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Rhode Island Estate Tax Guide
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Rhode Island Estate Tax Guide

Rhode Island taxes a 2026 estate above a $1,838,056 gross estate, and every estate files Form RI-706 within nine months. There is no inheritance tax.

By Settled Editorial

Rhode Island runs its own estate tax, and the line is far lower than the federal one. For a death on or after January 1, 2026, an estate becomes taxable once the gross estate passes $1,838,056. Below that line no tax is due, and the estate still files. Rhode Island charges no inheritance tax and no gift tax.

That split catches families off guard. R.I. Gen. Laws § 44-23-1 requires every executor, administrator and heir-at-law to file a statement with the tax administrator within nine months of the death, and the Division of Taxation routes all of them to Form RI-706. Here is how the threshold is built, why the number changes every January, what the nine-month clock actually costs when it slips, and why the estate tax lien is the reason so many inherited Rhode Island houses sit unsold.

Does Rhode Island Have an Estate Tax? Yes

R.I. Gen. Laws § 44-22-1.1(a)(4) taxes the transfer of the net estate of every resident or nonresident decedent, as a tax upon the right to transfer, for any death on or after January 1, 2015.

Two rules decide what Rhode Island can reach. Section 44-22-1.1(e) gives property a Rhode Island tax situs when it is real estate or tangible personal property physically here, or when it is intangible personal property and the decedent was a resident. Section 44-22-1.1(b) then cuts the tax for an estate holding property outside the state, multiplying it by a fraction whose numerator is the gross estate stripped of everything with an out-of-state situs and whose denominator is the whole gross estate. No deductions enter that fraction.

The threshold itself is measured on the gross estate. The Division of Taxation defines that as the full fair market value of assets before any deductions, and lists mortgages, debts and claims as deductions. A house with a large mortgage still counts at its full value when you test the filing threshold.

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The Threshold Moves Every January 1

Rhode Island writes the relief as a credit rather than an exemption, which is why the published number is never a round figure.

Section 44-22-1.1(a)(4) allows a Rhode Island credit of $64,400 against the computed tax, then adjusts that credit every January 1 by the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers published by the United States Department of Labor Statistics, measured as of September 30 of the prior calendar year, compounded annually and rounded up to the nearest $5. The statute never prints a year figure. The Division of Taxation publishes the resulting gross estate threshold, and the Form RI-706 credit chart publishes the matching credit.

Date of deathGross estate thresholdRhode Island credit
On or after January 1, 2026$1,838,056$87,940
2025$1,802,431$85,375
2024$1,774,583$83,370
2023$1,733,264$80,395
2022$1,648,611$74,300
2021$1,595,156$70,490
2020$1,579,922$69,515
2019$1,561,719$68,350

The date of death picks the row. Quoting the 2026 figure for a 2019 death overstates the threshold by more than a quarter of a million dollars and produces the wrong answer on both the tax and the filing.

Older deaths run on the earlier statutory bands: more than $850,000 for a death on or after January 1, 2010 under § 44-22-1.1(a)(3), and more than $675,000 from January 1, 2002 under § 44-22-1.1(a)(2).

How Rhode Island Computes the Tax

Section 44-22-1.1(a)(4) sets the tax at the maximum credit for state death taxes allowed by 26 U.S.C. § 2011 as that section stood on January 1, 2001, and expressly disapplies any scheduled increase in the federal unified credit under 26 U.S.C. § 2010 dated January 1, 2003 or later.

Congress repealed 26 U.S.C. § 2011 in 2014. Rhode Island froze the 2001 text before that happened, so the state schedule survived the repeal, and the Division of Taxation reprints the frozen table on page 21 of Form RI-706. Rates start at 0.8 percent of an adjusted taxable estate above $40,000 and top out at 16 percent above $10,040,000.

Here is the arithmetic behind the 2026 figure. Take a gross estate of $1,838,056 with no deductions, so the net taxable estate equals the gross estate. Form RI-706 subtracts a $60,000 exclusion on line 4, leaving an adjusted taxable estate of $1,778,056. The tax computation schedule charges $70,800 on the first $1,540,000 and 7.2 percent of the remaining $238,056, which comes to $87,940. The 2026 Rhode Island credit is $87,940. The two cancel and the estate owes nothing, which is exactly how the Division derives the published threshold.

Never compute a Rhode Island answer from a current federal rate table. The state stopped tracking federal law in 2001.

Every Estate Files Form RI-706

Section 44-23-1(a) puts the duty on every executor, administrator and heir-at-law: file a statement under oath with the tax administrator within nine months of the death, showing the full and fair cash value of the estate, the amounts paid out for claims, expenses, charges and fees, and the names and addresses of everyone entitled to take a share as a legatee or distributee.

Form RI-706 carries that statement. It replaced Forms RI-100 and RI-100A on January 1, 2022 for every death on or after January 1, 2015, so any checklist still naming Form RI-100A belongs to an older regime.

A non-taxable estate has three concrete reasons to file, and the Division names all three:

  • To discharge the statutory lien that attaches to every piece of Rhode Island real estate the decedent owned at death.
  • To obtain a notice of no tax due for probate court purposes.
  • To obtain a waiver releasing Rhode Island securities, including Rhode Island incorporated stock, state and municipal bonds, and mutual funds organized as business trusts doing business here.

The signed return goes in with a copy of the death certificate, a signed copy of federal Form 706 where the estate had to file one, and copies of any approved federal or Rhode Island extension. The Division requires a separate check for each decedent, so one check may not cover two filings.

The filing fee is banded by date of death, and the band changed recently.

Date of deathFiling fee
On or after January 1, 2025$0 (§ 44-23-1(c))
Before January 1, 2025$50 (§ 44-23-1(b))

Watch for a stale line here. The Division's own estate tax page answers the filing fee question with the correct split, then later lists "a check for the filing fee in the amount of $50.00" among the RI-706 attachments without the date qualifier. The statute governs.

The Nine-Month Clock, and What a Late Payment Costs

Section 44-23-16 makes every chapter 44-22 tax due and payable nine months after the date of death. Miss it and two meters start, and they behave differently.

Interest runs at the annual rate set by § 44-1-7 from the time the tax is due, determined without regard to any extension of time for payment. Section 44-1-7(b)(2) computes that rate each January 1 as the prime rate from the prior October 1 plus 2 percent, with a floor of 12 percent and a ceiling of 21 percent for periods on or after January 1, 2023. The Division of Taxation publishes the current rate as 12 percent a year.

The penalty is 0.5 percent of the tax per month to a maximum of 25 percent, and it is measured with regard to any extension of time for payment, unless the failure was due to reasonable cause and not willful neglect.

Read those two clauses side by side. An extension helps with the penalty and does nothing about the interest.

Section 44-23-3 lets the tax administrator grant an extension matching the one the Internal Revenue Service approved for federal Form 706, on written application. The Division describes a six-month filing extension requested on Form RI-4768, with a copy of the federal Form 4768 request attached where one exists. The Rhode Island probate timeline shows where the nine-month tax date lands against the rest of the court calendar, and filing on time sits inside the executor's filing duties.

Rhode Island Has No Inheritance Tax

An inheritance tax charges the person who receives the money. Rhode Island does not have one, and the chapter index for Title 44 is the cleanest proof: it lists chapter 44-22 and chapter 44-23 for estate and transfer taxes and carries no inheritance tax chapter at all. Chapter 44-24, the old Rhode Island gift tax, is printed as repealed across §§ 44-24-1 through 44-24-18.

So a beneficiary who inherits $200,000 from a Rhode Island estate writes no check to the state for receiving it. Money that an inherited account earns after the death is different, and it is ordinary taxable income to whoever receives it.

One more transfer tax sits in the same title and rarely bites. Chapter 44-40 imposes a Rhode Island generation-skipping transfer tax, and § 44-40-3(a) sets it at the amount allowable as a credit for state legacy taxes under 26 U.S.C. § 2604. Congress repealed § 2604 in 2014, and the Division of Taxation lists no generation-skipping return among its estate tax forms.

The Lien That Stalls a Closing

This is where the tax stops being abstract for most families.

Section 44-23-9(a) makes the tax a lien upon the estate until it is paid, and holds every executor, administrator and trustee personally liable for it until it is paid. Section 44-23-12 then puts it on the public record: once a filed statement shows the decedent owned real property, the tax administrator notifies the recorder of deeds or the clerk of the city or town where the land sits, and that officer notes the decedent's name in the land evidence records along with the fact that all real property belonging to the decedent carries a lien.

Two forms clear it, and both ride along with the return rather than travelling on their own. Form T-77 discharges the lien on real property and must be filed in triplicate, typed, with the real estate described exactly as the tax assessor describes it on the city or town property tax bill. Form T-79 waives the lien on Rhode Island securities and is filed in duplicate. The Division will not process either one if it is incomplete, and it may charge a fee for a corrective discharge.

Section 44-23-38 ends the lien on real estate ten years after the death, regardless of the date of death. Ten years is a long time to sit on an unsellable house, so ask for the discharge before you sign a purchase and sale agreement. The guide on selling inherited property in Rhode Island walks the closing itself.

The tax also gates the end of the case. Under § 44-23-36 the probate court may not allow a fiduciary's final account unless the account shows, and the court finds, that all chapter 44-22 taxes then payable have been paid, that payment has been extended, or that the property is not liable. The tax administrator's receipt is conclusive as to payment, and the administrator's certificate that an estate is not liable is conclusive of that fact. That certificate is the clearance the probate court needs before anything closes.

Who Actually Pays the Tax

Before working out whose share it comes from, settle whether there is a bill at all: run the estate through the Rhode Island estate tax calculator.

The estate writes the check. Chapter 44-23.1, the Uniform Estate Tax Apportionment Act, decides whose share it comes out of.

Section 44-23.1-2 apportions the tax among all persons interested in the estate, in the proportion each person's interest bears to the total of all interests, unless the will provides otherwise. A tax clause in the will overrides that default, which is why the will is the first document to read when beneficiaries start arguing about the bill.

Section 44-23.1-5 keeps the arithmetic fair. Any exemption or deduction allowed because of a person's relationship to the decedent, or because of the purpose of a gift, benefits the person holding that relationship or receiving that gift. Credits for foreign death taxes spread proportionately across everyone subject to apportionment.

Section 44-23.1-7 protects the fiduciary who has to collect. No duty to sue anyone arises until three months after the tax is finally determined, and a fiduciary who sues within one year after that three-month window carries no surcharge for a share that became uncollectible. Anything that cannot be collected comes out of the residuary estate first.

Where the Federal Estate Tax Fits

The federal exclusion sits far above the Rhode Island line. The Internal Revenue Service puts it at $15,000,000 for a death during 2026, up from $13,990,000 for 2025, under 26 U.S.C. § 2010(c)(3). Above the applicable exclusion, the rate schedule in 26 U.S.C. § 2001(c) tops out at 40 percent, and 26 U.S.C. § 6075(a) puts the federal return due nine months after the death.

So a Rhode Island estate between roughly $1.8 million and $15 million owes Rhode Island estate tax and owes the federal government nothing. That gap is the normal case here, and it is the reason a family that has been told "the estate tax only hits the very rich" still gets a Rhode Island bill.

Two federal features do not carry across.

Portability is the first. Federal law lets a surviving spouse add the deceased spousal unused exclusion amount on top of the ordinary exclusion under 26 U.S.C. § 2010(c)(2). Section 44-22-1.1 says nothing about transferring an unused Rhode Island credit to a surviving spouse, so an inherited federal exclusion does not raise the Rhode Island line. The Rhode Island surviving spouse rights guide covers the statutory shares that sit alongside the tax question.

The deduction runs the other way. Where an estate is large enough to file federally, 26 U.S.C. § 2058 lets it deduct the state estate tax it actually paid from the value of the federal gross estate.

What Lowers a Rhode Island Bill and What Does Not

Start with what does nothing. A funded revocable living trust keeps assets out of the probate court and leaves every dollar inside the gross estate, because the person who created it kept control until death. The how to avoid probate in Rhode Island guide covers the split families miss: probate avoidance and estate tax reduction are two separate projects, and only one of them is solved by a trust.

What does move the number:

  • Property outside Rhode Island. Section 44-22-1.1(b) reduces the tax by the out-of-state share of the gross estate. A nonresident who owned only a Newport beach house is taxed on that house, not on a lifetime of assets held elsewhere. The Rhode Island ancillary probate guide covers the court side of a nonresident filing.
  • Deductions the federal definitions carry in. Section 44-22-1.1(c)(2) gives "net taxable estate" the meaning it carries in federal law as of January 1, 2001, so the marital and charitable deductions reach the Rhode Island number through Form RI-706.
  • Values fixed once. Section 44-22-1.1(d) says all values are as finally determined for federal estate tax purposes, so the date-of-death valuation you file drives both returns and later drives the basis rule inheritors actually use when they sell.

Lifetime giving needs care rather than optimism. Rhode Island repealed its gift tax and adds no state add-back of its own, and the federal rules that pull certain transfers back into the gross estate still apply through the federal definitions the chapter borrows.

When to Bring In a Professional

Call an estate tax attorney or a CPA when the gross estate is anywhere near the published threshold, because a valuation swing of a few thousand dollars decides whether the estate is taxable at all. Call one when the estate holds a closely held business, farmland, or real estate in more than one state, since the § 44-22-1.1(b) fraction has to be computed rather than guessed. Call one when the decedent died in the first days of January, because the threshold and the credit both changed on the 1st.

For an estate comfortably under the line, Form RI-706 is a document-gathering job. Pull the date-of-death values, attach the death certificate, file within nine months with the Division of Taxation in Providence, and get the T-77 discharge back before you list the house. For everything the court expects alongside the tax filing, start with the Rhode Island probate guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Rhode Island have an estate tax?

Yes. R.I. Gen. Laws § 44-22-1.1(a)(4) imposes a tax on the transfer of the net estate of every resident or nonresident decedent as a tax upon the right to transfer. For a death on or after January 1, 2015 the tax equals the federal credit for state death taxes as 26 U.S.C. § 2011 stood on January 1, 2001, reduced by a Rhode Island credit. The Division of Taxation puts the resulting gross estate threshold at $1,838,056 for a 2026 death. Rhode Island charges no inheritance tax.

What is the Rhode Island estate tax threshold for 2026?

A gross estate of more than $1,838,056 for a death on or after January 1, 2026. The figure moves every January 1, because § 44-22-1.1(a)(4) adjusts the Rhode Island credit by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers measured as of September 30 of the prior year, compounded annually and rounded up to the nearest $5. Gross estate means the full fair market value of assets before any deductions, so a mortgage lowers the taxable estate and never lowers the threshold. The 2025 figure is $1,802,431 and the 2024 figure is $1,774,583.

Does every Rhode Island estate have to file Form RI-706?

Yes, for a death on or after January 1, 2015, whether or not any tax is due. R.I. Gen. Laws § 44-23-1(a) requires every executor, administrator and heir-at-law to file a statement under oath with the tax administrator within nine months of the death. Form RI-706 replaced Forms RI-100 and RI-100A entirely on January 1, 2022, so any page still naming Form RI-100A is out of date. A non-taxable estate files to discharge the statutory lien on real estate, to get a notice of no tax due for the probate court, and to release Rhode Island securities.

Does Rhode Island have an inheritance tax?

No. An inheritance tax charges the person who receives money, and Rhode Island does not levy one. The chapter index for Title 44 lists chapter 44-22 and chapter 44-23 for estate and transfer taxes and carries no inheritance tax chapter, and chapter 44-24, the old Rhode Island gift tax, is printed as repealed. A beneficiary owes Rhode Island nothing for receiving an inheritance. Income that an inherited account earns after the death is ordinary taxable income to whoever receives it.

When is the Rhode Island estate tax due, and what happens if it is late?

Nine months after the date of death. R.I. Gen. Laws § 44-23-16 makes every chapter 44-22 tax due and payable on that date, charges interest at the annual rate set by § 44-1-7 from the time the tax is due without regard to any extension of time to pay, and adds a penalty of 0.5 percent of the tax per month to a maximum of 25 percent unless the failure was due to reasonable cause and not willful neglect. The Division of Taxation publishes the current interest rate as 12 percent a year. Form RI-4768 buys six more months to file, and interest keeps running.

How do I clear the Rhode Island estate tax lien before selling an inherited house?

File Form T-77 with the Rhode Island estate tax return, in triplicate. R.I. Gen. Laws § 44-23-9(a) makes the tax a lien upon the estate until it is paid and holds executors, administrators and trustees personally liable for it. Under § 44-23-12 the tax administrator tells the recorder of deeds or the clerk of the city or town where the land sits, who notes in the land evidence records that all the decedent's real property carries a lien. Form T-79 releases Rhode Island securities. Section 44-23-38 ends the lien on real estate ten years after the death.

This guide is general information about the Rhode Island estate tax, not advice for your situation. Thresholds and the Rhode Island credit change every January 1, and the answer for your family turns on the date of death and on values you have not yet fixed, so confirm anything that affects you with the Division of Taxation's Estate Tax Section or with a licensed Rhode Island attorney or tax professional. For the rest of the series, head back to the Rhode Island probate hub.

Sources:

It is not legal advice.

Information current as of August 2, 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 Rhode Island can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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