Delaware Trust and Estate Accounting Requirements

Current as of October 2026. General information, not legal or tax advice.

Delaware’s standing as a trust jurisdiction rests partly on what its statutes do not require. For most Delaware trusts there is no duty to file an account with any court, and the governing instrument can go further and limit what beneficiaries are told. Trusts sit in Title 12 of the Delaware Code, and the Court of Chancery — not a probate court — has the jurisdiction.

Who must provide an accounting in Delaware

Section 3521 sets the default in a sentence: except as provided in sections 3522 through 3524, trustees are not required to file any accounts or inventories. For an inter vivos trust, section 3522 removes the obligation entirely unless the governing instrument imposes one, the Court of Chancery orders an accounting for cause shown, or the order appointing the trustee provides otherwise.

Testamentary trusts are treated differently. Under section 3524 a testamentary trustee must file accounts as described in section 3525, subject to waiver rules keyed to the decedent’s date of death: for a decedent dying on or before 31 July 2005, the will may waive the requirement by express provision. Trusts under wills probated before 5 April 1909 fall under section 3523, which requires an account only on a rule of the Register in Chancery issued at the written request of someone beneficially interested.

Reporting to beneficiaries is a separate question from filing, and here the instrument carries unusual weight. Section 3303(a) provides that the terms of a governing instrument may expand, restrict, eliminate or otherwise vary laws of general application to fiduciaries — expressly including the right of a beneficiary to be informed of their interest for a period of time. The outer limit is wilful misconduct: section 3303 cannot exculpate a fiduciary for its own wilful misconduct, nor prevent a court removing one on that ground.

What a Delaware trust accounting must contain

Where an account must be filed, section 3525(c) describes it as a just and true account showing all receipts and disbursements of the trust, filed with the Register in Chancery in the county where the will creating the trust was probated or the appointment was made, and submitted for the approval of the Court of Chancery. The statute prescribes no schedules and no model format, unlike California and Florida. In practice the content expectation comes from the Court of Chancery, and from what the trustee needs to show in order to start the limitation clock described below.

Frequency is capped rather than mandated: accounts are filed as the Court requires, but not oftener than once in two years unless there is special occasion.

Income and principal allocation in Delaware

Allocation sits in Chapter 61 of Title 12, the Delaware Uniform Principal and Income Act. Delaware has not adopted the 2018 Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act, so a Delaware account allocates under the earlier uniform scheme. This matters where one family holds trusts in several states: a California or Florida trust now allocates under UFIPA while its Delaware sibling does not, and the two accounts will not line up section for section.

Filing an accounting with the Delaware Court of Chancery

Delaware has no probate court for trusts. The Court of Chancery holds the jurisdiction and the filing office is the Register in Chancery in the relevant county. For the large majority of modern Delaware trusts — inter vivos trusts, and testamentary trusts of decedents dying after 31 July 2005 without an effective waiver — the practical answer is that nothing is filed and nothing becomes a public record unless a dispute brings it there.

When a Delaware accounting is contested

Section 3581 supplies the equitable remedies for breach of trust, and section 3584 lets the court award costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees to any party, payable by another party or out of the trust itself.

The provision that matters most to whoever prepares the account is section 3585, which ties the limitation period to the quality of the report. A beneficiary may bring a proceeding until one year after being sent a report that adequately disclosed the facts constituting a claim — longer if the governing instrument says so. For a trustee resigning, being removed, or otherwise ceasing to serve, the window shortens to 120 days, but only where the report notifies the person of the cessation, adequately discloses the facts constituting a claim, and adequately discloses the time allowed for bringing proceedings — and the trustee transfers the property to the successors within a reasonable period after the 120 days expire. Section 3585(b) sets the standard: a report adequately discloses the facts if it gives sufficient information that the person knows of the claim or reasonably should have inquired into its existence.

The consequence is worth stating plainly. In Delaware a vague report does not start the clock. An account that omits or obscures a transaction leaves the trustee exposed as to that transaction indefinitely, however many years pass.

How T.E.A. Fiduciary helps

We prepare Delaware trust accountings for trustees and their counsel — in the receipts-and-disbursements form the Court of Chancery expects where a filing is required, and in a form built to meet the section 3585 disclosure standard where it is not. We work alongside your attorney and your tax preparer; we do not prepare tax returns.

This page provides general information about Delaware fiduciary accounting requirements and is not legal or tax advice. Statutes and court rules change. Verify the current text before relying on any of it, and consult counsel on questions of legal interpretation.

More: the uniform framework · all state pages · our services

Primary source: Delaware Code Title 12, Chapter 35, Subchapter II — Accounting and Distribution of Trust Funds, Delaware Code Online.

Written by Christina Gutman, C.P.A. — Founder and Principal of T.E.A. Fiduciary. Christina is licensed as a Certified Public Accountant by the State of California and has specialized exclusively in fiduciary accounting for over a decade, preparing trust, estate, and conservatorship accountings for law firms, professional fiduciaries, trust companies, family offices, and individual trustees nationwide. She has also served as a forensic consultant in contested accounting matters. More about Christina.