Federal Estate Tax Collected by State, FY2025: 28,495 Returns

What this table is, and what it is not

The IRS Data Book is the agency's yearly statistical report. Table 1-5 lists gross collections by type of tax and state for the federal fiscal year; Table 1-3 lists the number of returns filed by type and state. Three rules decide how to read it:

• Cash, not liability. Collections are what the IRS received in the year, “including penalties and interest in addition to taxes.” An estate that paid in fiscal 2025 may have filed earlier, and installment payments under section 6166 (see our estate tax installments page) arrive over years.
• Address, not necessarily residence. The Data Book says classification by state is based on the individual's address, and that “some individuals may use the address of a tax attorney or accountant.” A state's figure can include estates of people who lived elsewhere.
• All Form 706 returns, not only taxable ones. The Data Book counts the whole Form 706 series, including generation-skipping and nonresident returns. Under the 2026 Form 706 instructions an executor files when the gross estate plus adjusted taxable gifts is more than $15,000,000 or to elect portability, “regardless of the size of the decedent’s gross estate.” So 28,495 is a count of filings, not of estates that owed tax.

That last point matters when you compare this page with our estate tax exemption page, which uses the IRS Statistics of Income count of 7,195 returns filed in 2024 and 2,663 taxable ones. The Data Book's 31,516 for fiscal 2024 is a different, much larger count and the Data Book does not reconcile the two; we have not either. Use the Statistics of Income figures to ask how many estates pay, and this page to ask where the cash came from and how recently.

Which deaths do the fiscal 2025 filings reflect? The tax is due 9 months after death (Instructions for Form 706), so most payments in October 2024 to September 2025 relate to deaths in roughly 2024, when the basic exclusion amount was $13,610,000 (Rev. Proc. 2023-34, section 3.41), and early 2025, when it was $13,990,000 (Rev. Proc. 2024-40, section 3.41). That timing is our reading, not a Data Book statement. For 2026 deaths the figure is $15,000,000, so the filings and cash of fiscal 2027 and 2028 will come from an even narrower group.

The national picture: eleven years of collections

Source: IRS Data Book 2025, Table 1-6 (percentage changes are our arithmetic). Collections peaked at $33.78 billion in fiscal 2023 and have fallen two years running, while fiscal 2025 is still 56.7% above fiscal 2015 (our arithmetic). The fiscal 2019 drop comes after the temporary doubling of the exclusion for deaths from 2018 (our reading; see our estate tax exemption page).

All 50 states and DC, ranked by estate tax collected

Columns: gross collections in millions of dollars (Table 1-5), share of the US total, running share, estate tax returns filed (Table 1-3), and collections divided by returns (our arithmetic; read the caution below the table).

States and DC add up to $27.24 billion (96.8%) of the $28.14 billion; the other $901 million is not assigned to a state: $771.0 million undistributed, $122.8 million international, $6.8 million Puerto Rico and $0.5 million for military overseas and other territories. The Data Book defines undistributed as payments “not classified by state as of the end of the fiscal year because they had not been applied to taxpayer accounts.” Another 1,552 returns were filed from Puerto Rico, overseas and other territories (Table 1-3).

Caution on the last column. Dividing one year's cash by one year's filings mixes estates that paid with estates that only filed, and payments from earlier filings with this year's. It is a way to see which states look unusual, not an average estate tax bill. The extremes: North Dakota $92 thousand per return, Iowa $143 thousand, South Dakota $167 thousand, Delaware $216 thousand; Utah $2.19 million, Pennsylvania $1.79 million, Maine $1.79 million, Texas $1.77 million and Nevada $1.77 million.

Four things the ranking shows

1. Texas, not Florida, is second. Texas $2,964,653 thousand against Florida $2,950,856 thousand, a gap of $13.8 million (our arithmetic). Neither state is on our list of states with an estate or inheritance tax. Florida files more returns (2,261 against 1,672) but Texas pays more per return ($1.77 million against $1.31 million).
2. A state's own tax does not show up as a drop in federal collections. Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington, Connecticut and New York all have a state estate tax (see our pages on Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington and New York) and all sit in the top 11 for federal cash. The two taxes stack; this table cannot show how one affects the other.
3. Filing counts and dollars tell different stories. Illinois filed 1,266 returns, more than Texas, and paid $762.6 million; Utah filed 189 and paid $413.6 million, more than Maryland's $404.0 million on 653 returns. Large payments from a few estates can move a small state's rank.
4. Money is concentrated. Twenty states pay 82.9% of the cash; the 31 smallest pay 17.1% (our arithmetic on Table 1-5).

Gift tax returns by state

Form 709, the gift tax return, is filed far more often: 311,332 returns in fiscal 2025 against 313,197 in 2024, with $2.97 billion of gift tax collected (Tables 1-1 and 1-2). Most Form 709 filers owe nothing; they report gifts above the annual exclusion against the lifetime exemption (see our annual gift tax exclusion page). By state: California 35,898, Florida 31,073, New York 23,770, Texas 21,568, Pennsylvania 12,823, Massachusetts 12,200, Washington 10,999 and Illinois 10,925. The full 51-row list is in the CSV (section state_gift_returns).

Who gets audited: estate tax examination coverage

The Data Book tracks examinations by the year of the return and warns that “this percentage may increase in future years as additional returns are selected for examination.”

Source: IRS Data Book 2025, Table 3-1, snapshot as of September 30, 2025 for examinations and December 31, 2025 for returns filed. An asterisk means the value is carried from the prior year's Data Book. The IRS notes that tax year 2021 is the most recent outside the normal assessment period, so 2021 (2.6%) and earlier are close to final; 2022 and 2023 will rise. In fiscal 2025 the IRS closed 1,067 estate tax examinations, all by field examiners, and recommended $1,094,167 thousand of additional tax (Table 3-2), about $1.03 million per examination (our arithmetic). A return that is examined is not the same as a return with an error; the Data Book does not split these for estate returns in the table we used.

What a reader can do with this

• Do not read a state's rank as its estate tax rate. The table is IRS cash. Whether your own estate faces a state tax depends on your state's exclusion; start with our state-by-state list.
• Use the filing threshold, not the headline count. In 2026 an executor must file Form 706 when the gross estate plus adjusted taxable gifts and specific exemption is more than $15,000,000 or to elect portability. Our Form 706 walk-through covers the schedules for real estate.
• Expect scrutiny to be uneven. Past audit rates (4.9% for tax year 2019) are not a forecast for a return filed in 2027; the IRS says its own recent figures will rise.
• Plan for the cash. Tax is due 9 months after death; estates that are mostly real estate or fund interests often face a liquidity question, which is what the section 6166 installment rules address.

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice. The returns are prepared and signed by an estate-planning attorney or a CPA; an adviser can help with the money side of the same decision.

FAQ

Sources, read and saved on October 31, 2026: Internal Revenue Service Data Book 2025, Publication 55-B (Rev. 4-2026), Tables 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-5, 1-6, 3-1 and 3-2 (irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p55b.pdf); Instructions for Form 706 (Rev. July 2026) and Instructions for Form 709 (2025); Rev. Proc. 2023-34 and Rev. Proc. 2024-40 (irs.gov). The state-by-state table, shares, running shares, per-return figures, percentage changes and averages are our arithmetic.