Estate Tax Calculator

Estate tax versus inheritance tax

The federal estate tax is a tax on the right to transfer property at death. It is figured on the value of the decedent's taxable estate and, when due, is paid by the estate before property is distributed. That makes it different from an inheritance tax, which is charged to the person who receives property and, where it exists, depends on the beneficiary's relationship to the decedent and on the amount received. The federal government has an estate tax and no inheritance tax. Some states charge their own estate tax, their own inheritance tax, or both, and those are separate from the federal tax and separate from this calculator.

The tax applies only above a large exclusion. For people who die in 2026 the basic exclusion amount is $15,000,000, and for 2027 it is $15,480,000, as set out in IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32 and Revenue Procedure 2026-35. An estate below the exclusion owes no federal estate tax, which is why the tax reaches only a small share of estates. This calculator estimates federal estate tax for a U.S. citizen or resident in a deliberately bounded model. It shows each step, from the assets you enter to the tentative tax, the credit and the result, so you can see where the exclusion does its work. It is an estimate for planning conversations, not a Form 706 and not legal or tax advice.

Estate tax and inheritance tax are both unlike income tax, which is charged on money you earn during life. If your question is about tax on wages, the income tax calculator is the right tool. If it is about the value of what you own, the net worth calculator is a good place to begin.

In plain terms, the estate tax asks how much a person's whole estate was worth at death, subtracts the deductions the law allows, and charges tax only on the part above a very large threshold. An inheritance tax, where one exists, asks a different question: how much did this particular person receive.

Take an inventory of assets

The calculation starts with the gross estate, the value of everything the decedent owned or controlled at death. The calculator groups it into seven rows: residences and other real estate, stocks, bonds and other investments, savings and checking balances, vehicles and other property, retirement plans, life insurance included in the estate, and other assets. Enter fair market value, which is the price a willing buyer and seller would agree on, not what was paid. Retirement accounts count in the estate even though they pass by beneficiary designation. Life insurance is included when the decedent owned the policy or held certain rights in it, and not necessarily otherwise, so enter only the amount that is actually included.

The tool does not decide whether an asset belongs in the estate from the name of the row. A trust asset, a jointly owned home or a business interest can be included in full, in part or not at all depending on the facts, so the figures you enter should reflect that. As a rough check, add up what the decedent owned outright, add jointly owned property to the extent the rules include it, and add insurance and retirement benefits that are includible. The total, here $19,000,000 in the worked example below, is the starting point.

The default example uses a single $16,000,000 residence so the page shows a meaningful result at first load. Replace it with your own values; the example is clearly labelled on the page and is not saved.

Valuation uses the date of death in most cases. An executor can sometimes elect an alternate valuation date six months after death, which the IRS instructions describe, but only in situations where doing so lowers both the value of the estate and the tax. Real estate, business interests and collectibles usually need an appraisal, and a rough estimate can move the result a long way when an estate is near the exclusion, so treat round numbers as placeholders.

Ownership matters too. Property owned jointly, assets held in a revocable trust and accounts with a payable-on-death beneficiary can all be part of the gross estate, while assets already given away generally are not. A common simplification for married couples is that jointly owned property is counted half in each spouse's estate, but the rules depend on the type of ownership and a professional should confirm it. The calculator applies no ownership rules: it adds up the numbers you enter.

Deductions that reduce the estate

Several amounts come off the gross estate before tax is figured. The calculator has a row for each: debts such as mortgages and loans, funeral and administration expenses, qualifying charitable bequests, the marital deduction for qualifying property passing to a surviving spouse, and a state death tax deduction. Gross assets less these deductions give the taxable estate. In the worked example, $19,000,000 of assets less $3,500,000 of deductions leaves a taxable estate of $15,500,000.

Each deduction has its own conditions. The marital deduction generally needs the property to pass to a spouse in a qualifying way, and charitable bequests need to go to qualifying organizations. The calculator does not test any of that. It takes your amounts as verified and rejects an entry in which deductions exceed the assets, because that would imply a negative estate and a refund, which this model does not produce. A state death tax deduction reduces the federal estate only; the state tax itself is not calculated here.

Because the model is bounded, double-check anything unusual with the Form 706 instructions or a professional. For most people with an estate close to the exclusion, the exact deduction totals are what decide whether any tax is due, so the inputs deserve more care than the arithmetic.

The marital deduction can change the picture completely, which is why it needs the most care. If an estate of $20,000,000 passes entirely to a surviving spouse in a qualifying way, the marital deduction can reduce the taxable estate to $0 and the estimated tax to $0.00. That is a deferral, not an exemption: the property then becomes part of the surviving spouse's own estate, where the exclusion applies again. The calculator shows the arithmetic of the first death only.

Charitable bequests work similarly. With a $40,000,000 estate and $10,000,000 left to qualifying charities, the taxable estate is $30,000,000 and the estimated tax is $6,000,000.00, compared with $10,000,000.00 without the bequest. Debts and administration costs also reduce the taxable estate. The state death tax deduction is a deduction from the federal estate, not a credit against the federal tax.

Keep receipts and valuations for every deduction you claim, because each one reduces the taxable estate dollar for dollar.

Adjusted taxable gifts and the exclusion

The estate tax and the gift tax share a single exclusion. Gifts you make during life do not simply vanish from the calculation: the taxable ones are added back when figuring the tax at death, and they use up part of the exclusion. The calculator asks for adjusted taxable gifts, which means taxable gifts made after 1976 that are not already part of the gross estate.

Annual-exclusion gifts are not adjusted taxable gifts

Gifts up to the annual exclusion, $19,000 per recipient for 2026 and $20,000 for 2027, are not taxable gifts. They do not use any of the exclusion and should not be entered. Only the portion of a gift that exceeds the annual exclusion, or a gift that does not qualify for it, counts as a taxable gift. Gifts to a spouse who is a U.S. citizen, and gifts to qualifying charities, are generally also not taxable.

The exclusion works as a pool. In the example with $1,000,000 of adjusted taxable gifts, the tax base becomes the estate plus the gifts, so the same $16,000,000 estate that owes $400,000.00 with no gifts owes $800,000.00 with them. The gifts used up $1,000,000 of the exclusion, and the page reports the exclusion that remains after both the estate and the gifts.

One boundary matters: if gifts are larger than the exclusion, gift tax may have been payable at the time, and that interacts with the estate tax in ways this model does not handle. The calculator therefore stops in that case and points you to Form 706 instead of guessing.

The table shows how taxable gifts share the same exclusion. It holds the $16,000,000 taxable estate and the 2026 rules constant and changes only the adjusted taxable gifts.

Each dollar of taxable gift above the annual exclusion is a dollar of the exclusion that is no longer available later. A common reason to give during life is to remove future growth in the value of an asset from the estate, which is a planning question for a professional rather than something this calculator can judge.

Tentative tax and the credit on the exclusion

The tax is computed in two steps. First, the unified rate schedule is applied to the tax base, the taxable estate plus adjusted taxable gifts, to get the tentative tax. The schedule runs from 18% on the first $10,000 to 40% on amounts above $1,000,000, and it is the same schedule for gifts and estates. Second, the credit for the exclusion is subtracted, which is the tentative tax that would be due on an amount equal to the exclusion itself. If the result is zero or less, no estate tax is due.

Because the schedule reaches 40% at $1,000,000, the tentative tax on the full 2026 exclusion is $5,945,800.00, and the tentative tax on the 2027 exclusion is $6,137,800.00. Those are the credits. The first dollar above the exclusion is therefore taxed at 40%, with no lower rate applied to the excess. In the default example a $16,000,000 estate has a tentative tax of $6,345,800.00, the credit is $5,945,800.00, and the tax is $400,000.00, which is 40% of the $1,000,000 above the exclusion.

The calculator does the arithmetic in exact whole cents, so the boundary behaves cleanly: an estate exactly at the exclusion owes nothing, and one dollar more owes 40 cents.

The unified rate schedule is in the table. Each row gives the tax on the amount at the start of the row and the rate on the excess over it.

Because the rates rise from 18% to 40% within the first $1,000,000, the schedule is the same for every large estate, and the credit is easy to work out. The tentative tax on a $15,000,000 exclusion is $345,800.00 plus 40% of the $14,000,000 above $1,000,000, which is $5,945,800.00.

The credit is computed with the same schedule as the tentative tax, which is why an estate exactly at the exclusion owes nothing: the tentative tax and the credit are the same number.

Worked examples for 2026 and 2027

The table runs five scenarios through the same engine as the calculator. All amounts are for a taxable estate of $16,000,000 unless noted.

The 2027 estate pays less than the same 2026 estate because the exclusion rises from $15,000,000 to $15,480,000. The $14,000,000 estate is under the 2026 exclusion, so the tax is $0.00 and $1,000,000 of the exclusion remains. These numbers are illustrations of the arithmetic, not predictions: the exclusion is set by law and the 2027 figure is an inflation adjustment the IRS has announced, so recheck the current amount when it matters.

The second table shows how the tax scales with estate size. It uses no deductions, no gifts and no DSUE.

For every estate above both exclusions the 2027 tax is lower by the same amount, $192,000.00. Both years use the same 40% top rate and the exclusion rose by $480,000, and 40% of $480,000 is $192,000. The exclusion is set by law and can change, so use these numbers to understand the arithmetic, not to plan around a specific figure without professional advice.

Reading the first table row by row: the 2026 and 2027 estates are identical except for the exclusion, so the 2027 estate pays less. The $14,000,000 estate sits below the 2026 exclusion, so it owes nothing and $1,000,000 of the exclusion is left unused. Adding $1,000,000 of taxable gifts to the $16,000,000 estate raises the tax base to $17,000,000 and doubles the tax, while a verified $1,000,000 DSUE raises the exclusion to $16,000,000 and brings the tax to $0.00. In each case only one input changed.

The estimated tax in the default example is 2.50% of the taxable estate, far below the 40% top rate, because only the amount above the exclusion is taxed.

Portability, DSUE and unsupported cases

A surviving spouse can sometimes use the part of the first spouse's exclusion that went unused. That unused amount is the deceased spousal unused exclusion, usually shortened to DSUE. It is available when it has been properly established, typically through an election on the first spouse's timely filed estate tax return. The calculator accepts a DSUE amount only when you tick that you have verified it, and then adds it to the basic exclusion.

Verified DSUE is not automatic portability

The tool never doubles the exclusion for a married person on its own. Whether any unused exclusion exists depends on what the first spouse's estate did, so the amount has to come from that return. With a verified $1,000,000 DSUE, the $16,000,000 estate in 2026 has an exclusion of $16,000,000 and owes $0.00.

Some situations are outside this model altogether: gift tax actually paid or payable on earlier gifts, gifts made before 1977, nonresident or foreign decedents, the generation-skipping transfer tax, special credits, special valuation elections and trust valuation questions. The page asks you to confirm that none applies before it gives a number, and it points to the IRS Form 706 instructions and a qualified professional when one does. See also the retirement planning calculator for retirement assets, and the tax-adjusted return calculator for tax on investment income.

This page stops rather than guessing when it meets a case outside the model. If you tick that gift tax was paid earlier, that gifts were made before 1977, or that the decedent was a nonresident or had other special features, it shows no number and points you to the IRS. Decedents who were nonresident and not U.S. citizens file a different form, Form 706-NA, with different rules, so this estimate would not apply to them.

An estate tax return is a legal filing, separate from this estimate. Whether a return is required, how a portability election is made and when taxes are due depend on facts and deadlines that the IRS instructions and an estate attorney can confirm. Use this page to understand the order of the arithmetic and to sanity-check a rough figure, then rely on professionals for the real thing.

Estate tax calculator questions

Does every inheritance get taxed by the federal estate tax?

No. The federal estate tax applies only to the taxable estate above the exclusion, and it is paid by the estate. State estate and inheritance taxes follow different rules and are not included here.

Is every gift I made counted?

No. Gifts within the annual exclusion are not adjusted taxable gifts, and gifts to a U.S.-citizen spouse or qualifying charities are generally not taxable gifts. Enter only taxable gifts made after 1976.

Is the exclusion doubled automatically for married couples?

No. A surviving spouse can use the first spouse's unused exclusion only when it has been verified, for example through an estate tax return with the election. Enter a verified amount as DSUE.

Is life insurance part of the estate?

It depends on ownership and rights in the policy. Proceeds can be included when the decedent owned the policy or held certain rights, and not otherwise, so enter only the amount that is actually included.

Which year should I choose?

The year of death, because the exclusion and the rules that apply are those in effect when the person died.

Does the calculator include state estate tax?

No. Even if you enter a state death tax deduction, the state tax itself is not estimated, and state inheritance tax is not calculated either.