Are survivor benefits taxable income?

The default rule

The Survivor Benefits section of Publication 525 opens with a default. In most cases, payments made by or for an employer because of an employee’s death must be included in income. The publication then walks through the common exceptions and special cases for survivors. It also refers readers to Publication 559, which covers survivors, executors and administrators. The word “survivor” shows up in several different parts of the tax rules, so sort your payment into the right category first.

Lump sums from an employer

Lump-sum payments you receive from a decedent’s employer as a surviving spouse or beneficiary may be accrued salary payments, distributions from employee profit-sharing, pension, annuity or stock bonus plans, or other items that should be treated separately for tax purposes. The tax treatment of the lump sum depends on the type of payment. Salary or wages received after the death of the employee are usually ordinary income to you. Lump-sum distributions from qualified employee retirement plans are subject to special tax treatment, and the publication directs you to Publication 575, or to Publication 721 if you are the survivor of a federal employee or retiree. Treat these as retirement-plan questions, not as a bonus.

Public safety officers

If you are a survivor of a public safety officer who was killed in the line of duty, you can exclude from income any amount received as a survivor annuity on account of that death. For this purpose the publication defines a public safety officer to include law enforcement officers, firefighters, chaplains, and rescue squad and ambulance crew members. This is one of the few clear exclusions in the survivor area, and it applies to the survivor annuity specifically, so other death-related payments from the same employer are still subject to the default rule.

Military and veterans payments

In its list of veterans’ benefits that are not taxable, Publication 525 includes veterans’ insurance proceeds and dividends paid either to veterans or to their beneficiaries, and the death gratuity paid to a survivor of a member of the U.S. Armed Forces who died after September 10, 2001. Those amounts are not included in income. Other government survivor payments should be checked against the specific program, because the publication addresses only those it names.

Social Security survivor benefits

The publication lists social security benefits, including lump-sum payments attributable to prior years, Supplemental Security Income benefits and lump-sum death benefits, among the items discussed in its Social Security section. If you received social security benefits you will get Form SSA-1099, and an IRS Notice 703 enclosed with it contains a worksheet to figure whether any benefits are taxable. Use the worksheet in the Form 1040 instructions to decide how much to include; the publication says you must use the worksheets in Publication 915 in certain situations, including when you received a lump-sum benefit for one or more earlier years. Joint filers combine incomes and benefits when figuring the taxable part. Our taxable Social Security benefits calculator follows that worksheet logic.

Worked example

A widow receives $4,000 of her husband’s unpaid salary from his employer after his death: that is salary or wages received after death, so it is ordinary income to her. The same widow also receives the military death gratuity for a different family member killed in service after September 10, 2001; that payment is not included in income. If a surviving spouse of a firefighter killed in the line of duty gets a survivor annuity on account of the death, the annuity can be excluded. If she begins to receive Social Security survivor payments, the amount of tax depends on her total income through the Notice 703 or Publication 915 worksheet, not on a fixed percentage. The selector above returns the publication’s treatment for each type.

Limits

The publication points to Publications 559, 575, 721 and 915 for detail, and this page does not replace them. Life insurance paid because of a death is a separate topic, and income earned on an inheritance is covered on our inheritance page.

Sources

• IRS Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income (2025): the Survivor Benefits section, the Social Security and equivalent railroad retirement benefits section, and the veterans' benefits list. Read November 2, 2026.

Edition read: Publication 525 (2025), for use in preparing 2025 returns. Dollar limits and dates in this publication are for 2025; check the current publication and form instructions for your tax year. This page summarizes the publication and does not replace it.