Make your own Alaska will.
Yours in about 20 minutes. Legally valid in Alaska. Free to create, or add secure online document storage with the $29/year subscription.
Is a self-written will legal in Alaska?
Yes. Alaska recognizes wills you write yourself, as long as they meet the state's signing requirements. The governing statute is Alaska Stat. §13.12.501 et seq.
Your will needs to be in writing, signed by you, and witnessed by 2 adults. You don't need a notary for the will itself to be valid, but adding a notarized "self-proving" affidavit makes the probate process faster later (this tool generates that for you automatically). Alaska also recognizes handwritten ("holographic") wills, written entirely in your own handwriting and signed.
You must be at least 18 years old and of sound mind. Choose witnesses who don't inherit under your will: some states void or reduce a gift to a witness, and the exact Alaska rule is covered below. This tool walks you through the rules so you don't trip over them.
A will you write yourself has the same legal force as one drafted by an attorney, provided you follow the signing rules. Courts admit self-written wills to probate every day. An attorney's value is in advising on complex estates, not in drafting the document itself.
What it costs to make a will in Alaska
A Alaska estate-planning attorney typically charges $300 to $600 for a simple will, and $1,000 to $1,500 for a will-plus-revocable-trust package. Rates run higher in dense metros and lower in rural areas. Most attorneys bill at $250 to $400 per hour and need one or two meetings to draft a basic will.
You can also write a will entirely from scratch with a sheet of paper and a pen, with no software at all. Alaska requires the same 2-witness signing process regardless of who drafts the document. The risk with a from-scratch will is technical: a missing self-proving affidavit, a witness who's also a beneficiary, or wording that creates ambiguity for the probate court. That's what this tool prevents.
Will.com is free at the document level. The $29/year subscription adds cloud-stored, zero-knowledge-encrypted access so you can edit and update your plan as life changes.
Alaska will requirements at a glance
How it works
- 1
Answer a few questions
About you, your family, and what you own.
- 2
Download your will
A complete, personalized document, formatted for Alaska courts.
- 3
Sign with witnesses
Print and sign in front of 2 adult witnesses. Keep the signed copy somewhere safe.
When you might want an attorney instead
An online will works for most people. It's the right tool when your situation is straightforward: you want to leave your assets to family or friends, you don't have complex tax issues, and you're not anticipating a fight over your estate.
Consider hiring an attorney if any of these apply:
- Your estate is large enough to trigger federal estate tax (over $15 million in 2026) or Alaska estate or inheritance tax.
- You own a business, complex investments, or assets in multiple states or countries.
- You're in a blended family, especially if you want to leave assets to a current spouse while protecting children from a prior relationship.
- You have a child or beneficiary with special needs and want a supplemental-needs trust that won't disqualify them from public benefits.
- You expect someone to contest the will, or you're disinheriting a close family member.
- You have substantial retirement accounts and want sophisticated beneficiary planning.
If none of these apply, an online will is genuinely fine. The legal validity of your will doesn't depend on who drafted it, only on whether Alaska's signing rules were followed.
Self-proving affidavit in Alaska
Alaska recognizes self-proving affidavits. Will.com attaches one to your will: a short statement your witnesses sign in front of a notary, swearing to what they saw when you signed. See Alaska Stat. §13.12.504(a).
A self-proven will skips the requirement to track down witnesses years later for the probate court. It's optional, but adding the affidavit at signing time saves your executor work. Will.com generates the affidavit alongside the will.
Who can witness your will in Alaska
Alaska Stat. §13.12.505: an individual generally competent to be a witness may act as a witness to a will, and the signing of a will by an interested witness does not invalidate the will or a provision of it. Alaska follows the UPC rule and has no purge statute, so a gift to an attesting witness remains effective. Using witnesses who take nothing under the will is still the safer practice.
Family changes after you sign
A child born or adopted after the will. A child who arrives after you sign, and who isn't named or accounted for in the will, is covered by Alaska law rather than by your wishes. The safest practice is to update your will when your family changes.
Alaska Stat. §13.12.302 supplies a share for an omitted after-born or after-adopted child in two situations. If the testator had no child living when the will was executed, the omitted child receives a share equal in value to an intestate share, unless the will devised all or substantially all of the estate to the other parent of the omitted child and that parent survives the testator and is entitled to take under the will (§13.12.302(a)(1)); devises abate under §13.16.540 (§13.12.302(d)). If the testator did have one or more children living at execution AND the will devised property to one or more of them, the omitted child's share is limited to the devises made to those then-living children, computed as though the testator had included all omitted after-born and after-adopted children and given each child an equal share; to the extent feasible the interest must be of the same character, and the then-living children's devises abate ratably while the court preserves the testamentary plan to the maximum extent possible (§13.12.302(a)(2)). Where the testator had children living at execution but the will devised nothing to any of them, neither branch applies and the section supplies no share. Neither branch applies either if the omission appears from the will to be intentional, or if the testator provided for the child by transfer outside the will with intent that the transfer be in lieu of a testamentary provision (§13.12.302(b)). A living child omitted solely because the testator believed the child dead is treated as an omitted after-born child (§13.12.302(c)).
A spouse you married after signing. Updating the will after marriage avoids relying on whatever Alaska law provides by default.
Alaska Stat. §13.12.301: a spouse who marries the testator after the will was executed is entitled to no less than the value of the intestate share the spouse would have taken, computed on that portion of the estate that is neither devised to a child of the testator who was born before the marriage and who is not a child of the surviving spouse, nor devised to a descendant of such a child, nor passes under §13.12.603 or §13.12.604 to such a child or to a descendant of such a child. The share is not available if it appears from the will or other evidence that the will was made in contemplation of the marriage, if the will expresses the intention that it is to be effective notwithstanding a subsequent marriage, or if the testator provided for the spouse by a transfer outside the will with the intent that the transfer be in lieu of a testamentary provision, shown by the testator's statements or reasonably inferred from the amount of the transfer or other evidence. In satisfying the share, devises made by the will to the surviving spouse are applied first, and other devises abate as provided in §13.16.540, except a devise to such a pre-marriage child and a devise or substitute gift under §13.12.603 or §13.12.604 to that child's descendant (§13.12.301(b)).
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