How to File Taxes When Your Spouse Dies: Status, Forms, and IRAs

When a spouse dies, you file one last Form 1040 in their name for the year of death, and in most cases you file it jointly with yourself as the surviving spouse. The return covers income your spouse received from January 1 through the date of death, uses the same April deadline as any other individual return, and requires a few specific notations and signature phrases to move through the IRS cleanly.¹ Knowing how to file taxes when your spouse dies also means making a handful of decisions that reach beyond the final return itself: which filing status to use going forward, whether to preserve your spouse’s estate tax exemption, and how to handle inherited retirement accounts before year-end deadlines pass.

What the Final Return Covers and When It’s Due

The final Form 1040 reports all income your spouse received or was entitled to receive from January 1 through the date of death: wages on W-2s, interest and dividends on 1099s, retirement distributions, and any other taxable income. Income that arrived after the date of death generally belongs to the estate and gets reported on a separate estate income tax return, Form 1041, rather than on the final 1040.¹

The return is due by the regular April tax deadline the year after death. If your spouse died in 2026, the final return is due April 15, 2027. A six-month extension is available through Form 4868, but an extension pushes the filing date, not the payment date. Interest and penalties still accrue on unpaid tax after April.²

If you’re filing on paper, write “DECEASED,” your spouse’s name, and the date of death across the top of the Form 1040.² Tax software adds this notation automatically once you mark the taxpayer as deceased.

Filing Status: Year of Death and the Years After

Filing status is where the largest tax savings sit, and the rule changes as time passes.

Year of Death: Married Filing Jointly

For the tax year in which your spouse died, you can file Married Filing Jointly for the full year, even if the death occurred early in January, as long as you did not remarry before December 31.³ The 2026 standard deduction for a joint return is $32,200, versus $16,100 for a single filer, and the joint brackets are wider.⁴ Married Filing Separately is also available for the year of death, but it carries the lowest standard deduction and narrowest brackets and rarely produces a better result.

The Two Years After: Qualifying Surviving Spouse

For the two tax years following the year of death, you may qualify for Qualifying Surviving Spouse status, formerly called Qualifying Widow or Widower. It gives you the same standard deduction and brackets as a joint return.⁵ You must meet all of the following:³

You have a child, stepchild, or adopted child who qualifies as your dependent that year.
That child lived in your home for the entire year, except for temporary absences such as school or medical care.
You paid more than half the cost of maintaining your home for the year.
You did not remarry before the end of the tax year.

A spouse who died in 2026 could leave you eligible for this status on your 2027 and 2028 returns if you meet the tests.

Year Three and Beyond

After the two-year window closes, you file as Head of Household if you still have a qualifying dependent and pay more than half the cost of maintaining your home. The 2026 Head of Household standard deduction is $24,150.⁴ Without a qualifying dependent, you file as Single, and the same income that fit comfortably in joint brackets can produce a noticeably higher tax bill. Adjusting your withholding or estimated payments in advance keeps that transition from becoming an April surprise.

Forms You May Need Beyond the 1040

Form 1310 for a Refund

If the final return produces a refund and you are not filing a joint return as the surviving spouse, you generally need Form 1310, Statement of Person Claiming Refund Due a Deceased Taxpayer.⁶ Two situations don’t require it:⁷

A surviving spouse filing an original or amended joint return with the deceased.
A court-appointed personal representative filing an original Form 1040 for the deceased, provided a copy of the court certificate is attached.

Anyone else claiming the refund files Form 1310. Errors here are a common cause of delayed refund checks.

Form 56 for Fiduciaries

If you’re serving as executor, administrator, or another fiduciary, Form 56 notifies the IRS of that relationship and tells the agency who is authorized to receive tax correspondence on the deceased person’s behalf.⁸ If you’re handling both the decedent’s final individual return and the estate’s separate return, file two copies of Form 56, one for the decedent and one for the estate.

Documents to Gather

You’ll want Social Security numbers for you and your spouse, all W-2 and 1099 forms for the year, and certified copies of the death certificate. The death certificate usually isn’t required for an e-filed return, but banks, brokerages, and the probate court will each want one, so order several copies.

How to Sign the Return

If you’re the surviving spouse filing a joint return and no personal representative has been appointed, sign your own name in your signature area and write “filing as surviving spouse” in your spouse’s signature space.⁹ If a court-appointed personal representative is involved, the representative signs their own name followed by their title, such as executor or administrator. That title should match the appointment on file with the probate court to avoid identity verification delays.¹

The Portability Election

This is the step most surviving spouses don’t know about. The federal estate tax exemption for 2026 is $15,000,000 per person.¹⁰ If your spouse’s estate used only a portion of that exemption, the unused amount can be transferred to you through a portability election, potentially doubling the exemption available at your own death. It doesn’t happen automatically.

The executor must file Form 706, the estate tax return, to elect portability, even when the estate is small enough that no estate tax is owed and filing would otherwise be unnecessary.¹¹ The normal deadline is nine months after the date of death, with a six-month extension available through Form 4768. If that deadline passes and the estate wasn’t otherwise required to file, a simplified late-filing procedure allows you to elect portability up to the fifth anniversary of death.

Exemption amounts have shifted with legislation before and can shift again. Preserving your spouse’s unused exemption now costs the price of preparing Form 706 and protects against future changes. Many surviving spouses find this is where a tax professional’s fee pays for itself many times over.

Inherited Retirement Accounts

Surviving spouses have more flexibility with inherited retirement accounts than any other type of beneficiary, and several of the deadlines run on the calendar year of death rather than the following April.

Spousal Rollover

You can roll your deceased spouse’s IRA or employer plan into your own IRA, treating it as always having been yours.¹² This is usually the strongest option if you don’t need immediate access, because the funds keep growing tax-deferred and your required minimum distributions are based on your own age.

Keeping It as an Inherited IRA

If you’re under 59½ and may need the funds, keeping the account titled as an inherited IRA lets you take distributions without the 10% early withdrawal penalty. Distributions can be taken over your life expectancy or delayed until the year your spouse would have reached age 73, the current threshold for required minimum distributions.¹³

The Year-of-Death RMD

If your spouse was already taking required minimum distributions and died before completing that year’s amount, the remaining distribution must still come out. As beneficiary, you’re the one who takes it. The shortfall is taxable income to you and must be withdrawn by December 31 of the year of death. Missing it triggers a 25% penalty on the amount that should have been distributed.

Inherited Roth IRAs

Withdrawals of contributions from an inherited Roth IRA are always tax-free. Earnings are tax-free if the Roth account had been open for at least five years at the time of the withdrawal; earnings from a newer account may be taxable.¹²

Medical Bills Paid After Death

Final-illness medical bills often keep arriving for months. There are two ways to handle them.

If the estate pays the medical bills within one year of the date of death, those expenses can be treated as if the deceased paid them while alive and deducted on the final Form 1040 as an itemized deduction on Schedule A.¹⁴ You must attach a statement confirming the expenses won’t also be claimed on the estate tax return. Medical expenses are deductible only to the extent they exceed 7.5% of adjusted gross income, so this route works best when the bills are large relative to income.

If you personally paid your deceased spouse’s medical bills, you can include those expenses on your own Schedule A in the year you paid them, whether the payment happened before or after the death, as long as you were married either when the medical services were provided or when you made the payment.¹⁴

Stepped-Up Basis on Inherited Assets

The final 1040 isn’t where stepped-up basis usually shows up, but you’ll want to record the numbers now so they’re available when you sell later. Most inherited assets receive a basis reset to their fair market value on the date of death rather than what your spouse originally paid.¹⁵ Stock your spouse bought for $20,000 that was worth $100,000 at death now has a $100,000 basis in your hands.

For jointly owned property in most states, only your spouse’s half receives the step-up. A home you purchased together for $200,000 that’s worth $500,000 at death has a new basis of $350,000 in your hands: your original $100,000 half plus the stepped-up $250,000 for their half. In community property states, both halves of community property typically receive the step-up.¹⁶ One narrow exception: property you gave to your spouse within one year before death and then inherited back does not get the step-up.

Getting date-of-death valuations documented now, whether from a broker’s statement or an appraisal on real estate, saves years of reconstruction later when you decide to sell.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Filing a Final Federal Tax Return for Someone Who Has Died
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Internal Revenue Service. How to File a Final Tax Return for Someone Who Has Passed Away
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IRS. Filing Status
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Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026, Including Amendments From the One, Big, Beautiful Bill
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Internal Revenue Service. Qualifying Surviving Spouse Filing Status – Understanding Taxes
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Internal Revenue Service. About Form 1310, Statement of Person Claiming Refund Due a Deceased Taxpayer
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Internal Revenue Service. Form 1310 (Rev. December 2025) – Statement of Person Claiming Refund Due a Deceased Taxpayer
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 56 – Notice Concerning Fiduciary Relationship
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Internal Revenue Service. Signing the Return
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Internal Revenue Service. What’s New – Estate and Gift Tax
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 706 (09/2025)
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Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Beneficiary
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Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plan and IRA Required Minimum Distributions FAQs
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Internal Revenue Service. Publication 502, Medical and Dental Expenses
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1014 – Basis of Property Acquired From a Decedent
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Internal Revenue Service. Gifts and Inheritances