US Federal Estate Tax: Exemption Amount and Top Rate History
PlainEstate renders the historical trajectory of the federal estate-tax exemption and top marginal rate from the federal_estate_tax table. The chronology shows how the federal floor under which estates owe no federal tax has evolved alongside the top-rate ceiling.
Research period:
Every figure on PlainEstate is rendered directly from IRS Statistics of Income and state statutory data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on IRS Statistics of Income and state statutory data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.
Research question
How has the federal estate-tax exemption amount and top marginal rate evolved over the years tracked by PlainEstate, and what does that trajectory show about the changing reach of federal estate taxation across estate sizes?
Methodology
This ranking is generated fresh from the current the IRS dataset every time the page loads, not a fixed figure typed in once and forgotten. When the IRS publishes an update, our next data refresh picks it up automatically.
Records with no data reported are left out rather than shown as a false zero, since the IRS occasionally withholds a figure for data-quality reasons.
Every number on this page traces back to a specific the IRS record, so you can verify it yourself against the original source. See the methodology page for the full data pipeline and how often we refresh.
US Federal Estate Tax: Exemption Amount and Top Rate History
Live data, current as of the most recent source-data refresh
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects the current the IRS dataset and updates automatically the next time we refresh it.
| # | Year | Federal exemption ($) | Top rate (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026 | 15,000,000 | 40 |
| 2 | 2025 | 13,990,000 | 40 |
| 3 | 2024 | 13,610,000 | 40 |
| 4 | 2023 | 12,920,000 | 40 |
| 5 | 2022 | 12,060,000 | 40 |
| 6 | 2021 | 11,700,000 | 40 |
| 7 | 2020 | 11,580,000 | 40 |
| 8 | 2019 | 11,400,000 | 40 |
| 9 | 2018 | 11,180,000 | 40 |
| 10 | 2017 | 5,490,000 | 40 |
Source: U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Federal Estate Tax (IRS Form 706) statutory framework. Values are current as of our most recent the IRS data refresh. U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Federal Estate Tax (IRS Form 706) statutory framework. Values are current as of our most recent the IRS data refresh.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is 2026, with a value of 15,000,000 on the Federal exemption ($) column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value derives from the underlying federal_estate_tax table; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the source agency publishes a revision and our ETL pipeline reingests, the ranking and the prose around it update on the next page load.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (15,000,000) and the 10th-ranked record (5,490,000) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full federal_estate_tax population, the aggregate query returns the following summary statistics. These anchors situate the top-10 ranking against the underlying population: how many records exist in total, what the sum of the ranking column is across all qualifying rows, and what the mean per-record value looks like. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied by the aggregate query (records with null or zero values on the ranking column are excluded). The aggregate row is computed by the same database engine that renders the ranking above, against the same snapshot.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Internal Revenue Service, specifically the Federal Estate Tax (IRS Form 706) statutory framework. PlainEstate ingests each new release from the source agency and republishes the figures here automatically, so this page always reflects the current dataset rather than a fixed snapshot. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the transformation steps applied during ETL.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
The federal estate-tax exemption amount and top rate are set in the Internal Revenue Code and adjusted by Congress through tax legislation, most recently the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 which doubled the exemption beginning in tax year 2018. The exemption is indexed for inflation annually within statutory limits. The exemption shown is the basic exclusion amount for an individual decedent; surviving spouses can elect portability to combine the deceased spouse's unused exemption (DSUEA) with their own, effectively doubling the household-level exemption for properly-structured estates. The top rate is the highest marginal bracket rate applied to the portion of the taxable estate above the exemption. Effective federal estate-tax rates on real estates are substantially lower than the top marginal rate because the exemption shelters the first several million dollars of every taxable estate. The 2026 exemption value reflects the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Pub. L. 119-21), signed July 4, 2025, which repealed the previously scheduled TCJA sunset and set a permanent $15,000,000 per-individual exemption effective January 1, 2026, indexed for inflation thereafter.
Secondary cut from the same source
Federal estate-tax top marginal rate by year
Sources
- Internal Revenue Service, Estate Tax (Form 706) statistics and guidance - https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/estate-tax
- Tax Foundation, federal estate & gift tax exemption and rate history - https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/estate-tax/