Does Florida Have an Inheritance Tax? No — But Here Are 5 Taxes Heirs Still Pay

There is no Florida inheritance tax, and there is no Florida estate tax either — so if you are asking does Florida have an inheritance tax, the short answer is no, and the rate is zero. But “no inheritance tax in Florida” is not the same thing as “no tax,” and that gap is where families get hurt. Five separate taxes can still reach a Florida inheritance: the federal estate tax, income tax on inherited retirement accounts, a property tax increase on the family home, the estate’s own income tax, and another state’s inheritance tax on out-of-state property. We at Lorenzo Law are a Florida probate attorney and estate planning practice handling estates statewide, and this page walks through each of the five, who actually pays it, and what has changed for 2026.

The 5 Taxes Heirs in Florida Actually Pay

Florida’s zero inheritance tax rate is real. What follows is everything the zero does not cover.

Only the first two lines are free. The rest is the substance of this page.

Why Florida Has No Inheritance Tax or Estate Tax

Most articles say Florida “abolished” its estate tax. That is not what happened, and the real answer is more useful, because it tells you whether the tax could ever come back.

Before the reasoning, the short answers — because these are the questions people actually type, and the answer to every one of them is the same number:

The Florida Constitution caps the tax, it does not forbid it

Article VII, section 5(a) of the Florida Constitution provides that no tax upon estates or inheritances shall be levied by the state “in excess of the aggregate of amounts which may be allowed to be credited upon or deducted from any similar tax levied by the United States or any state.” That is a ceiling, not a prohibition. Florida may tax an estate only up to whatever the federal government allows the states to take through a credit or deduction. This is what practitioners call a “pick-up” or “sponge” tax: the state absorbs a slice the federal government surrenders, and adds nothing to the total burden.

Chapter 198 is dormant, not repealed

Chapter 198, Florida Statutes, is still on the books. Section 198.02 imposes the estate tax as a sum equal to the credit allowable under federal law for state death taxes. That federal credit — former Internal Revenue Code section 2011 — was phased out and then eliminated for decedents dying after December 31, 2004, and replaced with a deduction. Because the credit is the multiplicand in Florida’s formula, the moment the credit stopped being allowable, the Florida figure became zero. No Florida amendment was needed. The Florida Department of Revenue puts it plainly: a federal change eliminated Florida’s estate tax on people who died after December 31, 2004.

So the precise statement is this: Florida’s estate tax is dormant, not repealed. The statute produces zero for every current decedent.

Could Florida bring back a death tax?

This is worth understanding if you are relying on Florida domicile as part of your planning. The constitutional ceiling tracks amounts allowed to be credited upon or deducted from a similar federal tax. Since 2005 the federal mechanism has been a deduction rather than a credit. Read literally, the constitutional ceiling is therefore not necessarily zero today — but the Legislature never rewrote section 198.02, which still measures the Florida tax by the vanished credit. The result is that Florida’s zero estate tax is self-executing by statutory measure rather than by constitutional prohibition.

We are not aware of any Florida decision construing that language against the current federal deduction, so treat this as an open question rather than settled law. The practical takeaway is narrower and sound: a future Legislature would not need a constitutional amendment to revisit this, which is a reason to plan around the federal exemption rather than around Florida’s current silence.

Is There a Probate Tax in Florida?

No. There is no Florida probate tax — no tax on the act of probating an estate, no percentage of the estate payable to the state, and no tax on the transfer of assets from the estate to the beneficiaries. People often use “probate tax” loosely to mean the cost of probate, and those are two different things.

What a Florida estate does pay to get through probate is costs, not taxes:

• Clerk filing fees, set by the county clerk and different for formal administration than for summary administration.
• Publication costs for the notice to creditors.
• Attorney’s fees and personal representative’s compensation, which Florida regulates by statute.
• Case-specific costs — appraisals, accountings, certified copies, recording fees, a bond if the court requires one.

None of that is a tax, and none of it goes to the Florida Department of Revenue. If you are trying to work out what a Florida estate will actually cost to administer, that is a separate question from taxes and we address it in detail on our page about the cost of probate in Florida.

Does the Executor Have to File Anything About Estate Tax in Florida?

A note on wording before we answer it. Most states call the person who administers an estate the executor. Florida calls that person the personal representative — the job is the same, and we use both terms on this page because clients arrive using both.

Almost every article on this topic skips this, and it is the question personal representatives and title agents actually call about.

No return, and no affidavit, for current estates

Section 198.13(4) provides that for the estate of a decedent who dies after December 31, 2004, if a state death tax credit or generation-skipping transfer credit is not allowable under the Internal Revenue Code, the personal representative is not required to file a return. Section 198.32(3) uses the same December 31, 2004 cutoff and the same condition, and provides that the personal representative is not required to file the affidavit described in section 198.32(2) and that the estate shall not be subject to the lien under section 198.32(1).

The Department of Revenue’s rule states the result directly: no Florida estate tax is due and no Florida estate tax return is required to be filed by the personal representative of an estate when the decedent died on or after January 1, 2005. A 2023 amendment carried this through to the affidavits, and the relief reaches not only probate proceedings commenced on or after July 1, 2023 but also proceedings that were pending on that date without an order of final discharge.

What Forms DR-312 and DR-313 are, and when you still want one

Either affidavit may be filed with the clerk of the circuit court in every county where the decedent owned real property, to remove any Florida estate tax lien, and each is admissible as evidence that no Florida estate tax is due. The dividing line between them is simply whether a federal estate tax return is required.

Both forms remain current and available even though filing is no longer mandatory. For decedents dying on or after January 1, 2005 the Department no longer issues a Final Certificate or Nontaxable Certificate, so the affidavits serve that evidentiary function instead. That is why a title underwriter or closing agent may still ask for one: recording the affidavit puts evidence in the chain of title that no Florida estate tax is due. If you are selling inherited Florida real estate and the closing agent raises an estate tax objection, this is usually the cheapest way to clear it.

Note also that the section 198.32(2) affidavit route “applies to all estates, regardless of the date of death of the decedent” — which is why the forms remain usable for older estates as well.

Tax 1: The Federal Estate Tax on a Florida Estate

Florida’s own estate tax is zero, but a Florida estate is still measured against the federal exemption like any other. For 2026 that exemption is $15 million per person, with a top rate of 40% on the excess, and a married Florida couple can shelter up to $30 million by combining both. The great majority of Florida estates owe nothing here — but the ones that do are usually estates where a long-held Florida home, a rental portfolio, or a family business has quietly grown past what the owners assumed.

There is no 2026 exemption cliff — that myth is out of date

For years, planning was driven by a scheduled sunset that would have cut the exemption roughly in half at the end of 2025. That sunset did not happen — it was repealed. The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act, Public Law 119-21, enacted 4 July 2025, amended section 2010(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code to set the $15 million figure and repealed the reversion clause outright. The increase is permanent. The 2026 amount is not itself inflation-adjusted; indexing begins for decedents dying in calendar years after 2026.

For comparison, the exemption was $13,990,000 for 2025. If you are reading an article that says it drops to about $7 million in 2026, that page has not been updated — and several of the pages currently ranking for this topic still say exactly that.

What this changes in practice for Florida families: planning built around using the exemption before it disappeared is no longer urgent for that reason. Planning built around growth in Florida real estate values, asset protection, or generation-skipping transfers still is.

Filing Form 706

Form 706 is due nine months after the date of death. An estate is allowed an automatic six-month extension of time to file if Form 4768 is filed on or before that due date — no showing of cause is required for the automatic extension.

Be careful with the limit of that relief. An extension of time for filing a return does not operate to extend the time for payment of the tax. Payment remains due at the original filing deadline, determined without regard to any filing extension, and an extension of time to pay is a separate application requiring reasonable cause. Personal representatives get caught by this regularly: they secure the filing extension, assume the money can wait, and accrue interest and penalties on tax that was due nine months after death.

Who Actually Pays the Federal Estate Tax? Florida’s Apportionment Statute

This is the question every beneficiary really has — not “does Florida have an estate tax,” but “if tax is owed, does it come out of my share?” Florida answers it in section 733.817, Florida Statutes, and it is the single most overlooked provision in this entire subject. We have not found another Florida law firm page on inheritance tax that addresses it at all.

The default rule: ratable apportionment

The purpose of the statute, as the Fourth District put it in Tarbox v. Palmer, 564 So. 2d 1106 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990), “is to ensure that all estate and inheritance taxes are shared on a ratable basis by the beneficiaries receiving the property subject to those taxes.” Section 733.817(3) opens by providing that, except as otherwise effectively directed in the governing instrument, the net tax attributable to each interest is apportioned as the statute directs. Each interest that generated tax bears its proportionate share.

Within that scheme, tax attributable to nonresiduary devises under a will is charged first to the residuary estate, with a pro-rata fallback among nonresiduary recipients if the residue is insufficient. A parallel order applies to property passing under a trust other than one created in the will.

Non-probate property is fully inside the net

This surprises people. The statute’s “Other interests” catch-all reaches the net tax not otherwise apportioned, including tax attributable to interests passing by intestacy, interests applied in satisfaction of the elective share, interests passing by the exercise or non-exercise of a general power of appointment, jointly held interests passing by survivorship, life insurance, property in which the decedent held a reversionary or revocable interest, and annuities. It apportions that tax among the recipients of the remaining interests included in the measure of the tax, in proportion to value.

The Third District applied this in Pfeifer v. Varner, 452 So. 2d 622 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984), holding that “Ms. Varner, as the surviving joint tenant, is liable for the estate tax attributed to the decedent’s interest in the jointly held property.” The court explained that the residuary-charging provision “states only that the residuary estate shall bear the burden of the estate taxes attributable to all assets which pass under the will and has no application to the non-probatable interest involved here.”

In plain terms: avoiding probate does not avoid estate tax apportionment. A payable-on-death account, a jointly titled house, a life insurance policy and a revocable trust are all reachable.

A tax clause in a will has to be express — and most are not

A testator or settlor can override statutory apportionment, but only by an express direction, and Florida courts enforce that strictly. Boilerplate fails routinely.

In Ferrone v. Soffes, 558 So. 2d 146 (Fla. 3d DCA 1990), the will directed the executor “to pay all debts allowed as claims against my estate, my funeral expenses, and all expenses of administration of my estate, and all estate, inheritance, succession and transfer taxes which may be assessed by reason of my death.” That was not enough to keep tax off jointly held survivorship property. The court held that “the statute requires there to be a clear and unequivocal direction in the will in order to require the estate to bear the burden of taxation for property passing outside the will.”

In In re Estate of McClaran, 811 So. 2d 799 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002), the will directed the residue to pay estate and inheritance taxes assessed by reason of the testator’s death, with an express carve-out for tax generated by certain QTIP and power-of-appointment property. The Second District still held the clause insufficient to override statutory apportionment as to life insurance passing outside the will. That case is the sharpest illustration available: the testator plainly knew how to write an express exception, wrote one, and still did not reach the insurance.

There is older authority going the other way, and it is worth knowing about rather than pretending the law is tidier than it is. In In re Estate of Collin, 368 So. 2d 1350 (Fla. 4th DCA 1979), the Fourth District found a sufficient direction where a general debts-and-taxes clause was combined with percentage residuary gifts, reasoning that the statute does not require “certain magic words known only to the Probate Section of the Florida Bar.” The court was explicit that the debts-and-taxes clause “would not be enough direction in and of itself” — sufficiency came from that clause together with the percentage gifts. The Third District later acknowledged express and direct conflict with Collin and aligned itself with the dissent in that case. That conflict has never been resolved by the Florida Supreme Court, and Collin has never been overruled or receded from. The apportionment statute was substantially rewritten in 1997, effective October 1, 1998, and the express-direction requirement in its current form dates from that rewrite.

The practical consequence of that unresolved conflict is simple and it cuts one way: do not rely on a general tax clause. Draft the express direction.

The drafting lesson is unambiguous. If you want the residue to absorb tax generated by non-probate assets, the instrument has to say so expressly, and it has to say so about property not passing under that instrument. A clause that merely says “pay all taxes” will not do it.

Conflicting instruments

Where a will and a trust both contain effective tax directions, the most recently executed tax-apportionment provision controls. Two details matter and are easy to miss: a codicil’s or amendment’s date counts only if it contains an express tax-apportionment provision or an express modification — a general ratification clause does not count — and where a will and another instrument bear the same date, the will is deemed executed later. The earlier conflicting instrument still controls as to any tax remaining unpaid after the later one is applied.

The elective share

The elective share deserves its own note because Florida law here changed and most sources have not caught up.

Under the pre-1999 statutes, former section 732.215 made a surviving spouse fully responsible for any increase in estate tax resulting from the election. In Boulis v. Blackburn, 16 So. 3d 186 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009), the Fourth District held that this did not immunize the elective share from ordinary apportionment: “This section does not provide that the surviving spouse is not responsible for any tax other than any increase caused by the election.” Because the surviving spouse there was not a United States citizen, her elective share did not qualify for the marital deduction, and the court held that “as appellant is not entitled to the marital deduction on her elective share, then that elective share is subject to tax,” apportionable under the catch-all.

Former section 732.215 was repealed in the Legislature’s 1999 rewrite of the elective-share provisions, which applies to decedents dying on or after October 1, 2001. There is no successor provision. Neither section 732.2075 (sources from which the elective share is payable) nor section 732.2085 (liability of direct recipients and beneficiaries) charges election-caused additional estate tax to the surviving spouse. Under current law the elective share simply bears its proportional share of the net tax under the catch-all, and no rule makes the spouse absorb the incremental tax the election produces.

One narrow protection does exist and is often overstated. The paragraph governing tax attributable to protected homestead, exempt property and the family allowance provides that a tax may not be apportioned “under this paragraph” to the portion of any interest applied in satisfaction of the elective share. Those three words limit it: it blocks shifting homestead, exempt-property and family-allowance tax onto the elective share. It is not a general immunity of the elective share from apportionment, and reading it that way would contradict Boulis.

Where the elective share does qualify for the marital deduction, the analysis is different again. Tarbox held that a fully deductible marital interest is excluded from the measure of the tax and bears none of it, so an increase driven by non-marital property falls on the residuary beneficiaries — “the estate taxes now due should be ratably shared among the residuary beneficiaries.”

No Will? Who Inherits in Florida — and Do They Owe Tax?

This question arrives constantly alongside the tax question, and the two are connected more tightly than people realize. Florida’s apportionment statute charges tax to the recipients of the taxed property. When there is no will, Florida’s intestate succession statutes decide who those recipients are — so Florida inheritance law determines who bears the tax before any tax question gets answered.

The tax answer itself is short and reassuring: dying without a will changes nothing about tax. There is still no Florida inheritance tax and no Florida estate tax. The federal exemption is the same. Intestacy changes who inherits, not whether the inheritance is taxed.

What it does change is exposure to the other four taxes on this page, because it changes who ends up holding which asset. An intestate estate that passes a homestead to adult children rather than to a surviving spouse loses the Save Our Homes cap that a spousal transfer would have preserved. An intestate estate has no tax clause in any governing instrument, so the statutory apportionment default governs in full, with no possibility of a contrary direction. And retirement accounts pass by beneficiary designation regardless of intestacy, which means the income tax consequence lands wherever the paperwork sends it — often on someone the family did not expect.

Who inherits under Florida intestate succession

The surviving spouse’s share is set by section 732.102, Florida Statutes, and it turns entirely on whose descendants survive:

Note what the last row means in practice: a stepchild on the surviving spouse’s side — someone with no relation to the decedent at all — cuts the spouse’s share from everything to half. That result surprises almost every blended family we meet.

Whatever does not pass to the spouse, or the entire estate if there is no spouse, descends under section 732.103 in this order:

Distribution is per stirpes, whether to descendants or to collateral heirs — living members of a class take their own share, and a deceased member’s share drops to that member’s descendants by representation. Among collateral kindred, half-blood relatives take half as much as whole-blood relatives, unless all the takers are of the half blood, in which case they take whole parts. An heir conceived before the decedent’s death but born afterward inherits as though born during the decedent’s lifetime.

Adoption and parentage also affect who counts as a descendant, and Florida addresses both by statute. Those rules are more involved than a summary table can carry — and in a blended or adoptive family they frequently decide the outcome — so if adoption, a stepparent adoption, or establishing paternity is in the picture, that determination needs to be made on the facts before any share is calculated.

What comes off the top before the shares are calculated

Three family entitlements are paid ahead of, and in addition to, the intestate shares:

Exempt property is excluded from the value of the estate before residuary, intestate, pretermitted or elective shares are determined, and it is exempt from claims against the estate except perfected security interests. The family allowance is not chargeable against any share otherwise passing to the spouse or the dependent heirs. Both stack on top of the intestate share rather than reducing it.

The elective share is available in an intestate estate as well — it turns on Florida domicile and surviving-spouse status, not on whether there is a will. It is 30 percent of the elective estate, a statutorily defined pool broader than the probate estate, and it stacks on top of homestead, exempt property and the family allowance. Because electing does not reduce what the spouse would otherwise receive, a spouse elects only where 30 percent of the elective estate exceeds the intestate share.

One point of frequent confusion: the pretermitted spouse and pretermitted child provisions do not operate in a fully intestate estate. Both are triggered by omission from a will, and both measure the omitted person’s share by the intestate share. Where there is no will at all, there is nothing to be pretermitted and the spouse and children simply take directly.

Homestead does not follow the intestate shares

This is the single most consequential thing to understand about a Florida intestate estate, and it is where the tax consequence lands. Protected homestead is not part of the decedent’s estate for purposes of distribution — the Florida Supreme Court said so in McKean v. Warburton, 919 So. 2d 341 (Fla. 2005), holding that homestead passes outside the probate estate, so that personal representatives have no jurisdiction over it and no title to it, and it is not an asset of the estate.

The Florida Constitution restricts the devise in the first place: homestead is not subject to devise if the owner is survived by a spouse or minor child, except that it may be devised to the owner’s spouse if there is no minor child. Where it is not devised as authorized, section 732.401(1) takes over — and if the decedent is survived by a spouse and one or more descendants, the surviving spouse takes a life estate with a vested remainder to the descendants in being at the decedent’s death, per stirpes. The Second District applied exactly that in an intestacy in Friscia v. Friscia, 161 So. 3d 513 (Fla. 2d DCA 2014), ordering the personal representative to surrender the property; and Ballard v. Pritchard, 332 So. 3d 570 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021), confirms that homestead passes under section 732.401(1) immediately upon death rather than through the will.

In place of the life estate, the surviving spouse may elect an undivided one-half interest as a tenant in common, with the other undivided half vesting in the descendants in being at death, per stirpes. That election has a hard deadline: within six months after the decedent’s death and during the surviving spouse’s lifetime, perfected by recording a notice of election containing the legal description in the official records of the county where the property is located. It is irrevocable once made.

Why this is the tax question. Both of those outcomes — the life estate to the spouse, and the one-half election — are transfers “by operation of law to the surviving spouse” and therefore fall within the Save Our Homes exceptions set out above, so the assessment cap survives. If instead the homestead reaches an adult, non-dependent child, the cap is lost and the property is reassessed at just value. Which happens is a question of homestead law, not of intestacy percentages.

Two more points that change the tax picture when there is no will

The elective share carries its own tax consequence. The elective share bears its proportional part of the net tax under the apportionment statute’s catch-all, and — since the 1999 rewrite of the elective share provisions — no Florida statute charges the surviving spouse with the extra tax her election generates.

There is no tax clause at all. An intestate estate has no governing instrument, so the statutory apportionment default applies in full, with no possibility of a contrary direction. Every argument about what a will “meant” disappears, and with it any chance of shifting the burden.

If there is no will, the practical order of operations is to establish who the heirs are and how the homestead descends first, and only then work out the tax consequences — not the other way round. Call us and we will walk through it.

Tax 2: Income Tax on Inherited Retirement Accounts

This is the tax that actually reaches ordinary Florida families, and it is the reason “Florida has no inheritance tax, so my inheritance is tax-free” is usually wrong. Florida imposes no income tax of its own, so nothing here is a Florida tax — but the federal income tax on an inherited retirement account lands on the Florida beneficiary just the same, and in most Florida estates it is the only tax anybody actually pays.

Inherited IRAs and 401(k)s are ordinary income

A traditional IRA, a 401(k), a pension and most deferred annuities are income in respect of a decedent. Nobody ever paid income tax on that money, and the tax does not disappear at death — it moves to you. Every dollar you withdraw is ordinary income on your own return, at your own rate.

The step-up in basis does not rescue you here

Most inherited assets receive a basis adjustment to fair market value at the date of death, which is why heirs can often sell a house or a stock portfolio with little or no capital gain. That relief has a carve-out, and it is the one that matters for retirement money. Internal Revenue Code section 1014(c) says of the step-up provision: “This section shall not apply to property which constitutes a right to receive an item of income in respect of a decedent under section 691.”

In other words, the basis adjustment does not reach income in respect of a decedent. And income in respect of a decedent is taxed to whoever acquires the right to it by reason of the death, keeping the character it would have had in the decedent’s hands — which is why the withdrawals discussed above come out as ordinary income rather than as capital gain on a stepped-up asset.

We flag this because two true statements sitting side by side — “inherited assets get a step-up” and “retirement account withdrawals are taxable” — read as a contradiction, and families reconcile them by assuming the retirement account was stepped up too. Whether a particular asset of yours falls inside or outside the carve-out is worth confirming on the specific asset rather than assumed either way.

We flag this because two true statements sitting side by side — “inherited assets get a step-up” and “IRA withdrawals are taxable” — read as a contradiction, and beneficiaries reconcile them by assuming the IRA got stepped up too. It did not.

The 10-year rule, and the trap inside it

Most beneficiaries must empty an inherited retirement account within ten years. The deadline is not ten years from the day of death — it is December 31 of the calendar year containing the tenth anniversary of the owner’s death. A death anywhere in 2026 means the account must be fully distributed by the end of 2036.

A narrower group, called eligible designated beneficiaries, escapes the ten-year rule and may stretch distributions over life expectancy. As of the owner’s death, that means:

• the owner’s surviving spouse;
• a child of the owner who has not reached age 21;
• a beneficiary who is disabled within the regulation’s meaning;
• a beneficiary who is chronically ill within the regulation’s meaning; and
• an individual not more than 10 years younger than the owner.

An adult child is not on that list. Neither is a sibling more than ten years younger, or a niece or nephew.

Here is the trap, and it is new enough that a lot of published advice is still wrong about it. Whether you also owe an annual distribution during those ten years depends on something most families have never heard of — whether the owner died on or after his or her required beginning date, the point at which the owner’s own required minimum distributions had to start:

The July 2024 final regulations settled this after years of uncertainty, and they apply to distribution calendar years beginning on or after 1 January 2025 — so they fully govern 2026. The transitional relief the IRS had granted for missed distributions in 2021 through 2024 has run out.

Missing a required distribution carries an excise tax of 25 percent of the shortfall, paid by the beneficiary. That drops to 10 percent if you take a corrective distribution and file during the statutory correction window, which runs until the earliest of a notice of deficiency, assessment, or the last day of the second taxable year beginning after the year the tax was imposed.

Inherited Roth accounts get the better version of the rule

An inherited Roth IRA is still subject to the ten-year rule, but because a Roth owner is always treated as having died before the required beginning date, no annual distributions are forced during the ten years. A non-eligible beneficiary simply has to empty the account by the end of the tenth-anniversary year. That is the more favorable of the two variants, and it means the order in which you draw down a mix of inherited traditional and Roth accounts matters.

A surviving spouse has options nobody else has

A sole-beneficiary surviving spouse may elect to be treated as the owner of the account — with an IRA, she may simply treat it as her own — which resets the timetable to her own required beginning date and her own life expectancy. Even without that election, a sole-beneficiary spouse may delay the start of life-expectancy distributions until the end of the calendar year in which the deceased owner would have reached the applicable age. This is flexibility a non-eligible beneficiary confined to the ten-year window does not have, and it is a reason to look closely at beneficiary designations while both spouses are living.

Getting this wrong is expensive in two directions — a missed distribution carries the excise tax above, and collapsing an account faster than required pushes the income into a higher bracket than necessary. This is the one part of a Florida inheritance where the timing is genuinely within your control.

The deduction for estate tax paid on inherited retirement money

If federal estate tax was actually paid on the account, section 691(c) allows the beneficiary an income tax deduction for the estate tax attributable to that income as it is recognized. This deduction is expressly excepted from the miscellaneous itemized deduction category by section 67(b)(7), so neither the two-percent floor nor the permanent suspension of miscellaneous itemized deductions applies to it. It survived the 2025 legislation intact.

One caveat that most write-ups omit: it is still an itemized deduction, claimed on Schedule A. A beneficiary who takes the standard deduction cannot use it. Being excepted from the two-percent floor does not make it an above-the-line deduction. For most beneficiaries of most estates — where no federal estate tax was paid at all — this deduction is simply unavailable.

Tax 3: The Property Tax Increase on an Inherited Florida Home

This is the most concrete “tax heirs still pay” in Florida, and we have not found it covered on a single competing inheritance tax page. If your parents owned their Florida home for twenty years, the property tax bill you inherit is very likely not the bill they were paying.

How the Save Our Homes cap works, and why death breaks it

Article VII, section 4(d) of the Florida Constitution limits annual increases in the assessed value of homestead property to the lower of three percent or the change in the Consumer Price Index. Over a long ownership, that cap builds a large gap between the home’s market value and its assessed value.

The same constitutional scheme then provides that after a change of ownership the homestead is reassessed at just value. Section 193.155(3)(a), Florida Statutes, implements it: property assessed under that section “shall be assessed at just value as of January 1 of the year following a change of ownership,” and a change of ownership means “any sale, foreclosure, or transfer of legal title or beneficial title in equity to any person” — subject to a closed list of exceptions.

The five exceptions, and what is not on the list

The assessment limitation survives death only in these situations:

1. The same person is entitled to the homestead exemption before and after the transfer, and the transfer is to correct an error, is between legal and equitable title with no new applicant, adds grantees to an instrument where the owner is both grantor and grantee (though an added grantee who applies for homestead is a change of ownership), removes joint tenants with rights of survivorship as grantors, or involves a qualifying lessee.
2. Title is changed or transferred between husband and wife, including to a surviving spouse, or on dissolution of marriage.
3. The transfer occurs by operation of law to the surviving spouse or minor child or children under section 732.401.
4. Upon the owner’s death, the transfer is to someone who is a permanent resident of the property and legally or naturally dependent upon the owner.
5. Joint tenants with rights of survivorship, where one or more owners had the exemption, an owner dies, and the surviving owner or owners continue to qualify.

Notice what is absent. There is no general exception for an heir who inherits the property and continues to live there. The list is closed.

The result for an adult child who inherits the family home

An adult child who is not disabled and was not financially dependent on the parent, who inherits the Florida homestead outright under the parent’s will and moves in as a permanent resident, does not inherit the parent’s accumulated Save Our Homes differential. The property is reassessed at just value as of the January 1 following the death, and a new cap begins running from that reset base. She can and should apply for homestead exemption in her own right going forward — but that gives her a fresh baseline, not her parent’s.

On a long-held South Florida home, this can multiply the annual property tax bill. It is frequently the largest single financial consequence of an inheritance that involves no estate tax at all.

Common structures, and how each is treated

One honest caveat. No Florida appellate decision we are aware of separately parses the Save Our Homes treatment of the descendants’ fractional remainder interests in the life-estate scenario, so that piece is less settled than the surviving spouse’s. The statute is the controlling authority throughout, and it is written as a closed list of exceptions.

Portability does not help an heir

Florida’s assessment portability applies to a person who establishes a new homestead and who received a homestead exemption on a prior homestead in one of the three preceding years, measured by the difference between just value and assessed value of that person’s own immediate prior homestead. An heir who simply receives inherited property has not transferred anything of her own, and portability is not a mechanism for preserving a decedent’s differential. An heir who already had her own prior homestead can port that benefit onto the inherited property — but it is her accumulated benefit, not her parent’s.

Tax 4: The Florida Estate’s Own Income Tax

A Florida estate is a separate taxpayer while it is being administered. If assets generate income during administration — rent from a Florida rental property, dividends, interest, or a gain on a sale above the date-of-death value — the estate reports it on Form 1041. Income distributed to beneficiaries is carried out to them on Schedule K-1 and taxed on their own returns instead. Florida imposes no income tax on the estate or on the beneficiaries, so this is a federal filing only.

Florida personal representatives get caught by this in two ways. First, they overlook it entirely, because they are thinking about the decedent’s final Form 1040 and not about the estate as a new entity. Second, they distribute everything before year-end without considering how the income is allocated. Where a Florida homestead is being rented during a long administration, or the estate is selling real property, this matters more than people expect. It is worth coordinating with the estate’s accountant early rather than at filing time.

Tax 5: Out-of-State Property in a Florida Estate

Florida’s zero rate covers Florida. It does not follow the family across a state line, and this is the gap that catches Florida estates with a lake house up north or a beneficiary who moved here.

Two situations come up constantly in Florida administrations, and they work differently:

• A Florida decedent who owned real property in another state. Real property is generally taxed where it sits, not where the owner lived. Florida domicile does not shelter it, and the out-of-state parcel will often require ancillary administration in that state alongside the Florida probate. We handle the Florida side and coordinate the ancillary proceeding.
• A Florida beneficiary inheriting from a decedent who died elsewhere. Some states tax the beneficiary based on the beneficiary’s relationship to the decedent rather than taxing the estate. Living in Florida does not exempt you from that state’s tax. Florida also has no credit or offset to give you, because Florida collects nothing to credit against.

Which states impose such a tax, and at what rates, has changed recently, so treat any list you find on an older page with suspicion. If your Florida estate touches another state, that state’s rule is a question to answer specifically rather than from a general article — including this one.

Non-U.S. Citizens Who Own Florida Property: $60,000, Not $15 Million

South Florida real estate is owned by people from all over the world, and for an owner who is neither a U.S. citizen nor a U.S. resident for estate tax purposes, the numbers on this page do not apply. This is the single largest and least understood estate tax exposure in Florida, and it routinely comes as a shock to families after a death rather than before one.

The exemption is $60,000

Internal Revenue Code section 2102(b)(1) provides that “a credit of $13,000 shall be allowed against the tax imposed by section 2101.” That $13,000 credit shelters the estate tax on the first $60,000 of U.S.-situated assets — because $13,000 is exactly the tentative tax on $60,000 under the rate schedule.

The 40% rate applies above that. On a Coral Gables or Fort Lauderdale condominium worth well into seven figures, the exposure is not marginal — it is most of the equity. Note too that the $13,000 credit is reduced by any gift tax unified credit the decedent already used on lifetime gifts.

How the property is titled decides almost everything

Only U.S.-situated property is counted, and situs turns on the holding structure rather than on the location of the real estate alone:

Two warnings on that table. First — and this is the most common and most expensive misconception in this entire area — a single-member LLC does not block U.S. situs. It is disregarded, so the owner is treated as holding the real estate directly and the whole value is exposed against a $60,000 exemption. Many foreign buyers are told an LLC solves this. It does not.

Second, the partnership route is genuinely unsettled. The regulations supply no answer and the IRS has historically argued for a place-of-business or member-domicile theory, so a partnership interest should not be relied on as a situs shield without treaty support.

A properly structured foreign blocker can remove the asset from the U.S. gross estate entirely — but only if it is put in place correctly and before death, and only with open eyes about the income tax cost, which includes losing the basis step-up and FIRPTA on any later sale. That trade-off has to be run on the actual numbers, not assumed either way.

Deductions are pro-rated, and claiming them means disclosing everything

A nonresident non-citizen estate cannot deduct its funeral costs, administration expenses, debts and mortgage liabilities in full. Section 2106(a)(1) allows only the proportion that U.S.-situated assets bear to the entire worldwide gross estate. So an estate that is 20% American deducts 20% of those costs.

And there is a condition attached that surprises families: no such deduction is allowed at all unless the executor discloses, on the return, the value of the decedent’s entire estate located outside the United States. Claiming even a proportionate mortgage deduction requires putting the worldwide estate on a U.S. filing. That is a decision worth making deliberately.

Form 706-NA and the nine-month deadline

A return is required if the U.S.-situated portion of the gross estate exceeds $60,000 — reduced, but not below zero, by post-1976 adjusted taxable gifts and the pre-1977 specific exemption. The return is Form 706-NA, filed by the executor or personal representative, and it is due nine months after death. A request to extend the time to file is made on Form 4768, and the current Form 706-NA and Form 4768 instructions should be checked for how the extension operates on this return.

Whatever the filing extension does, it does not move the payment date. Interest and late-payment penalties run on tax unpaid at the original due date. Estates routinely secure an extension, assume the money can wait, and find out otherwise.

A treaty can replace $60,000 with something far larger

This is the most valuable and most frequently missed relief in the area. Where an estate tax treaty so provides, section 2102(b)(3)(A) substitutes for the flat $13,000 credit a pro-rated share of the credit a U.S. citizen would get — the full credit keyed to the $15,000,000 exemption, multiplied by the ratio of U.S.-situated assets to the worldwide estate. For an owner whose Florida condominium is a small slice of a substantial estate abroad, that can be a multi-million-dollar shelter in place of $60,000. The estate uses whichever produces the lower tax.

The United States has estate or death tax treaties with only a limited number of countries, and the terms differ substantially from one to the next — some allocate taxing rights by where the property sits, others by where the decedent was domiciled. Whether a treaty helps you is therefore a question about your specific country, and it has to be checked against the current Treasury and IRS treaty tables rather than assumed. Many countries have no estate tax treaty with the United States at all, in which case the $60,000 exemption is simply the number and the holding structure carries the whole weight of the planning. That is the first thing we establish for a foreign owner, because everything else follows from it.

A treaty position must also be disclosed — on Form 8833, attached to the return — and a return has to be filed to make the disclosure even where none would otherwise be due. Failing to disclose carries its own penalty. Losing a multi-million-dollar credit on a paperwork omission is an avoidable disaster and we have seen it happen.

What Florida itself requires: nothing

Florida imposes no estate or inheritance tax on such an estate. Section 198.03, the provision addressed to a nonresident’s Florida real property, measures the tax by the same repealed federal credit as the resident provision, so it computes to zero as well.

On filings, the ordinary rule in section 198.13 would require a Florida return from any estate that must file federally — which would include a Form 706-NA estate with Florida real estate — but the post-2004 relief discussed earlier removes that obligation, and section 198.32(3) means no lien attaches in the first place. Where a federal return is required, DR-313 rather than DR-312 is the correct affidavit. Recording it is generally unnecessary now that no lien attaches, though a title insurer may still ask for it as comfort.

Clearing title: ancillary administration is usually unavoidable

Florida real property titled in a nonresident decedent’s individual name generally cannot be conveyed with clear title through the foreign estate alone. Section 734.102 provides that where a nonresident dies leaving assets in Florida, a personal representative is entitled to ancillary letters, and the ancillary personal representative has the same power as any Florida personal representative to sell, lease or mortgage local property.

That is a real cost in time and money, and it is a strong practical argument — separate from the tax argument — for holding the property in a structure that avoids Florida probate at death.

If the surviving spouse is not a U.S. citizen

The unlimited marital deduction is denied outright where the surviving spouse is not a U.S. citizen, and the automatic half-inclusion rule for spousal joint tenancies does not apply either. Leaving Florida property outright to a non-citizen spouse produces tax at the first death that would otherwise have been deferred entirely.

This is exactly what happened in Boulis v. Blackburn, discussed above: because the surviving spouse was not a U.S. citizen her elective share failed to qualify for the marital deduction, so the elective share was taxable and apportionable — and the court noted the QDOT alternative.

A qualified domestic trust restores the deduction. The trust must require that at least one trustee be an individual U.S. citizen or a domestic corporation, and must bar non-income distributions unless that trustee can withhold the tax. Two things to understand about it:

• It defers, it does not exempt. Tax is imposed on distributions before the surviving spouse’s death and on whatever remains at her death, subject to income and hardship exceptions.
• Over $2 million in trust assets triggers a security requirement — a bank U.S. trustee, a bond in favor of the IRS equal to 65% of the trust’s fair market value, or a letter of credit. A QDOT of $2 million or less must instead generally cap foreign real property at 35% of assets.

There is one escape hatch and it is narrow: the deduction is available if the spouse becomes a U.S. citizen before the return is filed, having been a U.S. resident throughout the interim. And a QDOT can sometimes be created after death, but only by a transfer or irrevocable assignment made before the return is filed. Both are salvage operations, not plans.

For lifetime gifts, there is no marital deduction to a non-citizen spouse either — instead an enlarged annual exclusion applies, which for 2026 is $194,000.

The three mistakes that cost the most

1. Holding the Florida home directly or through a single-member LLC. The full date-of-death value exposed at 40% against a $60,000 exemption, usually in the belief that the LLC was doing something. It was not.
2. Leaving the property outright to a non-citizen spouse. Tax at the first death that a QDOT — or naturalization before the return was filed — would have deferred.
3. Filing and disclosure failures. Missing the nine-month deadline; assuming a filing extension defers payment; claiming full deductions without the pro-rata limit and its worldwide-disclosure condition; failing to document a treaty credit on Form 8833 and forfeiting the larger shelter; and overlooking that ancillary administration is needed before the property can be sold.

We handle these matters and we speak Spanish. If you are not a U.S. citizen and you own Florida real estate — or your spouse is not a citizen — the conversation is worth having before a purchase, and certainly before a death. Almost everything on this list is fixable in advance and very little of it is fixable afterwards.

One boundary worth stating: this page covers estate tax. It does not cover U.S. income tax on operating or selling the property, FIRPTA withholding on a sale, or gift tax on lifetime transfers of U.S. real estate — each of which can change the right structure, and all of which we look at together rather than separately.

Portability: The Deadline Most Widows Are Told They Missed

When the first spouse dies, any unused federal exemption can be preserved for the survivor by electing portability on a Form 706. Done properly, a married Florida couple shelters the full combined amount.

The election is normally made on a timely Form 706, nine months after death with a six-month extension available. But a great many Florida estates never file one, and for an understandable reason: no Florida estate tax was due, no federal tax was due, the estate may have qualified for summary administration or passed largely outside probate, and nobody told the family the federal return had any purpose at all. Families then learn years later — often when the surviving spouse is doing her own planning — that they believe they lost half the couple’s exemption.

Usually they did not. Revenue Procedure 2022-32 gives the executor of an estate that was not required to file — one where the gross estate plus adjusted taxable gifts did not exceed the exemption — a simplified, no-fee route to make a late portability-only election by filing a complete Form 706 on or before the fifth annual anniversary of the decedent’s date of death. The return must state at the top that it is filed pursuant to that revenue procedure to elect portability. It superseded an earlier procedure that had allowed only until the later of 2 January 2018 or the second anniversary of death, so the window is now considerably wider than older articles suggest.

The conditions are straightforward: the decedent was survived by a spouse, died after 31 December 2010, and was a U.S. citizen or resident at death; the executor was not required to file under the gross-estate test, disregarding any need to file for portability; and no return was filed within the ordinary time.

Once the fifth anniversary has passed, the simplified method is gone and the only remaining route is a private letter ruling — which carries a user fee and no guarantee. So the date of death is the whole question. If you are a surviving spouse and no estate tax return was filed when your husband or wife died, find out how long ago that was before assuming anything. Inside five years this is usually fixable.

One useful footnote for personal representatives: an executor who files a Form 706 solely to elect portability, for an estate not required to file, is not subject to the basis-reporting requirements that otherwise apply — no Form 8971 and no Schedule A statements to beneficiaries. The Treasury regulation says so expressly, and it includes an example directly on point. A late portability election does not change that, because the exception turns on the absence of a filing requirement rather than on timing. Consequently no failure-to-file penalties arise from not filing Form 8971 in that situation.

Common Myths About Florida Inheritance and Estate Taxes

Which Form Applies to Which Situation

How to Avoid the Death Tax in Florida

People search for how to avoid the death tax in Florida, and the honest first answer is that there is nothing to avoid: Florida levies no death tax at all. But that answer is unsatisfying because the question underneath it is real. Here is what is actually avoidable, ranked by how many Florida families it affects.

Avoidable by most families

• The property tax reset on an inherited home. The largest avoidable cost on this page for an ordinary Florida estate, and the one nobody plans for. Whether the Save Our Homes cap survives depends on who takes the home and how, and those are choices that can sometimes be made differently — before death, and occasionally in how a distribution is structured after.
• A lost portability election. Filing a Form 706 at the first spouse’s death when no tax is due costs the estate a professional fee and preserves an exemption worth millions later. Not filing is the single most common expensive omission in Florida estates.
• Income tax bunching on an inherited retirement account. The tax itself is unavoidable — the money was never taxed — but when it is recognized is partly controllable, and draining an account in one year at the top rate rather than spreading it is a self-inflicted cost.
• Apportionment surprises. Not a tax you avoid so much as a fight you avoid, by writing a tax clause that actually works. General “pay all taxes from the residue” language does not, and the cases on this page show why.

Avoidable only by larger estates

• Federal estate tax — through use of both spouses’ exemptions, lifetime gifting within the annual exclusion, irrevocable trust structures, and charitable planning. This only matters above the federal exemption, which excludes the overwhelming majority of Florida estates.

Not avoidable, and worth saying plainly

Florida residency does not avoid federal estate tax. Holding Florida real estate through an entity does not make a non-U.S. owner’s exposure disappear. And moving assets out of probate — into a trust, into joint names, onto a beneficiary designation — does not remove them from federal estate tax or from Florida’s apportionment scheme. Probate avoidance and tax avoidance are different projects, and conflating them is the most common planning error we see.

How We Approach Tax Exposure in a Florida Estate

We at Lorenzo Law work through this in a consistent order, because the answers build on each other:

1. Establish the gross estate. Everything, including non-probate assets and out-of-state property, since apportionment and the federal filing threshold both turn on it.
2. Determine whether a federal return is required, or merely useful. These are different questions, and the portability answer often makes a return worth filing when none is required.
3. Read the tax clause in every governing instrument. Not just the will — the trust too, and with attention to which instrument was executed last and whether the clause is genuinely express.
4. Identify the income tax exposure separately. Retirement accounts, the estate’s own income, and the basis position of each asset.
5. Check the homestead consequences before distributing. Who takes the home determines whether the assessment cap survives, and that is sometimes worth restructuring a distribution.
6. Flag out-of-state and non-citizen issues immediately. These carry the shortest deadlines and the largest surprises.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Florida have an inheritance tax?

No. Florida imposes no inheritance tax on beneficiaries, at any amount and at any relationship.

Does Florida have an estate tax?

No. Florida has no estate tax — none is due for anyone who died after December 31, 2004.

How much is inheritance tax in Florida?

Zero. There is no rate, no bracket and no threshold on inheritance tax in Florida, because the tax does not exist.

What is the Florida inheritance tax rate?

0%.

Is there a death tax in Florida?

Not a state one — there is no Florida death tax. The federal estate tax can apply to large estates, and the other four taxes described on this page can apply to any estate.

Is there inheritance tax in Florida for a spouse or children?

No. Florida does not tax an inheritance regardless of who receives it — spouse, child, sibling, friend or charity. Relationship affects the rate in the handful of states that do impose one; in Florida there is no rate to apply.

Does Florida have estate tax on a small estate?

No. Florida has no estate tax at any size, and the federal estate tax only reaches estates above the federal exemption.

Is there an inheritance tax in Florida?

No. There is no inheritance tax in Florida at any amount and for any relationship.

Does Florida have inheritance tax or estate tax?

Neither. Florida has no inheritance tax and no estate tax. Only federal estate tax can apply, and only above the federal exemption.

What is the inheritance tax in Florida?

There isn’t one. The rate is zero and there is no return to file with the State.

Why doesn’t Florida have an inheritance tax?

Article VII, section 5(a) of the Florida Constitution caps any state estate or inheritance tax at the amount the federal government allows to be credited or deducted. When the federal credit disappeared, the ceiling and the Florida tax both went to zero.

Was Florida’s estate tax repealed, or is it just dormant?

Dormant. Chapter 198 remains on the books; it simply computes to zero.

Is there a “probate tax” in Florida?

No. There is no tax on the act of probating an estate and no percentage of the estate payable to the state. Probate has costs — clerk filing fees, publication, attorney’s fees, personal representative’s compensation — but none of them is a tax and none goes to the Department of Revenue.

Does Florida charge a fee to probate an estate?

Yes, the clerk of court charges a filing fee, and it differs between formal and summary administration. That is a cost, not a tax.

How do I avoid the death tax in Florida?

There is no Florida death tax to avoid. What is genuinely avoidable is the property tax reset on an inherited homestead, a lost portability election, bunched income tax on an inherited retirement account, and an apportionment fight caused by a tax clause that does not work. Federal estate tax planning only matters above the federal exemption.

Does putting assets in a trust avoid the death tax in Florida?

A revocable trust avoids probate. It does not remove assets from the federal gross estate and it does not remove them from Florida’s tax apportionment scheme. Probate avoidance and tax avoidance are different projects.

Does dying without a will change the tax on an inheritance in Florida?

No. There is still no Florida inheritance tax or estate tax, and the federal exemption is the same. Intestacy changes who inherits, not whether the inheritance is taxed — though it can change exposure to the other taxes, because it changes who ends up holding which asset.

If there is no will, who bears the estate tax among the heirs?

Florida’s apportionment statute charges tax to the recipients of the taxed property, and in an intestate estate the intestacy statutes decide who those recipients are. There is also no governing instrument, so the statutory default applies in full with no possibility of a contrary direction.

Who inherits in Florida if there is no will?

The surviving spouse takes the entire intestate estate if there are no descendants, or if all the decedent’s descendants are also the spouse’s and the spouse has no other descendant. The spouse takes one-half if any of the decedent’s descendants are not the spouse’s, or if all are the spouse’s but the spouse has other descendants. Whatever does not pass to the spouse goes to descendants, then parents, then siblings and their descendants, then grandparents and aunts and uncles split between the paternal and maternal sides, then the kindred of the last deceased spouse.

Does a spouse automatically inherit everything in Florida?

Not always. The spouse takes everything only where there are no descendants, or where every one of the decedent’s descendants is also the spouse’s and the spouse has no other children. If either spouse has a child from another relationship, the surviving spouse’s share drops to one-half.

What if there are no relatives at all?

If the statutory order is exhausted with no qualifying taker, the estate escheats to the State of Florida and the proceeds are deposited in the State School Fund.

Does the homestead pass the same way as the rest of an intestate estate?

No, and this is the most important exception. Protected homestead is not part of the estate for purposes of distribution and passes outside probate entirely. Where the decedent is survived by a spouse and one or more descendants, the spouse takes a life estate with a vested remainder to the descendants, unless the spouse elects an undivided one-half interest as tenant in common instead.

How long does a surviving spouse have to elect the one-half interest in the homestead?

Six months after the decedent’s death, and it must be made during the spouse’s lifetime. It is perfected by recording a notice of election with the legal description in the county where the property sits, and it is irrevocable once made.

What does a surviving spouse or child receive before the shares are divided?

Exempt property — household furniture, furnishings and appliances up to $20,000 of net value, two motor vehicles, qualified tuition programs and certain death benefits — plus a family allowance for maintenance during administration capped at $18,000. Both come off the top and neither is charged against the intestate share.

Do the pretermitted spouse or pretermitted child rules apply when there is no will?

No. Both are triggered by omission from a will and both measure the omitted person’s share by what intestacy would have given. With no will there is nothing to be pretermitted, and the spouse and children take directly.

If there is no will, can anyone shift the estate tax burden?

No. An intestate estate has no governing instrument, so the statutory apportionment default applies in full with no possibility of a contrary direction.

Does the surviving spouse’s elective share change the tax?

The elective share bears its proportional share of the net tax under the apportionment statute’s catch-all. Since the 1999 rewrite of the elective share provisions, no Florida statute charges the surviving spouse with the additional tax her election produces.

How much can you inherit without paying taxes in Florida?

From Florida, any amount. The federal estate tax exemption for 2026 is $15 million per person, and income tax on inherited retirement accounts applies regardless of size.

What is the federal estate tax exemption for 2026?

$15 million per individual, $30 million for a married couple using portability.

Did the exemption drop to $7 million in 2026?

No. The scheduled reduction was removed by legislation enacted in July 2025.

What is the federal estate tax rate?

40% on the amount above the exemption.

If federal estate tax is owed, which beneficiary pays it?

Under section 733.817, each interest that generated tax bears its proportionate share, subject to the statute’s charging order and to any express direction in the governing instrument.

Can a will shift the estate tax burden onto one beneficiary?

Yes, but only by an express direction. General “pay all taxes from the residue” language has repeatedly been held insufficient.

Does the estate tax come out of my share or off the top?

It depends on whether your interest is residuary or nonresiduary and on the instrument’s tax clause. Tax attributable to nonresiduary devises is charged first to the residuary estate.

Do beneficiaries have to pay taxes on an inheritance?

Not to Florida. Beneficiaries do pay income tax on inherited retirement accounts, and can bear apportioned federal estate tax on a large estate.

Are jointly owned accounts and life insurance safe from apportionment?

No. The apportionment statute’s catch-all expressly reaches survivorship interests, life insurance, annuities and revocable trust property.

Do I pay income tax on an inherited IRA or 401(k)?

Yes. Withdrawals are ordinary income to you at your own rate.

Does an inherited IRA get a step-up in basis?

No. Income in respect of a decedent is expressly excluded from the basis adjustment.

Can I deduct the estate tax paid on an inherited IRA?

If federal estate tax was actually paid on it, yes — section 691(c) allows a deduction as the income is recognized. It is an itemized deduction on Schedule A, so it is unavailable if you take the standard deduction.

Does the estate have to file its own income tax return?

If it earns income during administration, yes, on Form 1041.

Will my property taxes go up if I inherit my parents’ Florida home?

Very likely, unless you fall within one of five narrow statutory exceptions. The assessment resets to just value on the January 1 following the death.

Can I keep my parents’ homestead exemption after they die?

You must qualify and apply in your own right. You do not inherit their exemption or their accumulated assessment cap.

What happens to the Save Our Homes cap when the owner dies?

It is extinguished on a change of ownership and a new cap begins from the reset assessment, unless a statutory exception applies.

Does a surviving spouse lose the cap?

No. Transfers to a surviving spouse, and devolution by operation of law to a surviving spouse or minor child, are excepted.

My parents put the house in a revocable trust — does that protect the cap?

Funding the trust during their lifetime is not a change of ownership. The later distribution out of the trust to an heir who is not within an exception is.

Can I use portability to keep my parents’ low assessment?

No. Portability applies to your own prior homestead, not to a decedent’s.

Do I pay capital gains tax if I sell inherited Florida property?

Possibly, but usually far less than expected, because most inherited property other than retirement accounts takes a date-of-death basis.

What is the step up in basis on inherited Florida property?

Generally fair market value at the date of death.

What is portability?

An election that lets a surviving spouse use the deceased spouse’s unused federal exemption.

My spouse died and we never filed Form 706 — did we lose portability?

Probably not, if it was within five years. Revenue Procedure 2022-32 allows a simplified, no-fee late portability election on a complete Form 706 filed on or before the fifth annual anniversary of the date of death, for an estate that was not required to file. After five years the only route is a private letter ruling.

How long do I have to elect portability late?

The fifth annual anniversary of the decedent’s date of death, and the return must say at the top that it is filed pursuant to Revenue Procedure 2022-32 to elect portability.

What is the deadline to empty an inherited IRA?

For most beneficiaries, 31 December of the calendar year containing the tenth anniversary of the owner’s death — so a 2026 death means the end of 2036.

Do I have to take money out of an inherited IRA every year?

It depends on whether the owner died on or after the date his or her own required distributions had to begin. If so, an annual distribution is required in each of the ten years. If the owner died before that date, nothing is required until the tenth-year deadline.

Who is exempt from the 10-year rule?

Eligible designated beneficiaries — a surviving spouse, a child of the owner under 21, a disabled beneficiary, a chronically ill beneficiary, and an individual not more than ten years younger than the owner. An adult child is not exempt.

What is the penalty for missing a required distribution?

An excise tax of 25 percent of the shortfall, reduced to 10 percent if you take a corrective distribution and file within the statutory correction window.

Does an inherited Roth IRA have to be emptied in ten years too?

Yes, but with no annual distributions required along the way, because a Roth owner is always treated as having died before the required beginning date. That makes it the more favorable version of the rule.

What if my spouse is not a U.S. citizen?

The unlimited marital deduction is not available. A qualified domestic trust is the usual planning response, and this needs attention well before a death.

I’m not a U.S. citizen and I own a Florida condo — what is my exposure?

Your exemption is $60,000, not $15 million, with a 40% rate above it — and only U.S.-situated assets are counted. The figure is fixed and is not inflation-adjusted. On a seven-figure condominium that is most of the equity, unless a treaty or the holding structure changes the answer.

Does putting my Florida property in an LLC protect it from U.S. estate tax?

Not if it is a single-member LLC. A single-member LLC is disregarded, so you are treated as owning the real estate directly and the full value is exposed. This is the most common and most costly misconception in this area. A multi-member LLC is treated as a partnership and the situs of a partnership interest is unsettled — it is not a reliable shield either.

What structure does remove Florida property from the U.S. estate?

Stock of a foreign corporation is not U.S.-situs, so a properly structured foreign blocker can remove the asset entirely — but only if put in place correctly and before death, and at an income tax cost that includes losing the basis step-up and FIRPTA on a later sale. It has to be modelled on real numbers.

Can a tax treaty increase my $60,000 exemption?

Yes, substantially. Where a treaty provides for it, the flat credit is replaced by a pro-rated share of the credit a U.S. citizen would receive — the full $15 million-based credit multiplied by the ratio of U.S. assets to your worldwide estate. The estate uses whichever result produces less tax.

Does my country have an estate tax treaty with the United States?

Only a limited number of countries do, and the terms differ from treaty to treaty — some allocate by where the property sits, others by where the decedent was domiciled. It has to be checked for your specific country against the current Treasury and IRS treaty tables. Where no treaty applies, the $60,000 exemption is the real number and the holding structure carries the planning.

Do I have to do anything to claim treaty relief?

Yes — the treaty position must be disclosed on Form 8833 attached to the return, and a return has to be filed to make the disclosure even if none would otherwise be due. Failing to disclose carries a penalty and can forfeit the credit.

What is Form 706-NA and when is it required?

It is the estate tax return for a nonresident non-citizen decedent, required where the U.S.-situated gross estate exceeds $60,000 (reduced by post-1976 adjusted taxable gifts and the pre-1977 specific exemption). It is due nine months after death, and an extension of time to file is requested on Form 4768.

Can the estate deduct the mortgage on the Florida property?

Only proportionately — in the ratio of U.S.-situated assets to the worldwide gross estate. And no such deduction is allowed at all unless the executor discloses the value of the decedent’s entire non-U.S. estate on the return.

Does Florida require anything from a foreign owner’s estate?

No Florida estate or inheritance tax and no required filing. Where a federal Form 706-NA is required, DR-313 rather than DR-312 is the correct affidavit if you choose to record one, though no lien attaches for a current death.

Can the Florida property be sold without a Florida probate?

Generally not, if it was titled in the decedent’s individual name. Ancillary administration under Chapter 734 is usually needed before clear title can be conveyed — which is a practical reason, separate from tax, to hold the property in a structure that avoids Florida probate.

What is a QDOT and do we need one?

A qualified domestic trust restores the marital deduction that is otherwise denied where the surviving spouse is not a U.S. citizen. It requires at least one U.S. citizen individual or domestic corporate trustee, and it defers rather than eliminates tax. Trusts over $2 million must also satisfy a security requirement — a bank trustee, a bond equal to 65% of asset value, or a letter of credit.

How much can I give my non-citizen spouse each year?

$194,000 for 2026. There is no unlimited marital deduction for lifetime gifts to a non-citizen spouse; the enlarged annual exclusion applies instead.

I live in Florida but inherited property in another state — do I owe inheritance tax?

Possibly, depending on the state. Living in Florida does not exempt you from another state’s tax.

Does Florida tax non-residents who own Florida property?

Florida imposes no estate or inheritance tax on anyone, resident or not. Federal tax and ancillary administration are separate questions.

Do I have to report an inheritance from abroad?

Receiving a large gift or bequest from a foreign person or a foreign estate triggers a U.S. reporting obligation on Form 3520 once the amount crosses a threshold. It is a reporting requirement rather than a tax — you do not owe tax on the inheritance itself — but the penalties for not filing are substantial, and a separate and much lower threshold applies to amounts received from foreign companies. If an inheritance is coming to you from outside the United States, get the threshold and the filing checked before the money moves rather than after.

When is Form 706 due?

Nine months after the date of death.

Can I get an extension to file Form 706?

Yes, an automatic six-month extension of time to file. It does not extend the time to pay.

Do I have to file anything with the Florida Department of Revenue when someone dies?

For a decedent who died on or after January 1, 2005, no return and no affidavit is required.

What is Form DR-312?

The Affidavit of No Florida Estate Tax Due, used where no federal estate tax return is required. It may be recorded with the clerk of court to remove any Florida estate tax lien.

My title company wants an Affidavit of No Florida Estate Tax Due — do I still need one?

You are not required to file it, but recording it is often the simplest way to satisfy a title objection, because the Department no longer issues nontaxable certificates for post-2004 decedents.

What is the difference between DR-312 and DR-313?

DR-312 is used when no federal estate tax return is required; DR-313 when one is required but no Florida tax is owed.

Do I have to send beneficiaries their basis information?

Only if the estate was required to file a federal estate tax return. A return filed solely to elect portability does not trigger it.

Speak With a Florida Estate Tax and Probate Attorney

Most of the exposure on this page has nothing to do with the tax people ask about. The Florida inheritance tax question resolves in one word. What comes after it — who bears an apportioned federal estate tax, whether a tax clause in a twenty-year-old will actually works, whether the family home’s assessment survives, whether a surviving spouse still has time to elect portability, whether a non-citizen owner has a problem — is where the money is.

We at Lorenzo Law are a Florida probate attorney and estate planning attorney practice handling probate, estate administration and estate planning throughout Florida, with offices in Coral Gables and Fort Lauderdale and matters in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Orange, Pinellas and counties across the state. We speak Spanish and regularly work with families and property owners outside the United States.

Call (305) 224-6811 or use our contact page to arrange a consultation.

Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Esquire — Florida Bar No. 107002. This page is general information about Florida and federal law, not legal or tax advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Tax figures and statutory provisions change; confirm current law for your situation before acting.