Make your own Oregon will.
Yours in about 20 minutes. Legally valid in Oregon. Free to create, or add secure online document storage with the $29/year subscription.
Is a self-written will legal in Oregon?
Yes. Oregon recognizes wills you write yourself, as long as they meet the state's signing requirements. The governing statute is Or. Rev. Stat. §112.225 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).
You must be at least 18 years old and of sound mind. A person who has been lawfully married, or who has been emancipated under Or. Rev. Stat. §§419B.550 to 419B.558, may also make a will (Or. Rev. Stat. §112.225). Choose witnesses who don't inherit under your will: some states void or reduce a gift to a witness, and the exact Oregon 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 Oregon
A Oregon 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. Oregon 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.
Oregon 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 Oregon 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 Oregon 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 Oregon's signing rules were followed.
Self-proving affidavit in Oregon
Oregon 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 ORS 113.055.
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 Oregon
Or. Rev. Stat. §112.245: a will attested by an interested witness, defined as one to whom a personal and beneficial interest in the estate is devised, is not thereby invalidated. The section imposes no forfeiture, so the gift to the witness also 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 Oregon law rather than by your wishes. The safest practice is to update your will when your family changes.
Or. Rev. Stat. §112.405: a pretermitted child is a child of the testator born, adopted, or conceived as described in Or. Rev. Stat. §112.077(3) or (4), after the will was executed, who is neither provided for in the will nor in any way mentioned in it, and who survives the testator (§112.405(1)). Being mentioned in the will at all defeats the claim, whatever the mention gives. The conception limb is not open-ended: a child conceived before the decedent's death and born alive afterward inherits as though alive at the death (§112.077(3)), but a child conceived from the decedent's genetic material transferred after the death takes nothing unless all three of the §112.077(4) conditions are met, that the decedent specified in a signed and dated writing that the genetic material may be used for posthumous conception, that the person designated to control its use gave written notice to the personal representative within four months of the personal representative's appointment, and that the child was in utero within 24 months after the death. Where the threshold is met the outcome turns on what the will did for the testator's other children. If the testator had one or more children living at execution and the will makes no provision for one or more of them, the pretermitted child takes no share of the estate disposed of by the will (§112.405(2)). If the testator had living children at execution and the will provides for one or more of them, the pretermitted child shares only in the portion of the estate devised to the living children, and each pretermitted child's share is the total value of that portion divided by the number of pretermitted children plus the number of living children for whom provision other than nominal provision is made in the will, so a nominal gift does not add a child to the denominator (§112.405(3)(a), (b)); so far as feasible the interest is of the same character, equitable or legal, as the interest given to the living children (§112.405(3)(c)). If the testator had no child living at execution, the pretermitted child takes an intestate share, unless the will devised all or substantially all of the estate to the pretermitted child's other parent and that parent survives the testator and is entitled to take under the will (§112.405(4)). Recovery is ratable, from the other children where the share arises under subsection (3) and from the testamentary beneficiaries where it arises under subsection (4), out of what passes to them under the will, and in abating those interests the character of the testamentary plan must be preserved so far as possible (§112.405(5)).
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