How is the dollar amount of a required executor's bond calculated in Ontario?

There's no fixed public formula for calculating an estate trustee's bond — the amount is set by the court based on the specific estate, and it's generally sized to reflect the value of the assets the trustee will actually be responsible for administering, since the bond's purpose is to protect the estate if something goes wrong during that administration.

In practice, this means a larger, more complex estate typically results in a larger bond requirement than a small, straightforward one, but there's no set percentage or dollar table that applies automatically across every application. The court also considers the specific risk factors at play — where the trustee lives, how the estate is structured, and whether other protections, like insurance or an express provision in the will, already reduce the practical risk.

Because the amount is decided case by case rather than through a published schedule, anyone facing a bond requirement should expect the actual figure to come out of the specific court application, informed by a realistic estimate of the estate's value, rather than trying to predict it from a general rule. Getting an early sense of the estate's value helps the lawyer handling the application make that case to the court.