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Delaware Estate Tax Rules
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Delaware Estate Tax Rules

Delaware repealed its estate tax for deaths after 2017. A $10 affidavit outlived it, and the federal return starts above $15,000,000.

By Settled Editorial

Delaware charges no estate tax on anyone who died after December 31, 2017. It charges no inheritance tax and no gift tax either. The only death tax that can still reach a Delaware estate is the federal one, and for a death in 2026 that starts above $15,000,000 of gross estate plus lifetime taxable gifts. Almost no Delaware family owes a dollar of it.

This page covers the three tax questions a Delaware executor actually meets: the repeal and the date it turns on, the $10 affidavit that outlived the tax and is still filed at the Register of Wills, and the federal return. It leaves the basis reset on inherited property alone, because that rule reaches far more families and deserves its own page. Read step-up in basis in Delaware for the tax a Delaware family is much more likely to pay.

The Repeal Runs Two Sentences, And The Second One Decides Who It Reaches

Delaware's estate tax died in a very short act. 81 Del. Laws, c. 52 began life as House Bill 16, was amended by House Amendment 1, and was approved July 2, 2017. Its whole operative text is this:

Section 1. Sections 1501 through 1507 of Title 30 of the Delaware Code are hereby repealed.

Section 2. This Act shall be effective for estates of decedents dying after December 31, 2017.

Section 2 is the sentence to read twice. The repeal turns on the date of death, not on the date a Delaware estate is opened, not on the date a house is sold, and not on the date the Register of Wills grants letters. A family opening a 2016 death in 2026 is still inside the old chapter.

Every section of the repealed chapter now carries its own tombstone. Open 30 Del. C. ch. 15 and §§ 1501 through 1507 each print the inline history line "repealed by 81 Del. Laws, c. 52, § 1, effective Jan. 1, 2018." The chapter had already been dying in pieces: § 1508, on the final settlement of an executor's account, went by 71 Del. Laws, c. 353, § 24 effective January 1, 1999, and §§ 1509 and 1510 went by 68 Del. Laws, c. 187, § 11 back in 1991.

Date of deathDelaware estate tax
On or after January 1, 2018None. Chapter 15 of Title 30 is repealed as to the estate.
On or before December 31, 2017The repealed chapter still governs. This page publishes no rate, exclusion or threshold for that band.

That second row is deliberate. The pre-2018 Delaware rate and exclusion were not read for this page, and guessing at a repealed figure would be worse than saying nothing. If you are settling a death from 2017 or earlier, take that year to a Delaware tax attorney or a CPA and have the repealed sections read in the authenticated Title 30 text.

The Other Two Death Taxes Went First

Delaware states its own answer in the chapter headings of Title 30, which is the cleanest evidence available because it comes from the Code rather than from a search box. The index reads:

  • Chapter 13. Inheritance [Repealed]. Its four subchapters, §§ 1301 to 1314, 1321 to 1327, 1341 to 1346 and 1351 to 1353, were repealed effective January 1, 1999.
  • Chapter 14. Gift Tax [Repealed]. Sections 1401 through 1409 were repealed by 71 Del. Laws, c. 130, § 1.
  • Chapter 15. Estate Tax [Repealed].

So a Delaware beneficiary owes nothing to Delaware on an inheritance, and a Delaware donor owes nothing to Delaware on a lifetime gift. The federal gift tax is a separate system, and it runs against the same $15,000,000 lifetime figure covered below.

The short version of the Delaware half, with the repeal chain set out as a table and the surviving $10 affidavit beside it, is on the Delaware estate tax page.

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The $10 Filing That Outlived The Tax

This is where most Delaware executors lose an afternoon. The tax is gone and the paperwork is not.

12 Del. C. § 2304 is headed "Estate tax returns or affidavits," and subsection (b) is the live half. Where no return is required under Chapter 15 of Title 30, and either real property passed to someone by joint ownership with right of survivorship or tenancy by the entireties, or letters have been granted in a county and the decedent owned real property, then an affidavit in a form approved by the Director of Revenue must be filed by the personal representative with the Register of Wills of each county where the real property sits. The Director may also require a copy to go to the Division of Revenue.

Three things follow from the words themselves.

  1. The trigger is real property. An estate holding only bank accounts, securities and a car meets neither condition in subsection (b). Executors often file anyway because a counter clerk hands them the form, which is harmless, but the duty attaches to land.
  2. The section sets no deadline. Nothing in § 2304 attaches a date, so treat it as part of closing the estate rather than as a clock running from the funeral. Our Delaware executor duties page covers where it falls in the order of work.
  3. The definition points at a repealed section. Subsection (b) identifies the filer as the personal representative "as defined in § 1501 of Title 30 [repealed]," and Delaware prints that bracket itself. The Code is telling you the definition it leans on has been struck.

Subsection (a) is the dead half. It says that where a Chapter 15 return was filed and the correct tax paid, the Director of Revenue files a certificate to that effect with the Register of Wills. For a modern death no such return exists, so no such certificate arrives.

Three Counties, Three Names, One Fee

Each county sets its own Register of Wills fees under 12 Del. C. § 2510, and each county named this filing differently. All three land on the same $10.

CountyWhat the fee schedule calls itFee
New CastleFiling Affidavit That No Delaware Estate Tax Return is Required$10
KentNo DE Estate Tax due Affidavit$10.00
SussexNo Delaware Inheritance Tax Due Affidavit$10.00 for all estates

New Castle publishes a second, separate charge of $20 for filing an Affidavit of Jointly Held Real Property, and a combined filing of that affidavit together with the no-estate-tax affidavit at $30. Ask which combination your county wants before you write the check, because the names on the counter do not match each other and none of them matches the statute's heading. The Delaware Registers of Wills page lists all three offices.

The Commission Section Still Points At A Chapter Gone Since 1999

One more artifact is worth recognizing on sight, because it reads like a live requirement and is not.

12 Del. C. § 2305(b) says no commission shall be allowed by the Court of Chancery to any executor or administrator who has not complied with the requirements of Chapter 13 of Title 30, and that the penalty does not apply until one month after notice by the Division of Revenue of the delinquency. Chapter 13 of Title 30 is the inheritance tax chapter, repealed effective January 1, 1999. The cross-reference survived the repeal of the thing it refers to. It is evidence that an inheritance tax once existed, and no evidence at all that one exists now.

The Federal Number For A 2026 Death

26 U.S.C. 2010(c)(3)(A) sets the basic exclusion amount at $15,000,000. Pub. L. 119-21, title VII, section 70106(b), enacted July 4, 2025, applied that figure to estates of decedents dying and gifts made after December 31, 2025.

The IRS publishes the filing threshold by year of death. Two of these years matter to Delaware for a reason beyond the tax itself.

Year of deathFiling threshold
2017$5,490,000
2018$11,180,000
2024$13,610,000
2025$13,990,000
2026$15,000,000

2017 is the last year a Delaware estate tax could apply. 2018 is the first year of the federal doubling. A Delaware family that crossed from one year to the other watched the state tax vanish and the federal bar rise by more than $5,000,000 in the same breath.

Section 6018(a) sets the measure. Paragraph (1) requires a return where the gross estate exceeds the basic exclusion amount in effect for the calendar year containing the date of death. Paragraph (3) does the work readers miss: it reduces that filing threshold, though never below zero, by the decedent's adjusted taxable gifts made after December 31, 1976 and by the specific exemption allowed under the repealed section 2521 for gifts made after September 8, 1976. Heavy lifetime giving lowers the bar the estate has to clear.

Paragraph (2) runs the other way, and it reaches a fact pattern Delaware sees often given how many out-of-state and out-of-country owners hold property here. A nonresident who was not a United States citizen files once the part of the gross estate situated in the United States exceeds $60,000. That is a beach house in Sussex County, not a fortune.

Above the threshold, the rate table at section 2001(c) tops out at $345,800 plus 40 percent of the excess over $1,000,000 of taxable transfer. Only the amount above the exclusion is reached, so no whole estate is taxed at 40 percent.

The return falls due nine months after the date of death under section 6075(a). Diary that on the day the family opens the estate. It runs from the death, not from the day the Register of Wills grants letters, and a Delaware probate is often not opened for weeks.

Section 2010(c)(3)(B) indexes the figure for a decedent dying in a calendar year after 2026, using calendar year 2025 as the base and rounding to the nearest $10,000. The number moves every January, so check the year of death rather than the year you are reading.

Plenty of older Delaware plans were drafted around a warning that the exclusion would be cut roughly in half at the start of 2026. That cut did not arrive. If a trust in your documents was built to catch a much smaller exclusion, it deserves a fresh read, because the structure may now trade away a basis step-up the family no longer needs to give up. Delaware estate planning is where that review belongs.

The One Reason A Small Delaware Estate Still Files

An estate nowhere near $15,000,000 has one good reason to file a Form 706, and missing it costs a surviving spouse real money.

Section 2010(c)(4) lets a surviving spouse inherit the deceased spousal unused exclusion amount, the part of the first spouse's exclusion that went unused. Section 2010(c)(5)(A) attaches the condition: the amount may not be taken into account unless the executor of the first spouse's estate files an estate tax return computing it and makes the election on that return. The election is irrevocable, and no election may be made on a return filed after the time prescribed by law, extensions included.

So the decision belongs to the first spouse's executor, at the exact moment when the estate obviously owes no tax and filing looks like wasted effort. Nothing in Delaware law raises the question, because Delaware has no death tax return to prompt the thought. Put it to a CPA before the nine months run out.

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Delaware Divides A Federal Bill With A Statute Of Its Own

12 Del. C. ch. 29 is the Estate Tax Apportionment Act of Delaware, adopted at 79 Del. Laws, c. 159. The name misleads people constantly, so read the definition first.

Section 2902(2) defines "estate tax" as a federal, state or foreign tax imposed because of the death of an individual, together with interest and penalties, and excludes an inheritance tax, an income tax, and any generation-skipping transfer tax other than one incurred on a direct skip taking effect at death. The chapter divides a tax some other government charges. It charges nothing of its own.

Section 2902(1) defines the apportionable estate: the value of the gross estate as finally determined for the tax being apportioned, reduced by claims and expenses allowable as deductions, by the value of any interest qualifying for a marital or charitable deduction or otherwise deductible or exempt, and by any amount added to the gross estate because of gift tax on transfers made before death.

The order of authority runs down a ladder.

  • The will first, section 2903(a)(1). To the extent a provision of the will specifically indicates an intent to direct apportionment, the tax is apportioned accordingly.
  • Then a revocable trust, section 2903(a)(2). Anything the will does not apportion goes to a provision of a revocable trust the decedent settled. Where two revocable trust instruments conflict, the most recently dated one prevails, and an amendment counts as the operative date only if the amendment itself carries an apportionment provision.
  • Then any other dispositive instrument, section 2903(a)(3), as to the property that instrument disposes of.
  • The statutory default, section 2904. Where no instrument controls, the tax is apportioned ratably to each person holding an interest in the apportionable estate.
  • A drafting limit, section 2903(c). An apportionment provision is ineffective to the extent it increases the tax apportioned to a person holding an interest in the gross estate that the decedent had no power to transfer immediately before signing the instrument.

Then come the collection tools, which decide how much of this an executor can handle without a lawsuit.

  • Section 2908 lets a fiduciary defer a distribution until satisfied that provision for the tax has been made, withhold from a distributee an amount equal to the tax apportioned to that interest, or require a bond as a condition of distributing. That is the cheapest remedy in the chapter, and it only works while you still hold the property.
  • Section 2909 lets the fiduciary collect from any person the tax apportioned to them, sets the order for chasing an uncollectible share (an interest in the apportionable estate not exonerated from the tax, then any other interest in the apportionable estate, then any interest in the gross estate), lets a domiciliary fiduciary recover from an ancillary personal representative, and caps what may be collected from any person at the value of that person's interest.
  • Section 2910 gives a person who paid more than their own share a right of reimbursement, and requires the fiduciary to enforce it on request.
  • Section 2911 puts the whole question in the Court of Chancery, which may be asked to decide it by the executor, a trustee, a transferee, a beneficiary of the gross estate, or anyone else the Court finds has enough interest to petition.

Two cautions on this chapter. Section 2914 delays part of it: sections 2903 through 2907 do not apply to the estate of a decedent who died on or within three years after January 1, 2014, and for those estates the law in force immediately before that date applies instead. A 2026 death sits well clear of that window.

And the chapter ships twice online. Delaware publishes one version headed "Effective until Jan. 1, 2014" and the live one headed "Effective Jan. 1, 2014." Both carry the same section numbers, and the address a reader would guess from the citation serves the superseded text at a normal 200 response with no warning inside the section body. Confirm the chapter heading says January 1, 2014 before quoting anything from it.

A revocable trust changes none of this. The property stays in the federal gross estate, and section 2903(a)(2) treats the trust as an apportionment instrument rather than a shelter. A Delaware revocable living trust sets out what the document does and does not do.

An Elective Share Makes A Delaware Executor Build A Form 706 Anyway

Here is the Delaware fact pattern that puts a full federal estate tax return in front of a family far below the threshold.

12 Del. C. § 902(a) defines the elective estate as the decedent's gross estate for federal estate tax purposes, whether or not a federal return is filed, less the deductions allowable under 26 U.S.C. 2053 and 2054, and with joint interests between the decedent and the surviving spouse counted at one half whenever they were created, including interests created before January 1, 1977.

Section 902(c) then says that in every case where an elective share petition has been filed, the personal representative shall prepare a Form 706 for the estate regardless of whether the form is required to be filed. Where no 706 is required, the representative uses the last form the Internal Revenue Service authorized. A copy goes to the surviving spouse by the latest of three dates: the extended due date for the Form 706, or 15 months from the date of death where no form is required, or three months after the elective share petition was timely filed.

So a Delaware spouse's election converts a federal form nobody owed into a mandatory piece of estate accounting. Budget for it the moment an election looks likely. Delaware surviving spouse rights covers the election itself.

What Lands In The Federal Gross Estate

The Internal Revenue Service counts everything the decedent owned or held certain interests in at death, at fair market value. For a Delaware family the gap between the probate estate and the gross estate is usually opened by the very tools chosen to skip the Register of Wills.

  • A recorded transfer-on-death deed. Delaware's transfer-on-death deed under 25 Del. C. ch. 2 moves the house outside probate, and the owner still owns the ground the day before death, so it sits in the federal gross estate. See Delaware transfer on death deeds.
  • Payable-on-death and beneficiary-form accounts. They skip the Register of Wills and they count here.
  • Joint tenancy, and read the deed before assuming it. 25 Del. C. § 701 says no joint tenancy in Delaware land is held or claimed under a grant, devise or conveyance to persons other than executors or trustees unless the premises are expressly granted to be held as joint tenants and not as tenants in common. Delaware supplies no survivorship by default, so the deed language decides. Where a married couple hold as tenants by the entirety, or are the only two joint tenants with right of survivorship, 26 U.S.C. 2040(b) puts half the value in the deceased spouse's gross estate whoever paid for it.
  • Retirement accounts and life insurance the decedent owned or controlled. Ownership drives inclusion, and a beneficiary designation does not undo it.

The Delaware numbers that do not answer this question are the shortcut thresholds. The 12 Del. C. § 2306 affidavit route runs to $50,000 of personal estate and picks a court route rather than a tax outcome. Being under it says nothing about a federal return, and being over it says nothing either. How to avoid probate in Delaware and the Delaware small estate affidavit explain what each route is for.

The Deductions That End The Question For Most Families

The marital deduction. Property left outright to a surviving spouse who is a United States citizen passes free of federal estate tax with no dollar cap, which is why most married couples owe nothing on the first death. 26 U.S.C. 2056(d) disallows the deduction where the surviving spouse is not a United States citizen, unless the property passes into a qualified domestic trust, and the same paragraph switches off section 2040(b) as well. With 2040(b) off, the general rule at 2040(a) takes over and pulls the whole value of jointly held property into the gross estate, except the part the survivor can show they paid for out of their own money. So the deduction can go and the joint property can be fully included, in one stroke, over citizenship. Section 2056(d)(2)(B) leaves a repair open: property counts as passing into a qualified domestic trust if it is transferred or irrevocably assigned to one before the date the return is filed.

The charitable deduction. Property left to a qualified charity comes off dollar for dollar.

Debts, funeral costs and the cost of administering the estate come off as well.

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The Tax Delaware Does Charge An Estate Is An Income Tax

Delaware taxes what an estate earns, not what it transfers, and the two get confused every filing season.

30 Del. C. § 1631 applies the Chapter 11 individual income tax to the taxable income of estates and trusts, and § 1632 makes the fiduciary compute and pay it. Section 1635 builds a resident estate's taxable income from its federal taxable income, modified by its share of the fiduciary adjustment, so the federal return comes first.

Four points are Delaware-specific enough to catch an out-of-state executor.

  1. Who counts as a Delaware estate. Section 1601(7) defines a resident estate as the estate of a decedent who at death was domiciled in Delaware. Everything else is a nonresident estate. Section 1605(b)(1) requires a return from a resident estate that must file a federal income tax return for the year, or would have to if the § 1106 additions were in its federal gross income, and that has not distributed or set aside for distribution to nonresident beneficiaries its entire modified federal taxable income. A nonresident estate files where it meets the same federal test and has income from sources within Delaware, which is how an out-of-state family ends up filing on rent from an inherited Delaware property.
  2. The deadline is a Delaware date. Section 1605(b)(3) sets the return at the thirtieth day of the fourth month following the end of the estate's taxable year, so a calendar-year estate files by April 30, not April 15. The Division of Revenue prints the same date in the Form FID-TAX instructions and applies the last day of the fourth month to a fiscal-year estate.
  3. The extension and what it costs. Form FID-EXT gives an automatic extension to October 15. It has to reach the Division of Revenue by April 30 along with payment of the balance of estimated liability, and any unpaid balance carries interest at one-half percent per month from the original due date until paid.
  4. Copies to the beneficiaries. Section 1605(b)(2) requires an estate that files to give each beneficiary a copy of the information the Director of Revenue prescribes, so build that into the same mailing as the federal Schedule K-1.

The rate schedule sits in 30 Del. C. § 1102(a), and reading the top of that section is a trap. Subsection (a) is a historical ladder of fourteen paragraphs, thirteen of which are closed by a "before January 1" clause, and the first one prints pre-1985 rates topping out at 13.5 percent. Only paragraph (a)(14), for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2013, is open-ended:

Delaware taxable incomeRate
Not over $2,000No tax
Over $2,000 to $5,0002.2%
Over $5,000 to $10,0003.9%
Over $10,000 to $20,0004.8%
Over $20,000 to $25,0005.2%
Over $25,000 to $60,0005.55%
Over $60,0006.6%

Section 1102 carries no inflation mechanism and no annual adjustment, so these brackets move only when the General Assembly moves them. Read the schedule for the filing year rather than carrying a rate forward from a page like this one.

A Domicile Fight Still Has A Delaware Statute

One live chapter survived every repeal around it, and it earns a mention because Delaware sits between two states that still tax at death.

30 Del. C. ch. 17, the Interstate Compromise or Arbitration of Death Taxes, runs §§ 1701 through 1706 and traces to 43 Del. Laws, c. 5. It applies where Delaware and one or more other states each claim to have been the decedent's domicile for death tax purposes and no court has decided the question. Section 1702 lets any executor or any taxing official elect to invoke the chapter by registered mail, and lets any executor reject that election within 40 days. Section 1703 lets the Secretary of Finance settle Delaware's side by written agreement, subject to State Tax Appeal Board approval. Section 1704 sends the domicile question to a board of arbitration whose majority determination binds Delaware and all of its judicial and administrative officials. Section 1706 limits the whole chapter to cases where every state involved has a substantially similar law.

Read it before assuming that a Delaware address by itself settles where a snowbird parent was domiciled. If the family owned property in a state that does charge a death tax, Delaware ancillary probate covers the rest of that fact pattern.

What A Delaware Family Should Actually Do

  1. Total the estate once, the federal way. Include the house, life insurance the decedent owned, retirement accounts, business interests and anything carrying a beneficiary form. If the total sits far below $15,000,000, no federal estate tax applies and no Form 706 is required on the threshold alone.
  2. Check the date of death before you say Delaware charges nothing. Deaths after December 31, 2017 are clear. A death in 2017 or earlier belongs with a Delaware tax professional.
  3. File the § 2304(b) affidavit if there was real property. It costs $10, it goes to the Register of Wills in each county where the land sits, and every county calls it something different.
  4. Read the will's tax clause before you distribute. 12 Del. C. § 2903 lets the instrument override the ratable default at § 2904, and § 2908 only helps while you still hold the property.
  5. Raise portability with a CPA inside nine months. The election is irrevocable, it cannot be made on a late return, and nothing in Delaware practice will remind you.
  6. Diary April 30 for the estate's own income tax. Form FID-TAX is due on a Delaware date, and Form FID-EXT has to be filed by that same date to buy the extension.
  7. Get help when the facts are hard. A closely held business, a non-citizen surviving spouse, a spousal election, property in a state that does tax estates, or a gross estate anywhere near the federal threshold are the cases where a CPA and an estate attorney earn their fee.

If you are settling a house rather than planning around a tax, selling inherited property in Delaware picks up from here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Delaware have an estate tax or an inheritance tax?

No to either one. The Delaware estate tax at 30 Del. C. §§ 1501 through 1507 was repealed by 81 Del. Laws, c. 52, § 1, and section 2 of that act reads in full: This Act shall be effective for estates of decedents dying after December 31, 2017. The act was approved July 2, 2017. The inheritance tax went earlier, 30 Del. C. ch. 13 having been repealed effective January 1, 1999, and the gift tax at ch. 14 went by 71 Del. Laws, c. 130. Delaware states all three answers in its own chapter headings, which read Inheritance [Repealed], Gift Tax [Repealed] and Estate Tax [Repealed].

If Delaware charges nothing, why did the Register of Wills ask for an estate tax affidavit?

Because the filing outlived the tax. 12 Del. C. § 2304(b) says that where no return is required under Chapter 15 of Title 30, and either real property passed by joint ownership with right of survivorship or by tenancy by the entireties, or letters were granted and the decedent owned real property, an affidavit in a form approved by the Director of Revenue shall be filed with the Register of Wills of each county where that real property is located. It costs $10 in all three counties, and each county gives it a different name. New Castle calls it the Affidavit That No Delaware Estate Tax Return is Required, Kent calls it the No DE Estate Tax due Affidavit, and Sussex still calls it the No Delaware Inheritance Tax Due Affidavit.

How large does a Delaware estate have to be before the federal estate tax applies?

For a death in 2026 the basic exclusion amount is $15,000,000 per person. 26 U.S.C. 2010(c)(3)(A) carries the figure, and Pub. L. 119-21, title VII, section 70106(b) applied it to estates of decedents dying and gifts made after December 31, 2025. The IRS filing threshold table gives $13,610,000 for 2024, $13,990,000 for 2025 and $15,000,000 for 2026. Section 6018(a)(3) then reduces that threshold, though never below zero, by the decedent's adjusted taxable gifts made after December 31, 1976 and by the pre-1977 specific exemption. A nonresident who was not a United States citizen files once United States property exceeds $60,000. The return is due nine months after the date of death under section 6075(a).

Who divides a federal estate tax bill among Delaware beneficiaries?

12 Del. C. ch. 29, the Estate Tax Apportionment Act of Delaware, does. Section 2902(2) defines estate tax as a federal, state or foreign tax imposed because of the death of an individual, so the act divides a tax another government charges. Section 2903 gives the will first say, then a revocable trust the decedent settled, then any other dispositive instrument as to its own property. Section 2904 supplies the default, which apportions the tax ratably to each person holding an interest in the apportionable estate. Section 2908 lets the fiduciary defer a distribution, withhold an amount equal to the apportioned tax, or ask for a bond.

Does a Delaware executor ever prepare a Form 706 for an estate that owes nothing?

Two situations call for it. 12 Del. C. § 902(c) is the Delaware one: in every case where an elective share petition has been filed, the personal representative shall prepare a Form 706 for the estate regardless of whether the form is required to be filed, and give the surviving spouse a copy by the latest of the extended 706 due date, 15 months from death where no form is due, or three months after the petition was timely filed. The federal one is portability. 26 U.S.C. 2010(c)(5)(A) says a surviving spouse may not use the deceased spousal unused exclusion amount unless the first spouse's executor files a return computing it and elects on that return, and the election cannot be made on a return filed late.

Does Delaware tax an estate at all?

Delaware taxes what an estate earns. 30 Del. C. § 1631 applies the Chapter 11 individual income tax to the taxable income of estates and trusts, and § 1601(7) defines a resident estate as the estate of a decedent who at death was domiciled in Delaware. The return is Form FID-TAX and the deadline is a Delaware date, not the federal one: § 1605(b)(3) sets it at the thirtieth day of the fourth month after the end of the taxable year, which is April 30 for a calendar-year estate. Form FID-EXT buys an automatic extension to October 15, and an unpaid balance runs interest at one-half percent per month from April 30.

Related Guides

This page describes Delaware and federal law broadly rather than advising on one estate. Tax outcomes turn on dates, deeds and figures that change from family to family, so take yours to a CPA or a tax attorney, and confirm anything procedural with the Register of Wills for the county where the person died.

Sources:

It is not legal advice.

Information current as of September 10, 2026

Settled Estate is not a law firm, and this content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Probate laws and procedures in Delaware can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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