Florida Trust and Estate Accounting Requirements

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

Florida is one of the few states where both a statute and a court rule prescribe the accounting. The statute sets the required contents; the rule attaches a model format as an appendix. Florida has adopted the Uniform Trust Code as the Florida Trust Code at Chapter 736, and its principal and income act is current — Chapter 738 was rewritten as the Florida Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act by Chapter 2024-216.

Who must provide an accounting in Florida

Section 736.0813 sets the trustee’s duty to inform and account. Subsection (1)(d) requires a trust accounting to each qualified beneficiary at least annually, on termination of the trust, and on a change of trustee. A beneficiary may waive the right in writing. For estates, the final accounting duty comes from rule rather than statute: Florida Probate Rule 5.400 requires the final accounting and petition for discharge to be filed and served within twelve months after letters issue, with objections due within thirty days. Section 733.901 addresses the final discharge itself rather than imposing the accounting obligation.

What a Florida trust accounting must contain

Section 736.08135 is unusually specific. The accounting must identify the trust and the accounting period; show all cash and property transactions and all significant transactions affecting administration, including compensation paid to the trustee and to any agents; show gains and losses realized during the period; show assets at both carrying value and estimated current value; show the allocation between income and principal; and, in a final accounting, set out the plan of distribution. Section 736.08135(4) makes the contents requirements applicable to accountings for periods beginning on or after January 1, 2003 and to all accountings rendered on or after July 1, 2018. Family trust companies may elect a summary financial statement presentation under section 736.08135(3).

Income and principal allocation in Florida

Florida’s principal and income act is the Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act at Chapter 738. Note the operative date carefully: section 738.804 applies the act to receipts and expenses incurred and disbursements made after January 1, 2025 — not 2024, the year of the enacting session law. Section 738.303 was further amended in 2025. Because allocation work spanning the changeover may sit on both sides of the operative date, the period covered by the accounting matters as much as the date it is prepared.

Filing an accounting with the Florida probate court

Section 733.604 requires a verified inventory in reasonable detail at fair market value as of the date of death. The statute itself sets no deadline; the sixty-day deadline is in Florida Probate Rule 5.340(a). Inventories and accountings filed with the clerk are confidential and exempt from public records under section 733.604(1)(b). Florida Probate Rule 5.346, titled Fiduciary Accounting, prescribes the contents, sets out accounting standards for transactions occurring on or after January 1, 1994, requires that all accountings be verified, and states at subsection (c) that a model format is attached to the rule as Appendix A. Rule 5.345 covers accountings other than a personal representative’s final accounting.

When a Florida accounting is contested

The dual-value presentation is where Florida accountings most often fail. Both section 736.08135(2)(c) and Rule 5.346(b)(4) require carrying value and estimated current value to be shown, and an accounting that reports only one does not satisfy the requirement. Because Rule 5.346 attaches a model format, an objecting beneficiary has a concrete standard to measure the document against, which makes a non-conforming accounting easier to challenge in Florida than in states that prescribe only contents.

How T.E.A. Fiduciary helps

We prepare Florida trust and estate accountings in the format contemplated by Rule 5.346, with the carrying value and current value presentation the statute and rule both require, as a licensed, insured CPA firm practicing fiduciary accounting exclusively. We do not prepare tax returns. We work alongside your attorney and your tax preparer so that the accounting and the Form 1041 agree.

This page provides general information about Florida fiduciary accounting requirements and is not legal or tax advice. Statutes and court rules change; confirm current requirements with counsel.

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Primary source: Florida Statutes § 736.08135, The Florida Senate.