Make your own Arkansas will.
Yours in about 20 minutes. Legally valid in Arkansas. Free to create, or add secure online document storage with the $29/year subscription.
Is a self-written will legal in Arkansas?
Yes. Arkansas recognizes wills you write yourself, as long as they meet the state's signing requirements. The governing statute is Ark. Code §28-25-101 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). Arkansas 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 Arkansas 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 Arkansas
A Arkansas 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. Arkansas 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.
Arkansas 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 Arkansas 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 Arkansas 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 Arkansas's signing rules were followed.
Self-proving affidavit in Arkansas
Arkansas 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.
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 Arkansas
Ark. Code §28-25-102: a will is not invalidated by attestation by an interested witness, but an interested witness who is not joined by two qualified disinterested witnesses forfeits so much of the disposition to that witness as in the aggregate exceeds what the witness would have taken in intestacy. A witness is interested only if the will gives that witness a beneficial interest by way of devise.
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 Arkansas law rather than by your wishes. The safest practice is to update your will when your family changes.
Ark. Code §28-39-407 protects two groups under two subsections, and the test in both is mention or provision rather than the size of any gift. Under §28-39-407(a), where a child is born to or adopted by the testator after the will was made and the testator dies leaving that after-born or adopted child neither mentioned nor provided for in the will, either specifically or as a member of a class, the testator is deemed to have died intestate with respect to that child, and the child recovers from the devisees in proportion to the amounts of their respective shares the portion of the estate the child would have inherited had there been no will. Under §28-39-407(b), the same follows where, at the time the will was executed, there was a living child of the testator, or a living child or issue of a deceased child, whom the testator omitted to mention or provide for, specifically or as a member of a class. Because the statutory test is mention or provision, naming a child in the will defeats the claim even where the will leaves that child nothing, and inclusion in a class gift is enough. Neither subsection states an intent exception.
A spouse you married after signing. Updating the will after marriage avoids relying on whatever Arkansas law provides by default.
Arkansas has no omitted-spouse statute: a surviving spouse who married the testator after the will was executed and is not named in it has no freestanding claim like the omitted-child rule in Ark. Code §28-39-407. The remedy is the right to take against the will under §28-39-401, and it carries an eligibility limit that decides many cases: the spouse must have been married to the decedent continuously for a period in excess of one year (§28-39-401(a)), so a spouse married a year or less at the testator's death has no election at all and should be provided for expressly in the will. Electing does not produce a percentage of the estate. Under §28-39-401(b) it produces dower for a surviving wife, or a curtesy interest for a surviving husband, in the decedent's real and personal property as if the decedent had died intestate, in addition to homestead rights and the statutory allowances at §28-39-101; Arkansas retains dower and curtesy at §§28-11-301 et seq. rather than replacing them with a percentage share. Only if, after dower or curtesy is assigned and the statutory allowances, taxes, debts and all testamentary gifts and devises are satisfied, some residue remains undisposed of by the will, and the decedent left no child or descendant of a child, no parent, brother, sister, grandparent, uncle, aunt, great-grandparent, great-uncle or great-aunt and no lineal descendant of any of them, does the surviving spouse inherit that residue (§28-39-401(b)(3)).
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