The trustee is entitled to what it says, subject to the court’s power to adjust a fee that is unreasonably low or high, or where the duties changed substantially.
• Extra services. A trustee who renders other services in the administration (say, professional work beyond the ordinary trustee role) is allowed additional reasonable compensation for them.

One clarification heads off many family arguments. Expenses are not compensation. A trustee who pays for an appraisal, a filing, or travel out of pocket is entitled to reimbursement from the trust with no fee analysis at all. The fee question is only about paying the trustee for the trustee’s own time and responsibility.

What Courts Weigh When a Fee Is Challenged

Decades ago the Florida Supreme Court rejected the idea of a set percentage and told courts to weigh the circumstances instead. The factors that matter are the ones you would expect, starting with what the trust itself says about compensation, the size and complexity of the trust, the time and responsibility the administration demanded, the trustee’s skill and experience (and whether the job actually used it), the results of the administration, whether the work was ordinary or extraordinary, and what professionals customarily charge for similar work.

The practical consequence is this. The same dollar fee can be perfectly reasonable in one trust and excessive in another. A trustee who managed a rental property, ran down a creditor dispute, and sold a business earned more than one who forwarded statements from a single brokerage account. If you are the trustee, the single most protective habit is boring. Keep time records of what you did and when.

What Corporate Trustees Actually Charge

Banks and trust companies publish fee schedules, which makes them the most visible benchmark, so let us be precise about what this is. It is a market observation, not a legal rule. The published schedules we reviewed in August 2026 are tiered, and they commonly work out to somewhere around 0.5% to 1.2% of trust assets per year on the first million dollars, stepping down as the balance grows, with minimum annual fees often in the low thousands. The higher end of that range typically bundles investment management into the trustee role; the lower end covers administration with the investing delegated to an outside advisor.

Nothing in Florida law adopts those numbers. They are simply what the professional market charges, which makes them one input into the "customary charges" factor above, and a useful sanity check when you are deciding between naming a family member and naming an institution. If you go the corporate route, ask for the current schedule in writing and read what it includes.

Family-Member Trustees: Charging, Waiving, and the Tax Catch

Florida law does not treat a daughter serving as trustee differently from a bank. She is entitled to reasonable compensation for the same reasons. The work is real, the liability is personal, and the trust benefits from it being done well. Yet many family trustees waive the fee, and the smart ones do it deliberately, for a tax reason.

A trustee fee is taxable income to the person who takes it. What that same person receives as a beneficiary generally is not income at all. So a child who is both trustee and, say, a one-third beneficiary faces a genuine choice, whether to take a fee (taxed, and it comes off the top before the beneficiaries share) or waive it and take the money as inheritance. For many families the waiver nets out better, but not always, especially where the trustee-child is doing years of heavy work while siblings watch. We talk this through in plain numbers, and the final tax answer belongs with your tax preparer. The probate twin of this decision, where a statutory schedule replaces the word reasonable, is covered in our Florida personal representative fees guide.

Whatever a family trustee decides, decide it openly. The fee must appear in the trust accounting, and a quiet, undocumented fee is how beneficiary disputes start.

When a Trustee Fee Looks Excessive

Excessive fees usually surface in the accounting, which Florida law requires to disclose the trustee’s compensation. From there a beneficiary has real remedies. They can ask the court to review the fee against the factors above, order the excess repaid to the trust, and in serious cases remove the trustee. Because an accounting delivered with the right notice can start a short objection clock, have any accounting reviewed promptly rather than filed in a drawer. When no accounting ever comes at all, the compensation question simply stays invisible, and the waiting has its own price. We followed a Palm Beach beneficiary whose trustee prepared none in all the years she served, and whose recovery was still capped at a four-year look back, in the accountings that never came. Our trust beneficiary rights guide walks through the information you are owed, and our trust litigation page covers what a full dispute looks like.

The review runs both ways. We also defend trustees whose reasonable fees are under attack, and the defense is built from the same materials, the time records, the work performed, and the results.

How We Help

We advise successor trustees through the whole trust administration, including how to set and document a defensible fee, with the legal work quoted flat at the consult. When a fee fight has started, on either side, we handle it as litigation. And if you are still designing your trust, we draft compensation terms that prevent this argument from ever happening. See our posted fees →

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The daughter who waived the fee. A Sarasota daughter settles her mother’s trust over eight months and is entitled to a fee. She is also one of three beneficiaries. On the numbers, a fee would be taxed as income while her inheritance would not, so she waives it, documents the waiver, and the accounting shows zero compensation with no argument to be had.

The fee that grew in the dark. A trustee pays himself monthly "administrative fees" for three years without disclosing them. The accounting we force finally shows the total, far beyond what the modest trust could support. The court orders the excess repaid, and the trustee is replaced.

The trustee who earned it. A successor trustee spends two years untangling a trust that held a rental duplex, an unfiled tax year, and a creditor claim. When a beneficiary balks at her fee, her time records and the results of the administration carry the day, and the fee stands.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §736.0708 (trustee compensation: reasonable compensation when the trust is silent; court may allow more or less than a specified fee that is unreasonably low or high or where duties substantially changed; additional compensation for other services); §736.0709 (reimbursement of expenses); §736.08135 (trust accountings disclose compensation); §736.0105(2)(q) (the court’s power to adjust compensation under §736.0708(2) cannot be overridden by the trust terms). flsenate.gov (retrieved 2026-08-11)
• West Coast Hospital Ass’n v. Florida National Bank of Jacksonville, 100 So. 2d 807 (Fla. 1958) (rejecting a set percentage; reasonable trustee compensation determined by weighing the circumstances and factors). (verified 2026-08-11)
• Contrast: Fla. Stat. §733.6171 (statutory fee schedule for probate attorneys, presumed reasonable, not mandatory). No comparable schedule exists for trustees.
• Market observation only (not law): published corporate trustee fee schedules reviewed 2026-08-11, including Virginia National Bank, Trust & Estate Services Fee Schedule (eff. 7/1/2023) and Central Bank (Illinois), Trust Department fee schedule.

Updated on August 19, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. What compensation is reasonable depends on the trust and the work; tax treatment depends on your facts and belongs with your tax preparer. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.