Estate Planning: Non-Citizen CA Guide 2026

Short answer: Being a non-citizen does not stop you from signing a valid California will, living trust, or power of attorney, and it does not by itself cut you out of the federal estate and gift tax exemption available to citizens. What actually changes the plan is domicile and marriage: whether you are treated as domiciled in the United States, and whether your spouse is a citizen. Those two facts, not your citizenship status alone, decide which tax rules apply and whether a straightforward outright bequest to a spouse still works.

Does being a non-citizen change what documents I need?

No. A non-citizen living in California signs the same core documents as anyone else: a pour-over will, a revocable living trust to hold California property and avoid probate, a durable power of attorney for finances, and an advance health care directive for medical decisions. The documents themselves are not different. What is different is how carefully they need to be coordinated with your citizenship, your spouse’s citizenship, and any assets or family members located outside the United States.

A properly funded living trust still does what it does for anyone: it lets California real estate and other retitled assets pass to your beneficiaries without a probate proceeding. A will alone does not avoid probate. It only directs how the court distributes assets once probate has been opened.

How does the federal estate and gift tax exemption apply to a non-citizen?

The federal exemption generally follows domicile, not citizenship by itself. A green card holder or other non-citizen who is domiciled in the United States is generally treated the same as a citizen for federal estate and gift tax purposes, which for 2026 means a federal exemption of $15,000,000 per person under IRC section 2010(c). Someone who is neither a citizen nor domiciled in the United States is taxed under a separate, much narrower set of rules that only reach US-situated assets. Whether you count as domiciled here is a factual question, not just an immigration status question, so it needs to be confirmed rather than assumed.

California does not add anything on top of the federal exposure. The state has no separate estate tax and no inheritance tax, under Revenue and Taxation Code § 13301, so once the federal domicile and exemption question is answered, there is no additional state-level estate tax to plan around.

What changes if my spouse is not a US citizen?

This is where citizenship status matters most directly. The unlimited marital deduction, the rule that normally lets one spouse leave any amount to the other free of estate and gift tax, assumes the receiving spouse is a US citizen. When the receiving spouse is not a citizen, a simple outright bequest or gift does not automatically get that unlimited treatment. Lifetime gifts to a non-citizen spouse instead use a separate, larger annual exclusion, $194,000 in 2026, rather than an unlimited amount. At death, leaving everything outright to a non-citizen spouse can expose the estate to tax that a citizen spouse would not have faced on the same bequest, which is usually addressed by using a marital trust drafted specifically to satisfy the citizenship requirement rather than a plain outright gift.

What happens to property I own outside the United States?

A California will or living trust controls the assets you title into it, but it does not automatically reach real estate, bank accounts, or business interests located in another country. Many other countries apply their own succession law to property located there, and some of those rules can override instructions written in a US document. If you own assets abroad, your California plan needs to be coordinated with whatever planning exists, or is still needed, in that other country. It is not a substitute for it.

Do I still need a power of attorney and health care directive?

Yes, and it matters more for a non-citizen, not less. A durable power of attorney lets someone you choose manage your financial affairs in California if you become unable to, and an advance health care directive lets you name someone to make medical decisions and record your wishes in advance. Without these signed, family members, including any who live outside the United States, can face real delay and cost proving to a California court or a bank that they have authority to act for you. The person you name should realistically be available in California, not only a relative overseas who cannot get here quickly.

Figures verified July 2026.

What to do next

Start with two lists: everything you own and where it sits, and whether your spouse, if you have one, is a US citizen. From there, an estate planning attorney can confirm your domicile status, draft a will, trust, and incapacity documents that account for it, and flag anything that needs to be coordinated with counsel in another country.