Make your own Texas will.
Yours in about 20 minutes. Legally valid in Texas. Free to create, or add secure online document storage with the $29/year subscription.
Is a self-written will legal in Texas?
Yes. Texas recognizes wills you write yourself, as long as they meet the state's signing requirements. The governing statute is Tex. Est. Code §251.001 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). Texas 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. A person who is or has been married, or who is a member of the U.S. armed forces, an auxiliary of the armed forces, or the U.S. Maritime Service, may also make a will (Tex. Est. Code §251.001). Choose witnesses who don't inherit under your will: some states void or reduce a gift to a witness, and the exact Texas 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 Texas
A Texas 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. Texas 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.
Texas 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 Texas 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 Texas 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 Texas's signing rules were followed.
Self-proving affidavit in Texas
Texas 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 Tex. Estates Code §251.104.
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 Texas
Tex. Est. Code §254.002: a bequest to a subscribing witness is void only if the will cannot be otherwise established; even then the witness may be compelled to testify, and a witness who would have inherited by intestacy keeps up to the lesser of that share or the bequest. The bequest is saved entirely if at least one disinterested and credible person corroborates the witness's testimony proving the will. The will itself remains valid either way.
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 Texas law rather than by your wishes. The safest practice is to update your will when your family changes.
Tex. Estates Code §§255.051 through 255.056: a pretermitted child is a child born or adopted after the will was executed, whether during the testator's lifetime or after the testator's death (§255.051). The protection reaches only a child who is neither mentioned in the will, nor provided for in the will, nor otherwise provided for by the testator (§255.052(a)), and a child counts as provided for if a vested or contingent disposition is made for that child's benefit either in the will, including a devise to a trustee under §254.001, or outside the will and intended to take effect at the testator's death (§255.052(b)). Being named in the will, without more, defeats the claim. Where the protection does apply, the share turns on the will. If the testator had no living child when the will was executed, the pretermitted child takes the portion of the separate and community estate the child would have received under §201.001 had the testator died intestate and without a surviving spouse, excluding any part of the estate devised to the child's other parent (§255.054). That same intestate-style share applies where the testator did have a living child at execution but the will makes no provision for any of those children (§255.053(a)). Where the will does provide for one or more children living at execution, whether vested or contingent, the pretermitted child instead takes only a share of the gifts made to children under the will, equal to what the child would have received had every pretermitted child been included with those children and each been given an equal share, preserving the character of that interest so far as feasible (§255.053(b), (c)). The share is recovered ratably from those other children or from the testamentary beneficiaries, never from the pretermitted child's other parent, and the testator's testamentary plan is preserved to the maximum extent possible (§255.055). Where the pretermitted child's other parent is not the testator's surviving spouse, the share may not reduce the portion passing to the surviving spouse by more than one-half (§255.056).
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