Estate and Gift Tax Calculator

Very few people. In 2026 each person can leave $15,000,000 free of federal estate tax, and a married couple can shelter $30,000,000 between them. Everything left to a spouse who is a US citizen, and everything left to charity, is deducted before the exclusion is even counted. An estate owes tax only when what is left after those deductions, plus the taxable gifts made during life, is larger than the exclusion. The part above it is taxed at 40% (IRS: Estate tax).

The $15,000,000 figure comes from Public Law 119-21, signed on July 4, 2025 and often called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Before it, the exclusion that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had doubled was scheduled to fall by about half at the start of 2026. The new law instead set the basic exclusion amount at $15,000,000 for 2026, with no expiration date, and indexed it for inflation from 2027 (IRS: What's new, estate and gift tax; Revenue Procedure 2025-32). The same amount applies to lifetime gifts, because the estate and gift taxes share one exclusion, and to the separate generation-skipping transfer tax exemption. Congress can change any of this again, so plans built on the current figure should be reviewed when the law changes.

For most readers of this site the federal tax is not the issue. The issues are the state estate taxes that start far lower, the income tax your heirs will owe on retirement accounts, and making sure a surviving spouse keeps the first spouse's unused exclusion. The calculator above covers the federal tax in full and flags the state taxes; the estate planning worksheet covers probate and the documents every estate needs, and estate planning basics explains wills, trusts and beneficiary forms.

Form 706 works through the same steps the calculator shows (Instructions for Form 706):

1. Gross estate. Everything you own or control at death at its market value then: real estate, investment and bank accounts, retirement accounts, business interests, and the death benefit of life insurance you own.
2. Taxable estate. Subtract debts, funeral and settlement costs, everything left to a US-citizen spouse (the unlimited marital deduction) and everything left to charity.
3. Add back lifetime taxable gifts. Gifts above the annual exclusion made after 1976 are added to the taxable estate, so the gift and estate taxes work as one system.
4. Tentative tax. Apply the graduated rate schedule in 26 U.S.C. 2001(c), which runs from 18% to 40% on amounts above $1,000,000.
5. Subtract the credit. The unified credit is the tentative tax on the exclusion itself: $5,945,800 on $15,000,000 in 2026. Gift tax already paid is also subtracted.

Because the exclusion is far above $1,000,000, all the lower brackets are absorbed by the credit. In practice, every taxable dollar above the exclusion is taxed at a flat 40%, and every dollar below it is taxed at nothing. That is why the calculator reports how far you are above or below the line.

A worked example

Illustrative example: the people and figures below are hypothetical, not real clients. Numbers are calculated from the stated assumptions.

Eleanor is a widow. Her husband died first and left everything to her, but his executor did not file Form 706. She dies with a gross estate of $24,000,000, debts and settlement costs of $200,000, and a $500,000 bequest to her church. Over the years she made $1,500,000 of taxable gifts to her children, paying no gift tax because they were covered by her exclusion.

Her taxable estate is $23,300,000. Adding back the gifts gives a tax base of $24,800,000. The tentative tax on that is $9,865,800; the credit on her $15,000,000 exclusion is $5,945,800. The estate owes $3,920,000, which is 40% of the $9,800,000 above the exclusion and 16.8% of the taxable estate. The return and the payment are due nine months after her death.

Had her husband's executor elected portability and carried over $8,000,000 of his unused exclusion, her exclusion would have been $23,000,000 and the tax $720,000: a $3,200,000 difference for a return that would have shown no tax due.

Federal estate tax by size of estate

The table shows the federal tax at 2026 rules for a single person, and for a married couple who leave everything to each other and elect portability, with no growth between the deaths and no gifts, charity or state tax.

You can give up to $19,000 to any number of people in 2026 without using any of your lifetime exclusion and without filing anything (IRS: Gift tax). Tuition paid directly to a school and medical bills paid directly to a provider are not gifts at all, in any amount. Gifts to a US-citizen spouse are unlimited, and gifts to charity are deductible.

Give more than $19,000 to one person in a year and the excess is a taxable gift. That word misleads: no tax is paid until your cumulative taxable gifts exceed the $15,000,000 exclusion. What happens instead is that you file Form 709 by April 15 of the following year, and the excess is subtracted from the exclusion that will be left for your estate (Instructions for Form 709).

Gift splitting

A married couple can elect to treat every gift either of them makes in a year as made half by each. That doubles the annual exclusion to $38,000per recipient, even if all the money comes from one spouse's account. Both spouses must consent on Form 709, so splitting always requires a return, and the election covers all gifts by either spouse that year.

Illustrative example: the people and figures below are hypothetical, not real clients. Numbers are calculated from the stated assumptions.

The calculator's gifts example is a couple who give each of their 3 children $100,000 and split the gifts, having already made $500,000 of taxable gifts. Splitting covers $38,000 per child, so $186,000 is taxable. No tax is due: it uses that much of their combined exclusion, leaving $29,314,000. Both spouses file a Form 709.

Large gifts make sense when the assets are likely to grow, because the growth then happens outside your estate. They make less sense for assets with a low cost basis, because the recipient keeps your basis instead of getting a step-up at your death (see below). Our guide to gifting to children and grandchildren covers 529 plans, the five-year election that front-loads $95,000 per beneficiary, and gifts to trusts.

When the first spouse dies, any exclusion their estate does not use can pass to the survivor. The carried-over amount is the deceased spousal unused exclusion, or DSUE (26 U.S.C. 2010(c)). A survivor with full DSUE can shelter $30,000,000 at 2026 figures, and can use it for lifetime gifts as well as at death.

Portability is not automatic. The executor must file a complete Form 706 and elect it, normally within nine months of the death or fifteen with the automatic extension, even when the estate is far below the filing threshold and owes nothing (IRS estate tax FAQs). Many families skip the return because no tax is due. At the calculator's default figures, a couple with $22,000,000 whose assets grow 20% before the second death owes $0 with the election and $4,560,000 without it.

Three details catch families out:

• DSUE does not grow.It is fixed at the death. The survivor's own exclusion rises with inflation from 2027; the carried-over amount does not, and neither does it cover growth in the assets.
• It comes only from the last deceased spouse. If the survivor remarries and the new spouse dies first, the DSUE from the first marriage is replaced. Using it for gifts before then locks it in.
• It does not carry the GST exemption. The generation-skipping transfer exemption is not portable, so couples leaving large amounts to grandchildren often still use a trust at the first death.

The IRS can examine the first spouse's Form 706 when the survivor's estate uses the DSUE, even years later, so the first return should be prepared with care and its valuations kept.

Before portability arrived in 2011, couples used a bypass trust, also called a credit-shelter or family trust, to keep the first spouse's exclusion from being wasted. At the first death, assets up to the exclusion go into a trust that can pay the survivor income and support but is not part of the survivor's estate. Portability now does much the same with a tax return, so the choice turns on three trade-offs.

• Growth. Everything in the bypass trust, including its growth, escapes estate tax at the second death. DSUE is a fixed dollar amount.
• Basis. Assets in a bypass trust get a new cost basis at the first death but not at the second. Assets the survivor owns outright get a second step-up, which wipes out the capital gains built up between the deaths.
• Control.A trust protects the children of a first marriage, guards against a survivor's remarriage or creditors, and allocates GST exemption. Portability leaves everything in the survivor's hands. Our guide to estate planning for blended families covers this in depth.

Illustrative example: the people and figures below are hypothetical, not real clients. Numbers are calculated from the stated assumptions.

For the calculator's example couple, with $22,000,000 and 20% growth, the plans compare like this:

At this size both well-made plans owe nothing. Portability does it with a tax return and leaves every asset eligible for a step-up at the second death. The bypass trust does it with $2,200,000 of growth that the children will inherit at the original basis. For this couple, simple portability is usually the better choice.

The answer changes for larger estates. A couple with $40,000,000 whose assets grow 50% before the second death would owe $12,000,000 relying on portability and $9,000,000 with a bypass trust, because the trust's $7,500,000of growth is outside the survivor's estate. Whether that saving outweighs the lost step-up depends on how much of the growth is unrealized gain and what tax rate the heirs will pay on it. Many wills now use a disclaimer trust, which lets the survivor decide after the first death how much, if anything, goes into the trust.

Assets that pass at death take a new cost basis equal to their value on the date of death (26 U.S.C. 1014). Unrealized gains built up over a lifetime are never taxed: a portfolio bought for a fraction of its value can be sold by the heirs the next week with little or no capital gains tax. For estates below the exclusion, this step-up is often worth more than any estate tax planning.

For a married couple, half of jointly owned property steps up at the first death. In community property states, both halves usually do, which makes the timing of sales after a death worth planning. Gifts during life get no step-up: the recipient takes your basis. That is the main argument for giving cash or high-basis assets during life and keeping low-basis assets until death.

IRAs and 401(k)s count in the gross estate at their full balance, and they are the one large asset that gets no step-up. Every pre-tax dollar is income in respect of a decedent, taxed to the heir as it comes out (26 U.S.C. 691). Most heirs other than a spouse must empty an inherited IRA within ten years; the inherited IRA RMD calculator shows the yearly withdrawals.

When an estate does owe estate tax, the same dollars are taxed twice. Section 691(c) softens that: the heir can deduct the estate tax attributable to the account as an itemized deduction when the income is reported. It reduces the overlap but does not remove it, which is why large IRAs are the first assets estate planners look at for charitable bequests.

Life insurance proceeds are free of income tax but not of estate tax. If you own the policy, or hold any "incident of ownership" such as the right to change the beneficiary or borrow against it, the full death benefit is in your gross estate (26 U.S.C. 2042). A $5,000,000 policy can push an estate over the line on its own.

An irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT) owns the policy instead, so the proceeds are outside both spouses' estates. You pay the premiums by giving the trust cash, usually within the annual exclusion by giving beneficiaries a short window to withdraw it. Transferring a policy you already own only works if you live three more years (26 U.S.C. 2035); a new policy bought by the trust avoids that wait. To size coverage in the first place, use the life insurance calculator.

Everything you leave to a qualified charity is deducted from the estate, with no limit. For an estate above the exclusion, each dollar to charity saves 40% in estate tax. The best asset to leave is a pre-tax IRA: the charity pays no income tax on it, whereas the same dollars left to children would be taxed as income and possibly as part of the estate.

A bequest does not have to be all or nothing. A charitable remainder trust pays your heirs an income for years and leaves the rest to charity, with a partial deduction. Naming a donor-advised fund as a beneficiary lets your children recommend grants after your death. Both are entered in the calculator as the amount the charity is expected to receive.

For most families who owe any estate tax, it is a state tax. 12 states and the District of Columbia tax estates, most of them with exclusions far below the federal one, at top rates of up to 20%. Of these, only Hawaii and Maryland let a surviving spouse use the first spouse's unused state exclusion. Exclusions for deaths in 2026:

The rates are graduated, and every state computes its tax differently: some add back gifts made within a few years of death, New York loses its exclusion entirely for estates more than 5% above it, and Connecticut also taxes lifetime gifts. Washington's figure applies to deaths from July 1, 2026. So the calculator tells you when a state tax may apply and the top rate, not a dollar amount. Because most states have no portability, a couple in Massachusetts or Oregon who leave everything to each other can waste the first spouse's state exclusion; a trust sized to the state exclusion at the first death is the usual fix.

Inheritance taxes are different: the heir pays, and the rate depends on the relationship. Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey and Pennsylvania levy one. Spouses are always exempt and close family often is; nieces, nephews and friends pay the highest rates. Maryland is the only state with both taxes.

If you use a large exclusion for gifts and Congress later lowers it, the estate will not be taxed on those gifts retroactively. Treasury regulations say the estate's credit is figured on the larger of the exclusion used for lifetime gifts and the exclusion at death (Treas. Reg. 20.2010-1(c); IRS estate and gift tax FAQs). Proposed regulations would deny that protection for some gifts that are still pulled back into the estate, such as gifts where you kept an interest.

With $15,000,000 now set without an end date, the pressure to make large gifts before a drop has eased. For families well above two exclusions, though, a gift that uses the exclusion now still locks it in against a future law, and moves the growth out of the estate.

The unlimited marital deduction applies only to a spouse who is a US citizen. Property left to a non-citizen spouse is taxable at the first death unless it passes to a qualified domestic trust, or QDOT, which has a US trustee and taxes principal distributions as if they were part of the first estate (26 U.S.C. 2056A). A spouse who becomes a citizen before the estate tax return is filed can avoid the QDOT.

Lifetime gifts to a non-citizen spouse are limited too: $194,000 a year in 2026 instead of an unlimited amount (Rev. Proc. 2025-32). Above that, gifts use the giver's lifetime exclusion. This calculator assumes the spouse is a citizen; if not, treat what is left to the spouse as taxable unless it goes into a QDOT.