Topic guide · updated 2026-08-02
What makes a will valid where you live
A will is valid or not depending on a short list of formalities in your state's probate code: age, witnesses, notarisation, and whether handwritten or electronic wills count. The rules differ more than people expect, and one of the most-repeated beliefs about notaries is wrong.
Whether a will is valid comes down to a handful of formalities set out in a state's probate code. They are short, they are public, and they vary between neighbouring states in ways that surprise people.
This explains what the categories mean and where the genuine outliers are. It does not explain how to write a will, and nothing on this site does — that is the highest-stakes drafting there is, and a template is a poor substitute for someone who knows your situation.
Witnesses: two, almost everywhere
Nearly every state requires two witnesses, signing in the testator's presence, and several add conditions about who may witness or what they must observe. Pennsylvania is the striking exception. Its statute states the whole requirement as a writing signed by the testator at the end, with no witness requirement at all — and it repealed its witnesses section outright. What gets mistaken for a Pennsylvania witness requirement is a separate provision about proving a will at probate, which involves people who can identify the signature rather than attesting witnesses. A few states add unusual conditions. New York requires both witnesses to attest within a single thirty-day window, requires the testator to declare to each of them that the instrument is their will, and asks witnesses to write their addresses.
The notary misunderstanding
In almost every state a notary is not required to make a will valid. The notary's role is in the self-proving affidavit — a sworn statement that lets a will be admitted to probate without tracking witnesses down years later. Useful, and not the thing that makes the will good. Two states break the pattern in opposite directions. Louisiana requires a notary and two witnesses to execute its notarial testament. Colorado accepts a will acknowledged before a notary as validly executed with no witnesses at all, having adopted an amendment that makes notarisation an independent route rather than a supplement. Maryland goes the other way again: it has no statutory self-proving mechanism whatsoever.
Handwritten wills
About half the states recognise holographic wills — handwritten and signed, without witnesses — usually requiring that the material provisions and the signature are in the testator's own hand. Some also require a date; others do not, and it is not safe to assume. A few recognise them only in narrow circumstances. New York's rule covers armed-forces members in actual service during a conflict, people accompanying such a force, and mariners at sea, and it expires roughly a year after discharge. Maryland's is similarly limited and additionally requires the will to have been signed outside the United States. Florida rejects them firmly: a holographic will validly executed in another state is still void there.
Electronic wills, and the date that matters
A growing minority of states authorise electronic wills, some through the Uniform Electronic Wills Act and others under their own statutes. The detail almost every summary collapses is timing. A legislature can pass an act with an operative date a year or more later, and until that date the previous rules govern entirely. New York signed its act in December 2025; it does not become operative until December 2027. Describing New York today as authorising electronic wills would tell someone they may sign in a way their state will not accept for another year and a half. Authorisation also changes the medium rather than the requirements — witness counts and notarisation rules still apply, usually with extra conditions on remote witnessing.
Tools in this topic
Every calculator and explainer in this cluster, each built on verified figures with its official source linked.
Will Requirements
What each state’s probate code requires to execute a valid will: the minimum age, how many witnesses must sign, whether a notary is needed, whether handwritten wills count, and where electronic wills are authorised. Sortable, every cell cited to the statute and dated when it was read.
Electronic Wills
Which states authorise electronic wills, which have passed an act that has not started yet, and which authorise nothing. The distinction matters: a post-dated statute is not law today, and signing under one before its operative date relies on a rule that has not begun.
Will vs Trust
Seven questions covering the factors estate planners commonly treat as reasons to look past a simple will — property in two states, a business, incapacity planning, contest exposure. It shows its scoring as you answer and cites your state’s small-estate threshold rather than hiding the reasoning.
Guides
What a self-proving affidavit does, and where a notary is not the point
In almost every state a notary is not what makes a will valid. The notarised part is a separate affidavit that lets a will be admitted to probate without tracking witnesses down. Two states break the pattern, in opposite directions.
Handwritten wills: recognised, restricted, or rejected
About half the states recognise a handwritten and signed will with no witnesses. A few recognise them only for soldiers and mariners. Florida rejects them even when validly made elsewhere. The conditions differ more than the headline does.
Key terms
Frequently asked questions
Because the wills wing is deliberately tool format only: requirement tables and a routing quiz. Drafting guidance carries the highest expertise bar of anything in consumer legal publishing, and getting it wrong has consequences nobody discovers until the person who signed it has died. What is published here is what each state requires, cited to the statute, so you can check a document against its own state's rules.
Official sources for this topic
Every figure and rule referenced above is published by one of these agencies, and each of them — not this site — determines what is actually paid.
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