Will requirements in Missouri

Who can make a will in Missouri

Missouri asks two things of you: that you are at least 18, or an emancipated minor, and that you are of sound mind when you sign. Sound mind is a practical standard, not a medical one. It means you understand what you own, who your family is, and what your will does with what you leave them.

Signing your will in Missouri

1. 1You sign

   You sign your will, or direct someone else to sign it for you while you are present.

2. 2Two witnesses sign

   Two witnesses watch you sign, then add their own names to the will in your presence. Pick adults who inherit nothing under it, so no gift can later be questioned.

3. 3The affidavit

   Optional but common: the self-proving affidavit. You and your witnesses sign a sworn statement before a notary, and a Missouri court can later accept the will without calling anyone in to testify about the signing.

Handwritten and electronic wills

Missouri does not recognize holographic wills. Every will, however it is written, has to be signed in front of two witnesses under Missouri law; there is no shortcut for a document that exists only in your own handwriting. Where Missouri stands out is the opposite direction: since August 28, 2025, it has authorized electronic wills, putting it among a still-small group of states that recognize a will created and signed entirely as an electronic record. Myend’s Last Will takes the simpler, universally accepted route regardless: you build your Missouri will online, then print and sign it in ink with two witnesses, the paper form every state, Missouri included, has always honored.

Property and your spouse

Missouri is a common-law property state: what is titled in your own name is generally yours to leave as you choose. A will cannot use that freedom to leave a spouse out entirely, though. Missouri lets a surviving spouse claim an elective share instead of what the will provides, one third of the estate if you leave descendants, one half if you do not. Nothing about it happens automatically; your spouse has to actively make that election after you die, but the option stands no matter what your will says.

Your executor

Missouri calls the person who carries out your will the executor. You can name almost any capable adult, wherever they live, but an executor who lives outside Missouri has one extra step before the court will act: they have to file the name and address of a Missouri resident willing to accept legal papers on their behalf. Many Missourians solve this simply by naming someone local as the primary executor and an out-of-state loved one as backup. New to the role? Start with what an executor actually does.

If someone challenges the will

Missouri takes no-contest clauses seriously and generally enforces them as written. The law also gives a beneficiary a safer route before testing that limit: they can ask the probate court in advance whether a specific action, such as filing a particular motion or petition, would actually trigger the clause, without the asking itself counting as the forfeiting challenge. It is a narrow safety valve for genuine uncertainty, not a general invitation to contest first and ask questions later.

If you do not make a will

Without a will, Missouri’s intestacy statutes decide who inherits, working through a fixed order of relatives that has nothing to do with your actual relationships. Blended families, unmarried partners, and close friends are often the ones left out entirely under that default order. A valid will is how you replace the state’s assumptions with your own instructions. See what happens if you die without a will.

What is different about Missouri

Missouri will not accept your will if it exists only in your own handwriting, but as of 2025 it will accept one that never touches paper at all.

Missouri is one of the stricter states on an old form and one of the newest states on a very new one. A will has to carry two witnesses’ signatures no matter how it was written; there has never been a shortcut here for a document that is only in your own hand, unlike the roughly half of states that still allow it.

Then, on August 28, 2025, that changed for the format of the document itself. The Missouri Electronic Wills and Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act put Missouri among a still-small group of states that recognize a will created and signed entirely as an electronic record, no paper involved anywhere in the process. It is a genuine shift, and a recent one: most states that allow it at all got there years earlier.

Common questions

Sources and review