Tax and residency

US estate tax and domicile

Also called estate tax, domicile, non-domiciliary, US situs assets, situs.

US estate tax reaches the worldwide estate of a decedent who was a US citizen or a US domiciliary, and domicile is acquired by living in a place with no definite present intention of later leaving it, which a green card may evidence but does not by itself decide.

What it decides

26 U.S.C. 2001(a) imposes the tax on the transfer of the taxable estate of every decedent who is a citizen or resident of the United States, at rates topping out at 40 percent, and 26 CFR 20.0-1(b)(1) makes resident mean domiciled, adding that a person acquires a domicile by living in a place for even a brief period with no definite present intention of later removing from it. A domiciliary has the basic exclusion amount, which is $15,000,000 for 2026 after section 70106 of Pub. L. 119-21 and is indexed only from 2027. A non-domiciliary is taxed under 2101(a) on US situs property alone and gets a credit of just $13,000 under 2102(b), which shelters $60,000 of taxable estate. Situs then decides everything: shares issued by a domestic corporation are US property under 2104(a), irrespective of where the certificates are kept under 26 CFR 20.2104-1(a)(5), while most US bank deposits are not, under 2105(b). An EB-5 investor who has not yet moved can therefore be exposed on the US assets alone.

Governed by 26 U.S.C. 2001(a) and the 2001(c) rate schedule for the imposition and the 40 percent top rate; 2010(c)(3) as amended by section 70106 of Pub. L. 119-21 for the $15,000,000 basic exclusion amount and its inflation adjustment from 2027, confirmed at Rev. Proc. 2025-32 section 2.14; 2101(a), 2102(b), 2104(a) and 2105(b) for non-domiciliaries; 26 CFR 20.0-1(b)(1) for domicile and 20.2104-1(a)(5) for share certificates, both read through the eCFR renderer API on 5 August 2026. The statute alone does not carry the certificate rule, which is why the regulation is cited for that clause and not the Code.

Where this is explained properly

Pages here that go into us estate tax and domicile rather than mentioning it.

Related terms

Qualified Domestic TrustA qualified domestic trust is the trust described in 26 U.S.C. 2056A that preserves the estate tax marital deduction where the surviving spouse is not a US citizen, and it defers the tax until the property leaves the trust rather than cancelling it.
FIRPTAFIRPTA is the regime under which a foreign person's gain on disposing of a US real property interest is taxed as if it were effectively connected with a US trade or business, and the buyer must deduct and withhold 15 percent of the amount realized, meaning the gross price rather than the profit.
Nonresident alien and resident alienResident alien and nonresident alien are the two United States income tax statuses a non-citizen can hold: a resident alien is taxed on worldwide income and files Form 1040, while a nonresident alien files Form 1040-NR and is taxed only on income effectively connected with a United States business and on United States source passive income.
Lawful permanent residentA lawful permanent resident is a person lawfully accorded the privilege of residing permanently in the United States as an immigrant under 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(20), and it is the status an EB-5 case delivers: conditional for the first two years, then unconditional once Form I-829 is approved.
Pre-immigration tax planningPre-immigration tax planning is the practitioner label for steps an intending immigrant takes before the residency starting date, after which the same steps are taxed as those of a United States resident.

Checked against primary sources on 10 August 2026. Back to the glossary