How to File a Final Tax Return for a Deceased Parent

To file a final tax return for a deceased parent, the executor or personal representative submits Form 1040 (or 1040-SR) covering the income your parent received from January 1 through the date of death, and the return is due on the same April 15 deadline that would have applied if your parent were still alive. Write “DECEASED,” your parent’s name, and the date of death across the top of the first page, sign in the capacity you’re acting in, and attach proof of your authority if the IRS doesn’t already have it on file. The steps below walk through who can sign, what to gather, what income belongs on this return versus somewhere else, and the deadlines and penalties that can catch families off guard.

Who Can File the Return

The person who files depends on how the estate is being handled. If a probate court has appointed an executor under a will or an administrator when there is no will, that person has the legal authority and the obligation to file. If no court appointment has been made, a surviving spouse can file a joint return, or another family member can step in as the personal representative.

Whoever takes on this role should file IRS Form 56 to notify the IRS of the fiduciary relationship. This tells the IRS where to send correspondence about your parent’s account and establishes your authority to act on their behalf.¹ Form 56 is not technically required in every situation, but skipping it can create problems if you later need to resolve a balance, request a transcript, or claim a refund.

If the estate is small enough to skip formal probate under your state’s simplified procedures, you can still file your parent’s return. Each state sets its own threshold for what qualifies as a small estate, so check your local probate court if you’re unsure whether a full appointment is necessary.

What to Gather Before You Start

Pull these together before you sit down with tax software or a preparer:

A certified death certificate. Get multiple copies; banks, brokerages, and the IRS may all request one.
Your parent’s Social Security number, which goes on the final Form 1040.
Income documents covering the period through the date of death: W-2s, 1099s for interest, dividends, and retirement distributions, and Form SSA-1099 for Social Security benefits.
Prior-year returns, which help identify recurring income and carryforward items like capital losses. If you don’t have copies, you can request free transcripts by submitting Form 4506-T with a copy of the death certificate and proof of your authority.²
Proof of authority: Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration from the probate court, or a completed Form 56 if no court process is underway.

If your parent hadn’t filed returns for one or more earlier years, you may need to file those too. The IRS states that if the deceased had not filed for prior years, the representative may be required to file those returns.³ Check this early, because penalties and interest on old balances become the estate’s problem.

When the Final Return Is Due

The final Form 1040 is due on the normal April 15 deadline of the year after death.⁴ If your parent died on March 3, 2025, the final 2025 return is due April 15, 2026, the same deadline every other 2025 filer faces. If your parent died in January 2026 before filing their 2025 return, you owe two returns: the 2025 return due April 15, 2026, and the 2026 final return due April 15, 2027.

You can get an automatic six-month extension by filing Form 4868 before April 15. The extension only pushes back the filing date, not the payment date. If you expect a balance due, estimate and pay it by April 15 to avoid interest and late-payment penalties.⁴

Which Filing Status to Use

The filing status on the final return is based on your parent’s marital and family situation as of the date of death, the same status they would have used if they had survived the whole year.⁵

A surviving spouse who does not remarry during the year of death can file a joint return with your parent. The joint return includes the surviving spouse’s income for the full year and your parent’s income through the date of death. If both a court-appointed representative and a surviving spouse are involved, both must sign. A joint return generally produces a lower tax bill than filing separately, so it’s worth running the numbers both ways. If the surviving spouse remarries before December 31 of the year of death, a joint return with your parent is not allowed.

For the two tax years after the year of death, the surviving spouse may qualify for Qualifying Surviving Spouse status, which uses the same tax brackets as married filing jointly. To qualify, the surviving spouse must not remarry, must have a dependent child living in the home, and must pay more than half the cost of maintaining that household.⁶

What Income Belongs on the Final 1040

The final Form 1040 includes only income your parent actually received, or constructively received, before the date of death.³ For a cash-basis taxpayer, which is almost every individual, that means wages paid before death, interest deposited before death, and dividends received before death.

Income your parent earned but had not yet received at the time of death gets a separate classification: Income in Respect of a Decedent, or IRD. That income does not belong on the final 1040. It is taxed instead to whoever ultimately receives it, either the estate or a named beneficiary.⁵ Common IRD items include:

A final paycheck issued after death.
IRA or 401(k) distributions passing to beneficiaries, which are taxable as IRD up to the decedent’s taxable balance.
Accrued U.S. Savings Bond interest, if your parent never elected to report interest annually.
Remaining guaranteed payments or distributive shares from a partnership.

When a bank or brokerage issues a 1099-INT or 1099-DIV covering the full year under either your parent’s SSN or the estate’s EIN, split the income between the final Form 1040 and the estate’s Form 1041 based on the date of death. Report on each return only the amount received during the period that return covers, and attach a note explaining the allocation.

Deductions You Can Claim

You can claim the full standard deduction on the final return without prorating it for the partial year. For 2026, the standard deduction is $16,100 for single filers and $32,200 for married filing jointly.⁷ An additional amount applies if your parent was 65 or older or blind. You can itemize instead if that produces a better result; the usual rules apply to mortgage interest, state and local taxes, and charitable contributions paid before death.

Medical Bills Paid After Death

Expenses your parent paid before death are deductible on the final return (subject to the 7.5% of adjusted gross income floor) if you itemize. Medical expenses paid by the estate within one year after the date of death can also be treated as if your parent paid them, which lets you deduct them on the final Form 1040 instead of on the federal estate tax return.⁵

To make this election, attach a statement to the return declaring that the expenses have not been and will not be claimed on Form 706. The choice is either/or; you cannot deduct the same expenses on both returns.⁸ If the medical bills were incurred in a year before death, file an amended return on Form 1040-X for that earlier year to claim them. Amounts falling below the 7.5% AGI threshold that can’t be deducted on the income tax return also can’t be shifted to the estate tax return.

How to Sign and Submit

On a paper return, write “DECEASED,” your parent’s name, and the date of death across the top of the first page.⁹ How you sign depends on your role:

A court-appointed representative filing alone signs the return, writes their title (executor, administrator, or personal representative) next to the signature, and attaches a copy of the Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration.
A surviving spouse filing a joint return with no court-appointed representative signs the return and writes “Filing as surviving spouse” in the signature area for the decedent.
A court-appointed representative and surviving spouse filing jointly both sign.

E-filing is available through most tax preparation software. Paper filing is often more practical when you need to attach Letters Testamentary or Form 1310, since electronic filing doesn’t always handle those attachments smoothly. Mail paper returns to the IRS service center for your parent’s last address.

If the Return Shows a Refund

If the final return produces a refund, you may need to attach Form 1310. Not always: a surviving spouse filing a joint return does not need Form 1310, and a court-appointed representative filing an original return with the court certificate attached does not need it either.¹⁰ You do need Form 1310 if you are claiming the refund as someone other than a surviving spouse or court-appointed representative, which is the usual situation for an adult child handling affairs without a formal court appointment.

When the Estate Itself Also Has to File

The final 1040 covers your parent through the date of death. Anything the estate earns after that date, including interest on bank accounts, rent from property, and stock dividends, belongs to the estate, not to your parent. If the estate takes in $600 or more in gross income during a tax year, or has a nonresident alien beneficiary, it must file its own return on Form 1041.¹¹

Before filing Form 1041, apply for an Employer Identification Number for the estate, which replaces your parent’s Social Security number for all estate tax matters. You can apply online at IRS.gov/EIN and receive the number immediately.¹² On the application, enter your parent’s name followed by “Estate” as the entity name, and list the executor or administrator as the responsible party.¹³

Federal estate tax, by contrast, affects very few families. For deaths in 2026, the exemption is $15,000,000 per person, and only estates above that threshold owe federal estate tax or need to file Form 706.¹⁴ A separate note for surviving spouses: even if your parent’s estate is far below that threshold, filing Form 706 to make a portability election can preserve the unused exemption for the surviving spouse.

Penalties and Personal Liability

The IRS does not waive penalties because the taxpayer died. A late final return or estate return triggers a failure-to-file penalty of 5% of the unpaid tax per month, up to 25%. For returns more than 60 days late, the minimum penalty is the lesser of $525 or 100% of the tax owed. Late payment adds a separate penalty of 0.5% of the unpaid balance per month, also capped at 25%.¹⁵ Those penalties come out of estate assets, so they reduce what beneficiaries receive.

The part most people don’t see coming is personal liability. Under federal law, a fiduciary who distributes estate assets to beneficiaries before paying the decedent’s tax debts can be held personally liable for those unpaid taxes.¹⁶ Don’t distribute everything to the family until you’ve confirmed tax liabilities are settled or at least set aside enough to cover them. Requesting a prompt assessment from the IRS, which shortens the assessment period to 18 months, or pulling an account transcript can help confirm whether a balance exists before you close out the estate.

Don’t Forget the State Return

If your parent lived in a state with its own income tax, you’ll likely need to file a final state return too, covering income through the date of death. Filing requirements, deadlines, and forms vary. Some states automatically grant the same extension as the federal return; others require a separate state extension form. Check with the tax authority in the state where your parent was a resident at the time of death; this is easy to overlook when the federal process absorbs all your attention.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 56 (12/2024)
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Internal Revenue Service. File the Final Income Tax Returns of a Deceased Person
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Internal Revenue Service. Publication 559 (2025), Survivors, Executors, and Administrators
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Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 706 (Rev. September 2025)
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Internal Revenue Service. Filing a Final Federal Tax Return for Someone Who Has Died
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