Digital probate applications reach 92% of all submissions in Q4 2025

HMCTS's Family Court Statistics Quarterly for October to December 2025, published in March 2026, confirms that digital probate applications now account for 92% of all submissions — up from 88% in Q3 2025 and 71% two years prior.

The shift has materially reduced processing times for straightforward applications. Digital submissions with no queries are now processed in approximately 2 weeks, compared to 6–8 weeks for paper applications. The national average across all application types sits at around 5 weeks, down from a peak of 16 weeks during the 2022–23 backlog period.

For solicitors, the practical implication is clear: clients who submit digitally and respond promptly to any HMCTS queries can expect a grant in 2–4 weeks in most cases. Paper applications remain significantly slower and should only be used where a digital submission is genuinely not possible.

The 8% of applications still submitted on paper tend to be more complex cases — letters of administration with will attached, foreign asset estates, or applications requiring original documents that cannot be scanned. HMCTS has not announced any plans to mandate digital submission for these cases.