Exemption & rate verified against primary sources · Updated August 27, 2026
Massachusetts Estate Tax in 2026: Exemption, Rates & Calculator
Massachusetts overhauled its estate tax in 2023, raising the exemption to $2,000,000 and building in a credit that fully zeroes out tax at exactly that threshold — a meaningful improvement over the old law, where crossing the line by even $1 could trigger tax on the ENTIRE estate. The underlying calculation still runs through a decades-old federal credit table, not a simple bracket lookup.
Calculate Massachusetts estate tax for your situationHow Massachusetts taxes an estate
Massachusetts computes a tentative credit using a frozen pre-2001 federal 'state death tax credit' table (the same table several other states reference), applied to the taxable estate minus $60,000, then subtracts a fixed $99,600 credit — a number set by statute specifically to zero out a $2,000,000 estate. Because that credit table has its own bracket structure baked in, there's no single flat rate to quote, which is why this page shows a worked example instead of a bracket table.
Worked example
A $10,000,000 Massachusetts taxable estate produces a tentative credit-table amount of $1,067,600; subtracting the fixed $99,600 credit leaves $968,000 owed. At exactly $2,000,000, the same formula produces exactly $0 — the credit is calibrated precisely to that threshold.
Rules worth knowing
- Massachusetts's pre-2023 law had a genuine "cliff": exceeding the exemption by even $1 taxed the WHOLE estate, not just the excess. The 2023 law replaced that with the smoother credit mechanism described above — this page and the calculator model the current (post-January 1, 2023) law only.
- There is no Massachusetts estate tax liability at all below the $2,000,000 filing threshold.
Filing deadline
The federal Form 706 return, when required, is due 9 months after the date of death (IRC §6075(a)). Massachusetts's own Form M-706 has its own deadline — confirm the exact requirement with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue rather than relying on the federal date.
More on estate tax
For how federal estate tax works alongside state estate tax, the 2026 federal exemption, and spousal portability, see the full estate tax guide.