Federal Estate Tax Exemption for 2027 (Projected)

This page projects $15,340,000 per decedent, roughly $340,000 above the $15,000,000 that applies to anyone dying during 2026. Treat it as a ustax.tools estimate rather than an announced amount; the binding number arrives with the autumn 2026 revenue procedure. Estates below the exclusion owe no federal estate tax at all, though a return may still be worth filing to preserve a surviving spouse's portability.

Because 2026 is the statutory starting line. OBBBA (P.L. 119-21, §70106) rewrote IRC §2010(c)(3)(A) to state the exclusion as a flat $15,000,000 figure, and the indexing clause in §2010(c)(3)(B) only bites "in the case of any decedent dying in a calendar year after 2026", measured from a 2025 base year. The IRS said as much in its own words in Rev. Proc. 2025-32: the amount "will be adjusted for inflation for calendar year 2027 and future years". So 2027 is the first year the number moves, and it moves by ordinary inflation rather than by legislation.

A projected $30,680,000, but only if the paperwork is done. Portability is not automatic — the executor of the first spouse to die must file a complete Form 706 and affirmatively elect to transfer the unused exclusion, even when that estate is far too small to owe anything. Skip the election and the unused half is simply lost, which is the single most common and most expensive omission in this area.

No, and this is a frequent misunderstanding. Under §2010(c)(4) the deceased spousal unused exclusion is frozen at the exclusion in force when the first spouse died — a DSUE captured from a 2026 death stays worth $15,000,000 of shelter, not the projected 2027 amount. Only the survivor's OWN basic exclusion keeps indexing. A couple who plan on two full inflating exclusions, rather than one inflating and one frozen, will overestimate what they can pass on.

40% at the top of the §2001(c) schedule. No inflation clause attaches to it, so it needs no estimate for 2027 and will not move unless Congress acts. Only value above the exclusion is exposed, and because the unified credit absorbs the graduated lower brackets, what an estate actually faces is a flat 40% on the excess.

Yes. IRC §2631(c) defines the GST exemption as equal to the basic exclusion amount, so it tracks it exactly — a projected $15,340,000 for 2027. One important difference in practice: the GST exemption is not portable between spouses. Each person's must be allocated during life or at death by their own executor, so a couple relying on portability for estate tax still needs separate GST planning.

No — states that levy their own estate or inheritance tax set their own thresholds, and several are dramatically lower than the federal figure. An estate can owe nothing federally and still face a substantial state bill, which is why residency and property location matter as much as the headline federal number. Our state estate tax calculators cover the states that impose one.

Watch for it in late autumn 2026. Executors have breathing room that wage-earners do not: what governs is the amount in force on the date of death, so nothing has to be decided ahead of publication. The estimate here is replaced the moment Treasury settles it.