Nevada Trust and Estate Accounting Requirements
Current as of September 2026. General information, not legal or tax advice.
Nevada has something no other state has: a standalone trust accounting chapter that prescribes both the required contents and a summary format, and that expressly permits a CPA-prepared compilation to serve as the account. NRS Chapter 165 is cited as the Uniform Trustees’ Accounting Act. Nevada has adopted neither the Uniform Trust Code nor the Uniform Probate Code.
Who must provide an accounting in Nevada
The trust instrument controls first: under NRS 165.1204(2) the duty is satisfied by delivering an account in the form, manner and to the persons the instrument requires. Absent contrary terms, NRS 165.1207(1)(a) requires the trustee to account on demand to each current beneficiary and each remainder beneficiary. Remote beneficiaries are not entitled, and neither is a beneficiary whose only interest is a discretionary interest under NRS 163.4185, a Nevada asset protection feature with direct accounting consequences. The clock is strict. Under NRS 165.141 the trustee has fourteen days after a written demand to accept, reject, or state an intent to seek court instructions; if accepted, the account is due within sixty days. A rejection must state grounds and advise the beneficiary of a sixty-day window to petition under NRS 165.143, and failure to respond is a deemed rejection. NRS 165.1214 gives the trustee ninety days after the end of the accounting period to deliver, limits accounting to once per calendar year absent contrary terms or court order, and deems an account approved and final as to a beneficiary who files no written objection within ninety days. That section was amended in 2025; confirm the current text. For estates, NRS 150.080 requires a first verified account within six months after appointment and NRS 150.105 requires an annual account until final distribution, all of it waivable under NRS 150.075 if every interested person agrees in writing.
What a Nevada trust accounting must contain
NRS 165.135 prescribes the contents in detail: the accounting period; opening principal with the form held and approximate market value; additions with dates and sources; investments collected, sold or charged off; investments made with date, source and cost; deductions with date and purpose; closing principal invested and uninvested with approximate market value; the corresponding income detail; a statement of unpaid claims with reasons for nonpayment; and a brief summary. Subsection (2) prescribes a charges and credits summary “in substantially the following form,” running from property on hand at the beginning, or the inventory and appraisal for a first account, through receipts, gains and net income from a trade or business to total charges, and from disbursements, losses, net loss and distributions to property on hand at the close, each keyed to a schedule. Subsection (3) allows income and principal activity to be combined where doing so does not materially impede the beneficiary’s ability to evaluate the charges and credits. Subsection (4)(a) provides that an account may instead consist of the accounting period statement together with a compilation or financial statement of the trust prepared by a certified public accountant, so long as it includes summaries of the required information and the recipient signs it and delivers it to the trustee.
Income and principal allocation in Nevada
Nevada’s allocation rules are at NRS 164.780 to 164.925, cited in the statute as the Uniform Principal and Income Act (1997). Nevada has not adopted the 2018 Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act. Because NRS 165.135 requires principal and income to be set out separately unless combining them is genuinely harmless, the allocation analysis is visible in the document rather than buried in the working papers.
Filing an accounting with the Nevada district court
NRS 144.010 requires a true inventory and appraisement or record of value to be filed with the clerk within 120 days after letters issue, waivable by unanimous written consent of all interested persons. NRS 144.025 expressly authorizes engaging a certified public accountant or other valuation expert for closely held interests at the estate’s expense. Vouchers need not be filed under NRS 150.150 but must be retained and produced on court order. Nevada’s Independent Administration of Estates Act reduces the need for advance court approval of transactions, but it does not eliminate the accounting duties under NRS 150.
When a Nevada accounting is contested
The account drives the fee. Attorney compensation under NRS 150.060 runs off a tiered percentage schedule applied to “the value of the estate accounted for by the personal representative,” defined as the inventory appraisal plus gains on sales plus receipts, less losses and excluding encumbrances. The numbers in the account are therefore fee-determinative, which raises the stakes on how receipts and gains are characterized. On the trust side, NRS 165.148 makes a trustee who fails to account personally liable for the beneficiary’s enforcement costs including attorney fees, and bars the trustee from using trust funds to satisfy that liability. Where an instrument forbids accounting, NRS 165.145 allows the court to order the account delivered in camera to a reviewer selected by the beneficiary who must be a certified public accountant or an attorney.
How T.E.A. Fiduciary helps
We prepare Nevada trust and estate accountings to the NRS 165.135 content and summary requirements, including the CPA compilation form of account the statute expressly contemplates, 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 Nevada fiduciary accounting requirements and is not legal or tax advice. Statutes and local court rules change, and NRS 165.1214 was recently amended; confirm current requirements with counsel.
