Original and remaining estimates on a Jira epic

You estimate in hours, on stories and their subtasks, and you want the epic to show how much was estimated and how much is left. On Atlassian Community it reads “the original estimate and remaining estimate of subtask should be updated to Story which inturn update Epic.” This page says what Jira adds up by itself, how to get the totals from a search, then what Sumline does.

What Jira does by itself

Estimates roll up one level. Atlassian’s behaviour update of 3 June 2025: “Time estimate and time tracking currently roll-up to 1 level up based on the hierarchy. The roll-up doesn’t go beyond that.” A story’s Σ Original Estimate and Σ Remaining Estimate include its subtasks; the epic’s include its stories’ own estimates, “but nothing from the Sub-task level” (JRACLOUD-70150).
Both levels are added. A story estimated at 8h whose subtasks add up to 8h shows 16h (Atlassian).
Plans, on Premium and Enterprise, rolls estimates up every level, inside the plan, and the remaining figure goes down as time is logged on the children (Atlassian). See Jira roll-ups without Premium.

The totals from a search

Good for a report now and then:

Search for parent = ABC-123 (your epic’s key) to list its stories and tasks.
Add the columns Σ Original Estimate and Σ Remaining Estimate. Each row then holds the story’s own estimate plus its subtasks’.
Export to CSV (Atlassian) and total the columns. Times export in seconds: divide by 3,600 for hours. Add the epic’s own estimate if it has one.

Where it stops:

Every story counts both levels. If stories carry an estimate and their subtasks do too, the Σ columns add both.
A snapshot. The numbers are as current as the export.
One epic, or a list of epics, at a time, with parent in (ABC-1, ABC-2); the sum per epic is yours to do in the spreadsheet.

An Automation rule can write a total into a field on the epic, as in the logged time guide. Atlassian’s smart values reference documents time spent and the remaining estimate of one work item, not a sum of estimates across a lookup, so test any rule shared online on one epic before you trust it, and remember it runs only when its trigger does.

With Sumline

Sumline is our app. It adds original estimate and remaining up through every level without a rule or a field:

From subtask to story, epic and initiative (initiatives need Jira Premium), with time spent and story points alongside, and children in other spaces included.
One level counts when both are estimated. A story estimated at 8h whose subtasks add up to 8h counts as 8h, not 16, the subtasks by default, and the value set aside is listed.
Remaining time on done issues is not counted by default, and the amount left out is named; an admin can change that.
Remaining worked out where Jira has none. An issue with an original estimate and no remaining estimate, such as one imported from a CSV, gets its original estimate minus the time logged on it, never below 0, marked “worked out”.
In a table per space or across spaces, Original estimate, Logged and Remaining are columns on every row, a row opens to the issues under it, and Download Excel or CSV gives the same rows.

What it does not do: Sumline only reads, so the totals are not written to the epic’s time tracking or to a field. How it treats each time field is in How the numbers are calculated.