Updated August 4, 2026. Quick answer for Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania taxes what you inherit at a rate set by how you were related — 0% for a spouse, 4.5% for a child, 12% for a sibling, 15% for everyone else. The rate that catches people is the sibling one: 12% on a brother or sister, against 4.5% on a child.
This is not the estate tax, and the difference decides who pays
An estate tax is charged to the estate on its whole value before anything is distributed. An inheritance tax is charged to each beneficiary on what they personally receive, at a rate set by how they were related to the person who died. Two people inheriting equal shares of the same estate can owe completely different amounts. The full comparison, and which states levy which, is on inheritance tax by state.
The rates, in the Department’s own words
0 percent on transfers to a surviving spouse or to a parent from a child aged 21 or younger; 4.5 percent on transfers to direct descendants and lineal heirs; 12 percent on transfers to siblings; and 15 percent on transfers to other heirs, except charitable organizations, exempt institutions and government entities exempt from tax.
— Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, Inheritance Tax
Read the second clause of the first line carefully: 0% applies to a parent inheriting from a child aged 21 or younger — not to parents generally. A parent inheriting from an adult child is a lineal heir at 4.5%.
Property owned jointly between spouses is exempt from inheritance tax.
— Pennsylvania Department of Revenue
The 5% discount almost nobody claims
Inheritance tax payments are due upon the death of the decedent and become delinquent nine months after the individual’s death. If inheritance tax is paid within three months of the decedent’s death, a 5 percent discount is allowed.
— Pennsylvania Department of Revenue
Nine months to become delinquent, but three months to earn 5% off the whole bill. On a $200,000 transfer to a sibling that is a $24,000 tax and a $1,200 discount for paying early. It is the single most actionable fact on this page and it expires quietly.
Two exemptions worth knowing
- Farmland and agricultural property. Effective for estates of decedents dying after June 30, 2012, certain farm land and other agricultural property are exempt from Pennsylvania inheritance tax, provided the property is transferred to eligible recipients (Inheritance Tax Informational Notice 2012-01).
- Military deaths. Effective for estates of decedents dying on or after September 6, 2022, personal property transferred from the estate of a serving military member who has died as a result of an injury or illness received while on active duty is exempt.
What changed on 16 January 2026
As part of Act 50 of 2025 the Legislature amended Section 2103 of the Probate, Estates and Fiduciaries Code (20 Pa.C.S.A. 2103) effective 16 January 2026: for estates without familial heirs the order of intestate succession now runs to an endowed community fund in the decedent’s municipality, then school district, then county, and only then to the Commonwealth.
This only reaches an estate with no familial heirs at all, but it reverses the old default: the Commonwealth is now last in line rather than first.
What actually reduces this
Inheritance tax is charged on what passes to a beneficiary, so the levers are about who receives and how, not about shrinking the estate at the last minute. Assets with a named beneficiary or a survivorship feature still count in most of these states — do not assume a transfer-on-death designation escapes it. The instruments themselves: transfer-on-death deeds by state, and the beneficiary-designation mistakes that cost the most. If probate is the live question rather than the tax, what probate costs in Pennsylvania is the arithmetic on that side.
Rates and exemptions read at the state’s own revenue department or statute and cited above, not legal or tax advice. Inheritance tax turns on a relationship and a date of death this page cannot see, and legislatures change these figures — check the current year before you act on a number. We sell nothing on this page and earn nothing from it.