Gift Tax Calculator United States

US gift tax rules sound alarming, but most gifts owe nothing. This gift tax calculator applies the 2026 figures to a gift to one person and shows how much the annual exclusion covers, how much taxable gift reduces your lifetime exemption, and whether any tax is actually due.

The annual exclusion comes first

Each year you can give a set amount to as many people as you like with no tax and no paperwork. For 2026 the per-recipient annual exclusion is $19,000, so giving $19,000 to your daughter and $19,000 to your son moves $38,000 tax-free. A married couple can split gifts and give a single person $38,000 between them. The calculator subtracts the exclusion from your gift to find the taxable part.

Taxable gifts use your lifetime exemption

A taxable gift does not mean tax is owed. Anything above the annual exclusion is a taxable gift, but it reduces your lifetime gift and estate exemption instead of producing a bill. That exemption is $15,000,000 per person in 2026, shared between gifts made during your life and your estate at death. Give $50,000 to one person and $31,000 is a taxable gift, lowering your remaining exemption from $15,000,000 to $14,969,000, with no cash due.

When gift tax is actually owed

Gift tax is due only once your cumulative taxable gifts pass the lifetime exemption, and the excess is taxed at the top federal rate of 40 percent. The calculator asks for taxable gifts reported in earlier years, adds this year’s taxable gift, and applies 40 percent only to the amount above $15,000,000. It takes many millions of dollars of lifetime giving to get there.

A worked example

Suppose you give $5,000,000 to one person this year and have already reported $14,000,000 of taxable gifts. The annual exclusion reduces the new gift to a $4,981,000 taxable gift, bringing your cumulative total to $18,981,000. That is $3,981,000 above the $15,000,000 exemption, so the gift tax due at 40 percent is $1,592,400, and your remaining lifetime exemption is zero.

Gifts that never count against you

Some transfers are not gifts for tax purposes, however large. Tuition paid directly to a college is exempt, as is payment made directly to a hospital or provider for someone’s medical care, as long as the money goes to the institution and not the person. Gifts to your spouse are covered by the unlimited marital deduction, and gifts to qualified charities are deductible without limit. A grandparent can pay a grandchild’s $60,000 tuition bill directly and still give the same grandchild $19,000 in cash that year, all tax-free. The calculator models a plain cash or property gift to one person, so its result does not apply to these exempt transfers.

Common mistakes to avoid

The most common error is assuming that going over the annual exclusion triggers a tax bill; it triggers a filing requirement and a small reduction in your lifetime exemption. Another is forgetting the exclusion is per recipient: you can give $19,000 each to ten people in one year, $190,000 in total, without using any exemption. A third is skipping Form 709 when no tax is due, even though it is how the IRS tracks your cumulative taxable gifts. And married couples often forget gift splitting, which doubles the exclusion to $38,000 per recipient but requires both spouses to consent on the return.

How to read your result

For most people the tax due is zero, so watch the lifetime exemption remaining. If it barely moves, the gift is small in tax terms. If it falls sharply, the gift is large, and its timing, structure and paperwork deserve professional advice. A tax figure above zero means your cumulative giving is reaching the exemption limit.

Assumptions and limitations

This is a planning estimate using the 2026 annual exclusion, lifetime exemption and top rate, stored as parameters sourced from the IRS. It treats the gift as going to one recipient and the amount above the exclusion as a taxable gift. It does not model gift splitting, the marital or charitable deductions, direct tuition or medical payments, gifts of appreciating assets, state rules, or the graduated rates below the top rate that a full Form 709 computation uses, so treat the tax-due figure as an upper bound and consult a tax professional before a large gift.

About This Gift Tax Calculator

Use this gift tax calculator to get an instant, accurate estimate. The figures follow official IRS guidance and every rate and threshold is kept up to date for 2026. Adjust the inputs above to match your situation, or browse all our calculators to plan your next step.