The Nineteen Jurisdictions That Tax at Death
Twelve states charge an estate tax, five charge an inheritance tax, Maryland charges both, and the District of Columbia charges an estate tax. Everything else in the country takes nothing. The table below is the whole picture for 2026 deaths, and every figure in it came from the agency that administers the tax rather than from a summary.
| Jurisdiction | Type | 2026 threshold | Rates | Rises with inflation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Washington | Estate | $3,076,000 for deaths through June 30, 2026, then $3,000,000 | 10% to 20% | No, the adjustment expired |
| Oregon | Estate | $1,000,000 | 10% to 16% | No |
| Minnesota | Estate | $3,000,000 | 13% to 16% | No |
| Rhode Island | Estate | $1,838,056 | 7.2% to 16% | Yes |
| Massachusetts | Estate | $2,000,000 | to 16% | No |
| Illinois | Estate | $4,000,000 | to 16% | No |
| District of Columbia | Estate | about $4,988,400 | to 16% | Yes |
| Vermont | Estate | $5,000,000 | flat 16% | No |
| Hawaii | Estate | $5,490,000 | 10% to 20% | No |
| Maryland | Estate and inheritance | $5,000,000 estate, no inheritance threshold | 16% estate, 10% inheritance | No |
| Maine | Estate | $7,160,000 | 8%, 10%, 12% | Yes |
| New York | Estate | $7,350,000 | 3.06% to 16% | Yes |
| Connecticut | Estate and gift | $15,000,000 | flat 12% | Yes, it tracks the federal figure |
| Pennsylvania | Inheritance | None, exemptions run by relationship | 0%, 4.5%, 12%, 15% | Not applicable |
| New Jersey | Inheritance | None, exemptions run by relationship | 11% to 16% | Not applicable |
| Kentucky | Inheritance | None, exemptions run by relationship | 4% to 16% | Not applicable |
| Nebraska | Inheritance | $100,000, $40,000 or $25,000 per beneficiary | 1%, 11%, 15% | No |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Two entries in that table move this year and are worth reading twice. Washington's exclusion goes down on July 1, 2026, from $3,076,000 to $3,000,000, and the inflation adjustment in its statute has expired, so the figure stays there. Iowa is gone. Its inheritance tax ended for anyone dying on or after January 1, 2025, and the phase-out before that ran faster than most published summaries said.
Where a state has its own page here, the detail lives there. Our Massachusetts estate tax guide works through the $2,000,000 threshold, the credit that ended the old cliff, and the rule that now taxes a Florida owner's Cape or Nantucket house on its own value rather than on a fraction of everything else they owned.
Why the Federal Number Is the Wrong One to Plan Against
The federal exclusion for 2026 deaths is $15,000,000 per person, and the scheduled cut that dominated planning conversations for years was cancelled by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 4, 2025. People are still searching for that sunset. It is not coming.
What that cancellation did was widen the gap between the federal rules and the state ones. A Massachusetts couple with a $2,400,000 estate owes no federal tax and never will at these figures, and still has a Massachusetts problem. The state thresholds are one fifteenth of the federal number in Oregon and roughly one seventh of it in Massachusetts, and neither state indexes its figure, so the same house and the same retirement account cross the line a little further every year. Planning built around the federal exemption alone will read as complete and miss the only tax the family will actually pay.
Deadlines, Portability and Gift Add-Backs
The threshold is half the answer. What decides a married couple's plan is whether the state lets a widow or widower use the first spouse's exclusion, how far back the state counts gifts, and how long there is to file.
| Jurisdiction | Return due | State QTIP | Portability | Gifts added back |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connecticut | 6 months | Yes | No | Every gift since 2005, plus a 3-year gross-up |
| New Jersey | 8 months | Not applicable | Not applicable | None |
| Massachusetts | 9 months | Yes | No | Adjusted taxable gifts count toward the threshold |
| New York | 9 months | Yes, and required on the New York return | No | 3 years, ending January 1, 2032 |
| Maine | 9 months | Yes | No, expressly excluded | 1 year |
| Washington | 9 months | Yes | No | None |
| Minnesota | 9 months | Yes | No | 3 years |
| Illinois | 9 months | Yes | No | Adjusted taxable gifts enter the computation |
| Maryland | 9 months | Yes | Yes, by timely election | A 2-year rule for a material part of the estate |
| Hawaii | 9 months | No | Yes | None |
| Pennsylvania | 9 months, with a 5% discount if paid within 3 | Not applicable | Not applicable | 1 year, with a $3,000 per donee allowance |
| District of Columbia | 10 months | No | No | None |
| Oregon | 12 months | Yes | No | None |
| Kentucky | 18 months, rising to 24 for deaths on or after July 1, 2026 | Not applicable | Not applicable | None |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Only Hawaii and Maryland have portability. That one line is the most useful thing on this page. At the federal level, portability is routine, so a couple can leave everything to each other outright and the survivor still carries the first spouse's unused exclusion. In the other seventeen jurisdictions that is not true. A Massachusetts couple who leave everything to each other outright lose the first $2,000,000 exclusion entirely, and the survivor dies with one exclusion instead of two. Recovering it takes a credit shelter share or a state QTIP election written into the documents while both spouses are alive, which is drafting, not paperwork filed later.
Connecticut deserves its own warning. The return is due in six months, the shortest deadline in the country, and Connecticut counts every gift you have made since 2005. A family that assumes the familiar nine months is late before anyone has noticed there was a deadline.
Not sure whether your state reaches your estate?
Run the numbers first, then talk to someone. The calculator estimates the state tax on your figures, and the consult is free either way.
The Five States That Tax the Recipient, Not the Estate
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kentucky, Nebraska and Maryland charge an inheritance tax, and it works on a different principle from everything above. There is no threshold to clear. What matters is who receives the money. Pennsylvania charges a surviving spouse nothing, a child 4.5%, a sibling 12% and everyone else 15%. So a $200,000 Pennsylvania estate that no estate tax state in the country would touch produces a real bill when it goes to a nephew, and produces nothing when it goes to a daughter.
Nebraska is the unusual one, and it matters more to out-of-state families than its size suggests. The tax is collected in the county court and the money stays with the county rather than going to the state. According to the Nebraska Department of Revenue's own report, 4,484 nonresident beneficiaries paid $30.7 million of the $92.5 million collected in the 2025 fiscal year. Roughly one dollar in three of Nebraska's inheritance tax is paid by people who do not live in Nebraska, which is what happens when farmland stays in a family that has moved away.
Maryland is the only jurisdiction with both taxes, and its inheritance tax reaches a nonresident's Maryland real estate. A Florida retiree who dies owning a Maryland house and leaves it to a nephew owes 10% of the clear value, collected through the Register of Wills in the county where the house sits. Because that estate rarely clears Maryland's $5,000,000 estate tax threshold, the credit that would otherwise offset the inheritance tax gives back nothing, so the 10% is a real cost. Maryland did improve one thing for our clients in 2026. For deaths on or after July 1, 2026, the situs of intangible property is the decedent's domicile, so a Florida domiciliary's accounts should now fall outside the Maryland tax.
The States That Take Nothing
Thirty-three states have neither an estate tax nor an inheritance tax. Florida is one of them, and so is California, which surprises people often enough that the reassurance is worth stating plainly. Florida has no estate tax, no inheritance tax and no state income tax, and the Florida Constitution prohibits one on estates without a change to the constitution itself.
That absence is why this question turns into a moving question so often. It is also why the answer is never only about the tax. A retiree comparing Massachusetts with Florida is comparing a $2,000,000 threshold with no threshold at all, and the difference on a $3,000,000 estate is real money to the children. Our page on whether Florida has an estate tax covers the Florida side in full.
What a Trust Does and Does Not Fix
Ask any of these states whether a trust avoids the tax and the honest answer depends entirely on which kind of trust you mean.
A revocable living trust does nothing for state estate tax. You can revoke it and take everything back, so the law treats the assets as yours when you die and counts every dollar toward the threshold. What a revocable trust does is keep the estate out of probate, which is a court process rather than a tax. Those two things get conflated constantly, including by people selling trusts, and the conflation is why families are surprised by a state tax bill on an estate they thought was protected.
The structures that reduce state estate tax are the ones you cannot undo, and the drafting inside a married couple's documents. A credit shelter share captures the first spouse's exclusion in the seventeen jurisdictions with no portability. A state QTIP election defers the tax to the second death where the state allows one. An irrevocable trust moves assets out of the taxable estate for good, at the cost of control. Which of those fits depends on the state, the size of the estate and how much control the family is willing to give up, and that is a conversation rather than a form.
Moving to Florida, and What Your Old State Can Still Reach
Changing domicile ends your old state's claim on your intangible property, meaning bank accounts, brokerage accounts and business interests. It does not end the claim on real estate and tangible property that stays behind. A New York apartment, a Massachusetts lake house or a Maine cottage remains taxable where it sits, and several of those states calculate the tax on your entire estate to set the rate, then charge the fraction attributable to the in-state property. The result is that a small piece of northern real estate can pull a Florida estate back into a state return.
The move itself has to be real. A Florida declaration of domicile is evidence, and it is one piece among many. States that audit residency look at where you actually spend your days, where your doctors and your dentist are, where your cars are registered, where your dog is licensed and where your family gathers. Filing a form and spending seven months up north does not change domicile, and the states with the most to lose are the ones that audit hardest. Where the northern property is the problem rather than the domicile, the fix is usually structural, and it belongs in the same conversation as the community property trust and basis planning that a move makes possible.
How We Work on the Florida Side
The Florida half of this is what we do, and for most people moving here it is the half that decides the outcome. That means the domicile record built properly from the start, the Florida trust and deed work, the community property trust where basis is the bigger prize than the estate tax, and the coordination with whatever you still own up north. Fees are quoted flat once we see the picture.
Where a return has to be filed in Massachusetts, New York, Washington or anywhere else that taxes at death, that return is their state's law and we work with counsel or an accountant admitted there. We say which pieces your matter needs at the consult, before you commit to anything, and we say plainly when the answer is that you do not have a problem worth paying us to solve.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which States Have an Estate or Inheritance Tax in 2026?
Nineteen jurisdictions tax at death. Twelve have an estate tax, which is charged to the estate itself. Five have an inheritance tax, which is charged to the person who receives the money and depends on how they were related to you. Maryland has both, and the District of Columbia has an estate tax. The estate tax states are Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Illinois, Vermont, Hawaii, Maryland, Maine, New York and Connecticut. The inheritance tax states are Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kentucky, Nebraska and Maryland. Iowa dropped off the list for anyone dying on or after January 1, 2025. Thirty-three states, Florida among them, take nothing at all.
How Much Can You Inherit From Your Parents Without Paying Taxes?
Federally, a great deal. The federal exclusion for 2026 deaths is $15,000,000 per person, so the overwhelming majority of families owe no federal estate tax. The state answer is where people get caught. Oregon starts taxing at $1,000,000 and Massachusetts at $2,000,000, so a paid-off house, a retirement account and a life insurance policy can clear a state threshold while sitting far below the federal one. In the five inheritance tax states the question changes shape again, because what you owe depends on your relationship to the person who died. A child usually pays nothing or very little, while a niece, a nephew or a friend can pay 15% or 16%.
Does a Revocable Trust Avoid State Estate Tax?
No, and this is the most common misunderstanding we hear. A revocable living trust keeps your estate out of probate, which is a court process, not a tax. Because you can revoke the trust and take everything back at any moment, the assets in it are still treated as yours when you die, and they count toward every state and federal threshold. Trust planning does reduce state estate tax, but it is the irrevocable kind, or a credit shelter or state QTIP structure built into a married couple's documents. The difference between the two is the difference between avoiding a court file and avoiding a tax bill.
If I Move to Florida, Does My Old State Still Tax My Estate?
Once you are genuinely domiciled in Florida, your old state generally cannot reach your intangible property, meaning your bank accounts, brokerage accounts and business interests. What it can still reach is real estate and tangible property physically located inside its borders. A Florida retiree who keeps the lake house in Massachusetts or the condo in New York leaves a taxable connection behind, and several of those states apportion their tax against the whole estate to set the rate before charging the in-state share. The move has to be real, and the audit turns on facts rather than paperwork, which is why a declaration of domicile is one piece of evidence rather than the whole answer.
Is the Federal Estate Tax Exemption Still Sunsetting in 2026?
No. That sunset was cancelled. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, struck the scheduled cut and set the exclusion at $15,000,000 for 2026 deaths, indexed going forward. A great deal of planning advice published before mid-2025 was written around a drop to roughly $7,000,000 that never happened, and that stale advice is still circulating. If your plan was built to race a 2026 deadline, the deadline is gone, though the state thresholds it may have ignored are still there.
Which State Has the Lowest Estate Tax Threshold?
Oregon, at $1,000,000, and it is not indexed for inflation, so it captures more estates every year without the legislature doing anything. Massachusetts is next at $2,000,000, also unindexed. Washington sits at $3,000,000 for deaths on or after July 1, 2026, and its inflation adjustment has expired, so it will not rise either. A million dollars sounds like a large estate until you add a Portland house, a retirement account and a life insurance death benefit, at which point ordinary families are inside the tax.
What Is the Difference Between an Estate Tax and an Inheritance Tax?
An estate tax is charged to the estate before anything is distributed, and it depends on the size of the estate. An inheritance tax is charged to each person who receives something, and it depends on who that person is. Pennsylvania charges nothing to a surviving spouse, 4.5% to a child, 12% to a sibling and 15% to everyone else. That means an inheritance tax state can tax a $200,000 estate that no estate tax state would touch, simply because the money went to a nephew instead of a daughter. Maryland is the only jurisdiction that charges both.
Do You Handle Estate Tax Planning for People Outside Florida?
We plan the Florida side, and that is usually the side that decides the outcome for someone moving here or already here. The domicile record, the Florida trust and deed work, the community property trust for basis, and the coordination with your out-of-state property all happen in this office. Where a state return has to be filed in Massachusetts, New York or Washington, we work with counsel or an accountant admitted where the property sits, because those returns are their state's law and belong with someone who practices it. We tell you which pieces your matter needs before you commit to anything.
Common Situations
The Massachusetts couple who thought they were fine. A retired couple in Newton owned a house worth $1,400,000, retirement accounts of $900,000 and a $500,000 life insurance policy. Their will left everything to each other. No federal estate tax was ever in play at $15,000,000, so nobody had raised the subject. The Massachusetts threshold is $2,000,000 with no portability, so on the first death the first exclusion vanished, and on the second the state taxed an estate of roughly $2,800,000. A credit shelter share written into the documents while both were alive would have captured the first $2,000,000.
The Florida retiree with a house in Maryland. A widow domiciled in Boca Raton kept her late husband's family house in Maryland and left it to her sister's son. Her total estate was $1,900,000, comfortably under every estate tax threshold anywhere. Maryland's inheritance tax does not have a threshold. A nephew is not on the exempt list, so the 10% applied to the Maryland house alone, collected through the county Register of Wills, with no estate tax credit to offset it because the estate never approached $5,000,000.
The plan built for a sunset that never came. A family had rushed an irrevocable trust into place in 2024 to use exemption before the expected 2026 drop to roughly $7,000,000. The drop was cancelled in July 2025 and the exclusion is $15,000,000. The gifts are done and cannot be undone, so the question became what to do next, and the answer turned on basis rather than estate tax, because assets given away during life do not get the step-up that assets held until death receive.
Sources of Law
- Federal baseline. 26 U.S.C. §2010(c)(3) as amended by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Pub. L. 119-21 §70106 (signed July 4, 2025), setting a $15,000,000 basic exclusion for 2026 and striking the scheduled sunset. Portability requires a timely Form 706 election, covered on our portability page and the Form 706 filing guide.
- Washington. Department of Revenue published exclusion tables, stating $3,076,000 for deaths between January 1 and June 30, 2026, $3,000,000 for deaths on or after July 1, 2026, and no future increase because the statutory CPI adjustment has expired. Rate ladder returned to 10% to 20% by 2026 legislation.
- Connecticut. Conn. Gen. Stat. §12-391(c)(4), which defines the exemption as the federal filing threshold published annually by the IRS, so the federal $15,000,000 applies for 2026 without Connecticut legislation. Department of Revenue Services confirms the 2026 figure.
- Maryland. Md. Code, Tax-Gen. §§7-201 to 7-234 (inheritance tax, still in force; the 2025 budget bill provisions that would have repealed it and cut the estate tax exclusion to $2,000,000 were struck by amendment before passage). Chapters 503 and 504 of 2026 add Tax-Gen. §7-202(b), placing the situs of intangible personal property at the decedent's domicile for deaths on or after July 1, 2026, and repealing the former reciprocity exemption at §7-203(f).
- Nebraska. Neb. Rev. Stat. §77-2004 (Class 1 rates and the 2026 expansion, operative July 18, 2026), §77-2032 (receipts credited to county funds), and the Department of Revenue §77-2015 report for fiscal year 2025 (4,484 nonresident beneficiaries paid $30.7 million of $92.5 million collected).
- Iowa. Iowa Code §450.10(7), phasing the inheritance tax out to zero for deaths on or after January 1, 2025. Pennsylvania relationship classes and the 5% early-payment discount, 72 P.S. §9116. (all figures retrieved and verified August 26 to 27, 2026)
Updated on August 28, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. This article is general information about state and federal law, not legal or tax advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. State thresholds, rates and deadlines change, sometimes mid-year, and the figures here were verified in August 2026. Returns due in another state are that state's law and are handled with counsel admitted there. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
More Guides on Estate Tax by State
This guide is part of Florida Estate Planning.