Washington Trust and Estate Accounting Requirements
Current as of September 2026. General information, not legal or tax advice.
Washington is the state where nonintervention powers do the most work. Granted as a matter of course in most estates, they switch off the statutory estate accounting duties entirely. Washington has not adopted the Uniform Trust Code; trust law sits in RCW Chapters 11.98 and 11.97, with disputes routed through TEDRA at Chapter 11.96A. Its principal and income act, however, is current.
Who must provide an accounting in Washington
RCW 11.106.020 requires a trustee to mail or deliver at least annually, to each permissible distributee, a written itemized statement of all current receipts and disbursements, both principal and income, and on request an itemized statement of the property held. The trustee may file the statement in superior court but is not required to. Critically, RCW 11.97.010 allows the trust instrument to relieve the trustee of statutory duties, so the reporting obligation can be waived outright by the instrument; read it before assuming the duty applies. For estates, a personal representative with nonintervention powers under RCW 11.68.085 has, under RCW 11.68.090(2)(b), no duty to follow RCW 11.76.010 through 11.76.080. A beneficiary who has not been paid may petition for a report under RCW 11.68.065, no more often than annually.
What a Washington trust accounting must contain
RCW 11.106.020 states the content requirement in general terms: an itemized statement of all current receipts and disbursements, separated between principal and income, and on request an itemized statement of the property held. It is a short, old statute, and it prescribes far less detail than California’s section 16063 or Florida’s section 736.08135. Where a matter is heading toward a TEDRA proceeding, the practical standard is set by what the superior court and the objecting party will accept rather than by the statute alone.
Income and principal allocation in Washington
Washington’s principal and income act is RCW 11.104B, the Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act, enacted in 2021. Washington is therefore one of the states operating under the 2018 revision, along with California, Florida and Colorado, while New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Arizona and Nevada remain on the earlier act. Allocation work prepared under the 1997 act should not be carried into a Washington engagement without being redone.
Filing an accounting with the Washington superior court
RCW 11.44.015 requires a verified inventory and appraisement within three months after appointment, at fair net value as of the date of death, in six prescribed classes. RCW 11.76.010 sets the reporting duties for supervised estates and was substantially rewritten in 2026; the current text adds reports confirming notice to third parties and the opening of the estate financial account alongside annual reports of the affairs of the estate, with declaration forms written into the statute itself. Because the amendment is recent, confirm the operative text and its effective date before relying on the new deadlines. For nonintervention estates the practical endpoint is the declaration of completion under RCW 11.68.110, which states that the representative does not intend to submit an estate accounting to the court for approval and which, once filed, operates as the legal equivalent of a decree of distribution absent a petition within thirty days. No account format is prescribed.
When a Washington accounting is contested
Disputes run through TEDRA, RCW 11.96A, which is broad and flexible and can be invoked by a range of interested parties. Two features shape the work. First, because the trustee’s reporting duty is waivable by the instrument, the threshold question in a trust dispute is often whether any duty existed at all. Second, because nonintervention estates produce no court accounting, a beneficiary challenging an administration is frequently asking for a reconstruction rather than a review of an existing document.
How T.E.A. Fiduciary helps
We prepare Washington trust and estate accountings, including reconstructions for nonintervention estates and trusts where no contemporaneous accounting exists, 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 Washington fiduciary accounting requirements and is not legal or tax advice. Statutes change, and RCW 11.76.010 in particular was recently amended; confirm current requirements with counsel.
