South Dakota Trust and Estate Accounting Requirements
Current as of October 2026. General information, not legal or tax advice.
South Dakota has not adopted the Uniform Trust Code. Trustee duties sit in SDCL Chapter 55-2, and court supervision of a trust is something the parties opt into or out of under SDCL Chapter 21-22 rather than a default. The result is two quite different accounting regimes depending on whether a given trust is supervised.
Who must provide an accounting in South Dakota
Section 55-2-13 governs reporting to beneficiaries. For a revocable trust, subject to section 55-2-14, a trustee has no duty to notify the qualified beneficiaries of the trust’s existence at all.
For an irrevocable trust, and unless the instrument or a written direction provides otherwise, the trustee must notify the qualified beneficiaries of the trust’s existence and of their right to request a copy of the instrument within sixty days of accepting trusteeship — or within sixty days of learning that a formerly revocable trust has become irrevocable. The trustee must promptly furnish the instrument on request, and promptly respond to a request for information about the administration unless the request is unreasonable in the circumstances.
Subsection (3) is South Dakota’s distinguishing feature. The trustor, a trust advisor or a trust protector may expand, restrict, eliminate or otherwise modify beneficiaries’ rights to information — either in the governing instrument or by written directions given to the trustee. Where directions conflict, the trustor’s controls unless the instrument says otherwise, and the trustee incurs no liability for relying on them. The section was amended in 2023.
What a South Dakota trust accounting must contain
South Dakota does define an accounting, but in the court supervision chapter rather than the trustee duties chapter. Section 21-22-30 defines it as any annual, interim or final report or other statement provided by a trustee reflecting all transactions, receipts and disbursements during the reporting period, together with a list of assets as of the end of the period covered. That definition is the closest thing in South Dakota law to a contents requirement, and it is a sensible specification to work to even for a trust that will never see a courthouse.
For a trust under court supervision, section 21-22-14 is more specific as to timing: within one hundred and twenty days after the end of each year of supervision the trustee files a verified report showing in detail its receipts, disbursements and acts during the year. A trustee may instead elect a calendar year basis and file during the first four months of the following year. Section 21-22-15 requires a final verified report once the trust estate has been disposed of or the terms of the instrument complied with.
Income and principal allocation in South Dakota
Allocation is governed by SDCL Chapter 55-13A, the Uniform Principal and Income Act. Like Delaware, South Dakota remains on the earlier uniform act and has not enacted the 2018 Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act.
Filing an accounting with the South Dakota circuit court
Court supervision is the exception rather than the rule. Chapter 21-22 sets out how supervision begins under section 21-22-6, how a petition, hearing and order can dispense with it under section 21-22-7, and how it can be resumed under section 21-22-8.
Where a trust is supervised, the annual and final reports described above are filed, notice of hearing goes out with the trustee’s account attached under section 21-22-17, and the court examines the reports under section 21-22-23. Section 21-22-24 allows the court to appoint a referee or an accountant to assist in that examination, and provides that the resulting report is confidential.
When a South Dakota accounting is contested
Section 21-22-16 provides the objection procedure for a report. The provision that gives court supervision its value is section 21-22-30: an accounting by the trustee of a court supervised trust, once finally approved by the court, is conclusive against all persons in any way interested in the trust — whether or not the accounting was contested — and the trustee is released and discharged from all liability as to the matters set out in it, absent fraud, intentional misrepresentation or material omission.
That is a meaningful protection, and it is why a trustee facing a difficult beneficiary will sometimes seek supervision rather than avoid it. It also sets the standard for the document itself: the discharge reaches only the matters the accounting actually sets out, and a material omission undoes it.
How T.E.A. Fiduciary helps
We prepare South Dakota trust accountings to the section 21-22-30 specification — all transactions, receipts and disbursements for the period, with a closing asset list — whether or not the trust is court supervised, and in verified form where section 21-22-14 applies. We work alongside your attorney and your tax preparer; we do not prepare tax returns.
This page provides general information about South Dakota 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.
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Primary source: SDCL Chapter 55-2, South Dakota Legislature.
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.
