Residuary estate calculator
A will hands out percentages. Beneficiaries want a number. This runs the whole waterfall: assets, less debts, funeral, administration costs and whatever tax figure you have, less the specific gifts and cash legacies, then splits what is left by share. If the legacies come to more than the estate can pay, it abates them properly instead of showing you a negative number. Free, no sign-up, eleven currencies, and no country’s tax rules inside the arithmetic.
Everything is worked out in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded, saved or shared. This is arithmetic, not legal advice. Last updated 8 August 2026.
1. What the estate holds
Value each asset as at the date of death, or the best figure you have. Set the last column to Outside the will for anything that passes automatically to somebody else, such as a jointly owned house or a policy paid to a named person. Those stay visible but are kept out of the distribution.
2. What comes out before anybody inherits
Debts, the funeral and the cost of running the estate are paid first, almost everywhere. Beneficiaries are paid out of what survives that.
3. Gifts named in the will
A specific gift is a named thing: the car, the ring, the shares in a particular company. A cash legacy is an amount of money. Keep them apart. If the estate cannot pay everything, cash legacies are cut back before specific gifts are touched. Leave the list empty if the will gives everything to the residuary beneficiaries.
4. Who shares the residue
Enter the share the will gives each of them. A half is 50, a third is 33.33, an eighth is 12.5. They should add up to 100, and the panel says so if they do not.
How the residuary estate calculation works
One order of operations, and every argument about who gets what is really an argument about where something sits in it.
Assets passing under the will
- Debts
- Funeral
- Administration costs
- Tax
= NET ESTATE
- Specific gifts (the car, the ring, the shares)
- Cash legacies (5,000 to my niece)
= RESIDUE
Each residuary share = RESIDUE x that beneficiary's percentageWhy a percentage share is smaller than people expect
A residuary share is a share of what is left, not a share of the estate. On the figures this page opens with, the estate under the will is €285,000. Ruth has a half share, so people reach for €142,500. What she actually receives is €124,750, because €12,500 of debts, funeral and costs and €23,000 of gifts come out before her half is measured. Every legacy the will adds comes out of the residuary beneficiaries, in proportion, and out of nobody else.
This is also why the residue is the risky place to be. A cash legacy of €10,000 is €10,000 whether the house sells well or badly. A half share of the residue absorbs the estate agent’s fee, the tax adjustment and the roof that failed the survey.
The one number the calculator will not invent
Tax. Whether the estate or the beneficiary is taxed, what the thresholds are, what a surviving spouse changes, what a business or a farm or a family home is worth for the purpose, and whether gifts made years before death are pulled back in: every one of those differs by country, and several differ within a country. So there is one field, and you put your own figure in it. If you have not got one yet, leave it at zero and read the result as a before-tax picture.
When the gifts are worth more than the estate: abatement
The part no other calculator does, and the part that catches executors out.
A will is written years before it takes effect. Care fees, a fallen market or a house sold to pay for a nursing home can leave an estate that cannot pay everything the will promises. The gifts are then cut back. The technical word is abatement, and it does not fall evenly.
The common-law order, which is the default in England and Wales and in most systems descended from it, is:
- The residue goes first, and is reduced to nothing before anything else is touched.
- Cash legacies are cut back next, rateably. Everyone in that class takes the same proportion of the loss.
- Specific gifts are cut back last. The named car or ring survives longest.
Rateably is the word that does the work. If the will leaves €10,000 to Priya and €5,000 to a hospice, and only €9,000 is available for cash legacies, they do not split it evenly and the first one named does not go first. Each is paid 60 pence in the pound: €6,000 and €3,000. The calculator applies exactly that and tells you the rate it used.
Two things to check before you rely on this order
A will can set its own order, and some do, usually to protect a charitable legacy or a gift to a child. And abatement is national law: the sequence above is the common-law default, but it is not universal, and some systems reserve a fixed share of an estate for a spouse or children that no will can cut into. Read the will, then confirm the order with a solicitor or the local probate service before you pay anybody.
An insolvent estate is a different problem
If the debts are larger than the assets, nothing above applies. Beneficiaries receive nothing, creditors are paid in a statutory order that ranks funeral and administration expenses ahead of ordinary creditors, and an executor who distributes anything at all can end up personally liable. The calculator stops and says so rather than showing you a negative residue. That is a point to take advice, not to keep typing.
What each input means
Plain English, plus the figure to use when you are estimating.
- Asset value
- The open-market value at the date of death, which is not the same as what you eventually sell it for. Use the best figure you have and come back when the sale completes. For a house that is a valuation or an agent’s appraisal; for a car, a trade guide; for personal effects, the honest secondhand value rather than what it cost.
- How it passes: under the will, or outside it
- A jointly owned home held so that it goes automatically to the survivor, a pension paid at the trustees’ discretion, a policy written in trust and a joint bank account with a right of survivorship all pass outside the will. They are not available to pay legacies and they are not part of the residue. Set them to Outside the will so they are listed but excluded. They may still be counted for tax, which is a separate question with a separate answer in every country.
- Mortgage and secured loans
- Include it only if the estate is actually repaying it. If the house is being sold and the loan cleared on completion, that is a debt of the estate. If the property passes to somebody who takes on the mortgage, it is not.
- Debts, cards, loans and unpaid bills
- Everything owed at the date of death: cards, overdrafts, the final utility bills, care home fees, tax owed for the year of death. Executors routinely advertise for creditors and wait out the local claim period before distributing, because a debt that turns up after the money has gone out is the executor’s problem.
- Funeral
- The funeral director, the burial or cremation, the notice, the flowers, the wake. Enter it net of anything a prepaid plan or a state benefit already covered. Funeral costs sit high in the order of payment almost everywhere, which is why they come out before any beneficiary.
- Administration costs
- The cost of doing the job: court or probate fees, solicitor and accountant, valuations, the estate agent, insurance and utilities on an empty house, certified copies, postage, travel. If you are making an interim distribution, add your retention here too. A retention that turns out to be unnecessary is returned to the residue; one you never held is a phone call you do not want to make.
- Tax due on the estate
- Your own figure, from your own return or your own adviser. Nothing about death taxes is safe to assume across borders, so nothing is assumed here.
- Specific gift
- A named thing rather than an amount: my car, my engagement ring, my shares in a named company, the contents of the garage. If the thing no longer exists at the date of death the gift usually simply fails, and the beneficiary does not get its value in cash instead. Enter the value it will be distributed at, so the residue is measured correctly.
- Cash legacy
- A fixed sum of money to a named person or charity. Also called a pecuniary legacy. These are the gifts that get cut back when the estate falls short, and they are cut back together, in proportion.
- Residuary share
- The percentage of the residue the will gives that person. A half is 50, a third is 33.33, a sixteenth is 6.25. They should total 100. If yours do not, the calculator divides the residue in proportion to what you entered and flags the gap, which is usually a sign that a beneficiary has died or that a clause has been read the wrong way.
Worked examples
All three come straight out of the calculator above.
An ordinary estate: house, savings, three beneficiaries
The figures the page opens with. A house in the sole name of the deceased at €240,000, €32,000 in bank accounts, a car at €8,000 and €5,000 of furniture and effects. A life policy of €25,000 goes to a named person, so it never enters the will. The will leaves the car to Sam, €10,000 to Priya, €5,000 to a hospice, and the residue half to Ruth and a quarter each to Daniel and Aoife.
| Assets passing under the will | €285,000.00 |
|---|---|
| Debts | −€4,200.00 |
| Funeral | −€4,800.00 |
| Administration costs | −€3,500.00 |
| Net estate | €272,500.00 |
| Specific gift: car to Sam | −€8,000.00 |
| Cash legacies: Priya and the hospice | −€15,000.00 |
| Residue | €249,500.00 |
| Ruth, 50% | €124,750.00 |
| Daniel, 25% | €62,375.00 |
| Aoife, 25% | €62,375.00 |
Ruth’s half of the gross estate would have been €142,500. She receives €124,750. The €17,750 difference is her share of the debts, the funeral, the costs and the three gifts. Show a beneficiary this table once and the question stops being asked.
A small estate where the legacies do not fit
Now the case the trade calls abatement and the calculator handles on its own. A flat sold for €28,000 and €2,000 in the bank, so €30,000 of assets. Debts of €5,000 and a funeral of €5,000 leave a net estate of €20,000. The will leaves a ring valued at €4,000 to a granddaughter, then €10,000 to one nephew, €10,000 to another and €5,000 to a charity, with the residue to a cousin.
| Net estate | €20,000.00 |
|---|---|
| Ring to the granddaughter, paid in full | €4,000.00 |
| First nephew, €10,000 legacy | €6,400.00 |
| Second nephew, €10,000 legacy | €6,400.00 |
| Charity, €5,000 legacy | €3,200.00 |
| Cousin, whole residue | €0.00 |
The specific gift is untouched, the cash legacies all take the same 36% haircut, and the residuary beneficiary receives nothing at all. Notice how much of the outcome was decided by the funeral bill: another €3,000 of costs and the cash legacies drop to 52 pence in the pound.
The estate that cannot pay its debts
Assets of €10,000 against debts of €25,000. There is no residue, no legacy is paid, and the calculator says the estate looks insolvent instead of showing you a share of a negative number. Creditors then rank in a statutory order that puts funeral and administration expenses ahead of ordinary debts. Distribute anything to a beneficiary in that situation and you can be paying it back out of your own money.
Mistakes that cost executors money
- Treating a percentage as a share of the gross estate. It is a share of the residue, after everything else.
- Putting a jointly owned house into the will estate. If it passed by survivorship it is not there to pay legacies.
- Distributing before the claim period is over. A late creditor becomes the executor’s problem, personally.
- Forgetting the cost of selling the house. Agent, legal fees and the empty-property bills all land on the residue.
- Paying legacies in the order they appear in the will. When money is short they abate together, in proportion.
- Not keeping receipts for your own expenses. Unevidenced expenses are the ones beneficiaries query.
- Valuing assets at the sale price rather than the date of death. Both matter, for different purposes.
- Distributing to the last cent. Hold a retention. The final bill always arrives after you thought you had finished.
Questions executors and beneficiaries ask
What is the residuary estate?
The residue is what is left of the estate after everything else has been paid: the debts, the funeral, the cost of administering the estate, any tax that is due, and every specific gift and cash legacy named in the will. The people who share it are the residuary beneficiaries. A will usually gives them percentages or fractions rather than amounts, because nobody writing a will knows what will be left.
How do I calculate what each beneficiary gets?
Add up the assets that pass under the will. Subtract the debts, the funeral, the administration costs and any tax. Subtract the specific gifts and cash legacies. What is left is the residue. Multiply the residue by each residuary beneficiary’s percentage share. The order matters: a percentage share is a share of the residue, never a share of the gross estate, so a legacy paid earlier in the chain reduces every share behind it.
What happens if the legacies are worth more than the estate?
The gifts abate, which means they are cut back. The usual order is that the residue goes first and is reduced to nothing, then the cash legacies are reduced in proportion to each other, then the specific gifts are reduced last. So if the will leaves €25,000 in cash legacies and the estate can only pay €16,000, each cash legacy is paid at 64 pence in the pound. The residuary beneficiaries get nothing. That order is the common-law default and it is not universal: a will can set its own order, and some jurisdictions differ, so check your will and your local rules before you pay anyone.
Are debts paid before or after the legacies?
Before. Creditors, the funeral and the cost of administering the estate come out first, in almost every system. Beneficiaries are paid from what survives that. An executor who pays a legacy early and then meets a debt they did not know about can be personally liable for the shortfall, which is why the usual advice is to advertise for creditors and to wait out the local claim period before distributing.
Do I include the house that was jointly owned?
Usually not, when it was held so that it passes automatically to the survivor. The same goes for a pension or a life policy written in trust or paid to a named person, and for a bank account held jointly with a right of survivorship. Those assets pass outside the will, so they are not available to pay legacies and they are not part of the residue. They may still count for tax. Each row in this calculator has a switch for exactly this, so you can list the asset, see it, and keep it out of the distribution.
Should the executor’s expenses come out of the residue?
Reasonable expenses properly incurred in administering the estate normally come out of the estate before the residue is worked out, which means the residuary beneficiaries carry them. Keep receipts for everything, including the mileage, the certified copies, the postage and the house insurance while the property sat empty. Whether an executor may charge for their time, as opposed to being reimbursed for what they spent, depends on the will and on local rules.
What if the residuary shares do not add up to 100%?
That is worth stopping over, because it usually means the will has been read wrong or a beneficiary has died. This calculator divides the residue in proportion to whatever shares you enter and tells you they do not total 100%, so you can see the effect while you go back to the wording. What happens to a lapsed share is a legal question with a different answer depending on where the estate is being administered and on what the will says about substitution.
Does this calculate inheritance tax or estate tax?
No, and it does not pretend to. Death taxes differ in almost every respect between countries: whether the estate or the beneficiary is taxed, the thresholds, the reliefs for a spouse or a business or a farm, and whether gifts made years earlier are pulled back in. There is one field for tax, and you put your own figure in it. If you do not have a figure yet, leave it at zero and treat the result as a before-tax picture.
Can I give beneficiaries an interim payment before the estate is finished?
Executors commonly do, once the debts are known and the risky period for claims has passed. The practical rule is to hold back more than you think you need. Estate agent fees, a tax adjustment, the last utility bill and the cost of selling a house all arrive after you thought you had finished, and asking a beneficiary to send money back is a conversation nobody wins. Run this calculator with a retention in the administration costs field and distribute the rest.
What is the difference between a specific gift and a cash legacy?
A specific gift is a named thing: my car, my wedding ring, my shares in a particular company. A pecuniary legacy is an amount of money: €5,000 to my niece. The distinction matters when the estate cannot pay everything, because cash legacies are cut back before specific gifts are touched. It also matters when the named thing no longer exists at the date of death, in which case that gift usually simply fails and the beneficiary gets nothing in its place.
Is this legal advice?
No. It is arithmetic. Succession law, the order in which creditors rank, the rules on abatement and the tax are all national and sometimes regional, and a will can override several of them. Use the figures to understand the shape of the estate and to check somebody else’s schedule, then have a solicitor or the local probate service confirm the position before money moves.
Is anything I type here saved or sent anywhere?
No. Every figure is worked out in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, stored or logged, there is no account, and closing the tab clears it. That is deliberate given what people type into a page like this.
The residue is the last sum, not the first
This page gives you one clean answer and forgets it when you close the tab, which is the right shape for a calculator and it stays free. What it cannot do is carry the eleven months of work that produce those figures: the asset register that turns into the schedule, the debts you are still chasing letters about, the receipts for your own expenses, the date every account was closed. The Estate Executor Organizer is the workbook for that part: an asset inventory, a debts and claims tab, an estate ledger, a log of your own time and expenses, and a Distributions tab that keeps specific gifts and residue percentages apart and works out the net distributable estate the same way this page does. Fourteen tabs, one .xlsx file, no macros, €12 once. The calculator above stays complete either way.
See the executor workbook