The 2026 number: $15,000,000 per person
For deaths and gifts in 2026, the basic exclusion amount is $15,000,000 per person (IRC § 2010(c)(3)). That figure was set by the 2025 legislation — Public Law 119-21. The federal basic exclusion amount and GST exemption are each $15,000,000 for 2026 under enacted law. The amounts are indexed for inflation for 2027 and later years; current law does not contain the prior scheduled 2026 reduction. It is confirmed on the IRS’s “What’s New — Estate and Gift Tax” page. Only cumulative taxable gifts and bequests above the exemption are taxed, at rates topping out at 40% (IRC § 2001(c)). The great majority of estates owe no federal estate tax at all.
One exemption for gifts and estates
The gift tax and the estate tax are unified: they share a single lifetime exemption, and using it during life leaves less at death. When you make a gift above the annual exclusion, the excess reduces the exemption available to your estate. So the $15 million is not a gift allowance plus a separate estate allowance — it is one cumulative pool measured across your lifetime gifts and your estate together (§ 2010; § 2001). This is why large lifetime gifts are an estate-tax decision: they spend the same exemption your estate would otherwise use.
Portability and the deceased-spousal unused exclusion
When the first spouse dies without using their entire exemption, the unused portion — the “deceased spousal unused exclusion,” or DSUE — can pass to the surviving spouse and be added to their own exemption (IRC § 2010(c)(2), (4)). Each spouse has a separate federal basic exclusion amount and may use it through lifetime gifts or transfers at death. Portability is one method of preserving a deceased spouse’s unused exclusion, not the only way a couple can use two exclusions. A valid portability election generally requires a timely Form 706; qualifying estates may use Rev. Proc. 2022-32 relief through the fifth anniversary of death. A surviving spouse’s available DSUE generally is tied to the last deceased spouse. Remarriage alone does not change that identity, but the death of a later spouse can; special rules preserve DSUE previously applied to lifetime gifts. The estate of the first spouse to die must make the election even when no tax is due and no return would otherwise be required (§ 2010(c)(5)(A)), and missing it can forfeit millions in exemption. The DSUE covers the estate and gift tax but not the generation-skipping transfer tax, which has its own, non-portable exemption discussed below.
The “clawback” worry, now settled
For years planners worried about “clawback”: if someone made large gifts while the exemption was high and then died after it had dropped, would the estate be taxed as if the extra exemption had never existed? Two things resolved it. First, Treasury issued an anti-clawback regulation confirming that gifts sheltered by the exemption in the year they were made are not later clawed back if the exemption falls (Treas. Reg. § 20.2010-1(c)). Second, the 2025 law removed the scheduled post-2025 decrease altogether and set the base at $15 million under current law (Public Law 119-21). The practical upshot: the exemption did not fall in 2026, and gifts made under a higher exemption are protected in any case.
The separate generation-skipping transfer exemption
Transfers that skip a generation — typically to grandchildren or into trusts for them — face a second layer, the generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax, with its own exemption. For 2026 the GST exemption equals the basic exclusion: $15,000,000 per person (IRC § 2631; Rev. Proc. 2025-32). The GST exemption is not portable between spouses. Allocation may be made affirmatively, but IRC § 2632 also provides automatic allocations to certain direct skips and indirect skips unless the transferor elects otherwise. GST allocation should be reviewed separately from gift and estate-tax exclusion use. We cover trusts built for it — and the ILIT, a common GST vehicle — in the ILIT cluster and, as it ships, the broader planning library.
Sources & methodology
Methodology & sources
Primary sources are cited in place: IRC §§ 2010, 2001(c), 2631, and 2632 (linked to the official U.S. Code published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, not an unofficial mirror); Public Law 119-21 (2025) for the $15,000,000 basic exclusion; Rev. Proc. 2022-32 for late portability-election relief; the IRS’s “What’s New — Estate and Gift Tax” page; and Treas. Reg. § 20.2010-1(c) for the anti-clawback rule. The $15,000,000 exemption and 40% top rate are 2026 figures, re-verified on each annual adjustment. See our editorial standards.
This page is educational and is not legal or tax advice. Portability elections and GST allocations are technical and deadline-driven; use this to understand the framework and act on the details with a qualified professional.
Last verified July 29, 2026.
Corrections & updates
- — Legal-accuracy corrections applied and verified against official primary sources (Wave E-1 correction pass): corrected the material framing that a married couple reaches $30 million only through portability — each spouse has a separate exclusion usable by lifetime gift or at death, and portability is one method of preserving a deceased spouse's unused exclusion; added the timely-Form-706 requirement, Rev. Proc. 2022-32 late-election relief through the fifth anniversary, and the last-deceased-spouse DSUE identity rule; corrected the GST section to note IRC § 2632 automatic allocation rather than solely affirmative allocation; and restated the 2026 basic-exclusion and GST figures as enacted current law. Statutory links repointed to official government sources.
- — Reviewer attribution activated (Evan Miller, Esq., Florida Bar No. 112646) and the page-level and related-card verification dates refreshed to July 29, 2026, per the signed Final URL Approval Memorandum.