What is the difference between UTDA §11 expanded distributive discretion and §12 limited distributive discretion?

The UTDA's two-tier framework distinguishes between decanting authority available to a trustee holding expanded discretion (§11) and decanting authority available to a trustee holding only limited discretion tied to an ascertainable standard (§12). A trustee with expanded distributive discretion — typically drafted as a broad best-interests or absolute-discretion clause — can decant into a second trust with substantially modified dispositive provisions, including changes to the pattern of beneficial interests, provided no beneficiary of the first trust who has a vested interest is eliminated or reduced. A trustee holding only limited discretion under an ascertainable standard (health, education, maintenance, and support, or the tax-code HEMS standard under IRC §2041(b)(1)(A)) may decant only into a second trust whose beneficial provisions are substantially the same as those of the first trust. The distinction preserves the settlor's original beneficiary-protection design while permitting administrative-mechanism modernization in both scenarios.

Does the UTDA require court approval for a decanting?

The UTDA does not require court approval for a decanting. UTDA §7 requires the authorized fiduciary to give sixty days' advance written notice of the intended decanting to each qualified beneficiary of the first trust, to the settlor (if living), to each holder of a presently exercisable power of appointment over the first trust, to any trust director whose authority may be affected, and to the attorney general (if the first trust is a charitable trust). If any recipient objects during the sixty-day period, the fiduciary may proceed but bears the burden of demonstrating that the decanting satisfies the UTDA's substantive requirements. Court approval is available under UTDA §9 (declaratory judgment) but is not a prerequisite. This procedural design distinguishes UTDA decanting from a reformation petition under UTC §415 or a nonjudicial settlement agreement under UTC §111, both of which typically require court involvement or unanimous consent.

What tax protections does the UTDA build in for a decanted trust?

UTDA §§18 and 19 contain a tightly drafted set of tax-safe-harbor provisions. §18 preserves the grantor-trust status of the first trust if the second trust also qualifies as a grantor trust under IRC §§671-679; the marital-deduction qualification under IRC §§2056 or 2523 if the trust qualifies as QTIP or a general power of appointment marital trust; the charitable-deduction qualification under IRC §§170, 2055, or 2522; the generation-skipping-transfer-tax grandfathered status under IRC §2601 (Treas. Reg. §26.2601-1(b)(4)(i)(D) provides the underlying safe harbor); and the qualification of Subchapter S trusts under IRC §§1361(c)(2) and 1361(d) (QSSTs and ESBTs, respectively). §19 preserves the standard-tax attribute character (grantor vs non-grantor, simple vs complex, calendar-year vs fiscal-year taxpayer) unless the second trust expressly changes it. Practitioners drafting an inherited-IRA decanting need to add IRC §401(a)(9) see-through qualification to the §18 safe-harbor list because the UTDA drafters did not contemplate the SECURE Act 10-year regime when the uniform text was promulgated in 2015 — pre-SECURE inherited-IRA drafting used the pre-2020 stretch-IRA framework.

Can a trustee use UTDA decanting to change a conduit trust into an accumulation trust after the account owner's death?

Yes, provided the trustee holds expanded distributive discretion under UTDA §11 and the decanting satisfies the see-through qualification tests at Treas. Reg. §1.401(a)(9)-4(f). The mechanic works because the SECURE Act 10-year rule at IRC §401(a)(9)(H)(i)(I) requires distribution of the entire IRA within ten years of the account owner's death regardless of whether the trust operates as a conduit or an accumulation, so the choice between the two structures affects tax outcomes (accumulation allows the trustee to hold distributions inside the trust at compressed trust income tax rates under IRC §1(e), while conduit requires immediate pass-through to beneficiaries at individual rates) but does not affect see-through qualification. A conduit-to-accumulation decanting is particularly valuable when the original trust was drafted before the 2019 SECURE Act as a conduit stretch-IRA vehicle, and the death occurred post-2019 — the pre-SECURE conduit trust now behaves as an accelerator of income to the beneficiary rather than a shelter. Roughly 40 to 60 percent of trust-drafted inherited IRAs sitting in probate court files in 2024-2025 are candidates for this conversion.

Which state offers the most flexible UTDA framework for an inherited-IRA trust?

The answer depends on trust size, beneficiary structure, and coordination with state trust-income-tax exposure. For a portable inherited-IRA trust above $3M that can be sitused for administrative convenience, Colorado, Nevada, and South Dakota offer the strongest UTDA-plus-broader-trust-infrastructure combination — Colorado for its UTDA-as-standalone-article approach at C.R.S. §15-16-901 et seq. plus zero state trust income tax on non-resident-beneficiary trusts, Nevada for its combination of UTDA authority plus paradigm-seven directed-trust flexibility, and South Dakota for the broader institutional depth of its trust-services industry (though South Dakota has not yet adopted the UTDA — it uses an older pre-UTDA decanting statute at SDCL Chapter 55-2). For a smaller inherited-IRA trust under $2M with a single home-state beneficiary, choosing the beneficiary's own state — if that state has adopted the UTDA — usually beats an out-of-state situs on the multi-state-coordination cost savings alone. Alabama, California, Illinois, and Virginia are typical home-state UTDA choices at that scale.

What is the most common drafting mistake when using UTDA decanting on an inherited-IRA trust?

The single most common mistake is failing to preserve the see-through-trust qualification test at Treas. Reg. §1.401(a)(9)-4(f) in the second trust. The trustee correctly identifies decanting as the right modernization vehicle, correctly gives the sixty-day notice under UTDA §7, and correctly executes the exercise — but the second trust as drafted names a non-individual entity (a charitable remainder, a trust-to-trust distribution recipient, an estate) as a permissible beneficiary, or fails to include the age-oldest-beneficiary identifiability mechanic, and thereby destroys see-through status. The consequences under TD 10001 and Notice 2024-35 are severe: the entire IRA balance accelerates into the trust's taxable income in the year of the failed decanting, taxed at the compressed IRC §1(e) trust income tax rate schedule (37% marginal rate at $15,650 of taxable income in 2026). On a $2M inherited IRA, the tax cost of a failed see-through decanting is roughly $600,000 in acceleration plus the loss of the ability to spread distributions across the remainder of the 10-year window. Practitioners typically add a see-through-qualification-verification step to the UTDA exercise checklist before executing on any inherited-IRA-holding trust.

State-by-State Uniform Trust Decanting Act Adoption in 2026: Every Adopting State, the §11 Expanded vs §12 Limited Framework, and What It Means for a See-Through Trust Holding an Inherited IRA

Q: Which states have adopted the UTDA as of 2026?

Fifteen jurisdictions have enacted the UTDA in some form as of August 2026: Colorado (adopted 2016 as C.R.S. §15-16-901 et seq.), New Mexico (adopted 2016), Virginia (adopted 2017 as Va. Code §64.2-779.1 et seq.), Washington (adopted 2017 as RCW 11.107.010 et seq.), North Carolina (adopted 2017 as N.C. Gen. Stat. §36C-8B-1 et seq.), Alabama (adopted 2018), California (adopted 2018 as Cal. Prob. Code §§19501-19530, effective 2019), Illinois (adopted), Nevada (adopted), Maine (adopted 2018 as 18-B M.R.S. Chapter 12), Kansas (adopted 2023 as K.S.A. §58a-1601 et seq.), Connecticut (adopted 2024 as Public Act 24-104), Arkansas (adopted 2025), District of Columbia (adopted 2025), and Massachusetts (enacted with effective date January 1, 2026, as Chapter 203E of the General Laws). Several additional states have introduction bills pending (Kentucky, Wisconsin, and periodic activity in Illinois and Nevada legislatures) but no active passage momentum in the 2026 legislative cycle.

Q: Can a trustee decant an inherited IRA without triggering an immediate lump-sum distribution?

Yes, when the decanting is properly executed under a UTDA framework, the IRA itself is not distributed — only the trust that holds the IRA changes. The see-through trust that receives the IRA distribution under the SECURE Act 10-year rule continues in its second-trust form after decanting, and the IRA custodian's beneficiary-designation-of-record continues to name the trust (the trust does not change its taxpayer identification number in a decanting under Rev. Rul. 2008-22, distinguished). Practitioners typically confirm the IRA custodian's acceptance of the decanted trust in writing before the exercise, and preserve documentary evidence that the second trust satisfies the see-through requirements at Treas. Reg. §1.401(a)(9)-4(f) as amended by TD 10001 in July 2024 — an identifiable-beneficiary test, an irrevocability test, and a valid-trust-under-state-law test. A decanting that inadvertently violates any of these three requirements can cause the trust to lose see-through status and accelerate the entire IRA into taxable income in the year of the failed decanting.

Q: How does the UTDA interact with the Uniform Trust Code §111 nonjudicial settlement agreement?

The two mechanisms are complementary. A UTC §111 nonjudicial settlement agreement requires the consent of all interested persons — every qualified beneficiary of the trust and, in most cases, the settlor if living — to modify a trust provision. That unanimous-consent requirement is impossible to meet when a beneficiary is a minor without a court-appointed guardian, a person under disability, or unascertained future beneficiaries (a common problem in a trust with a class of unborn descendants as remainder beneficiaries). UTDA decanting requires no beneficiary consent — only sixty days' notice. Practitioners typically try §111 first for modifications with unanimous adult-competent-beneficiary support, and switch to UTDA decanting when a beneficiary cannot legally consent, when a beneficiary objects but the objection lacks substantive merit under the UTDA's own requirements, or when the modification is substantive enough that a settlement agreement's opacity would create a later dispute-of-record. All fifteen UTDA states have concurrent UTC §111 authority.

The state-by-state Uniform Directed Trust Act adoption piece we published August 14, 2026 walked the ten UDTA-adopting states and mapped the fiduciary-default trade-off between the UDTA framework and the paradigm-seven directed-trust jurisdictions.^[1] This piece is the parallel companion for the Uniform Trust Decanting Act — the other 2015-era uniform act that changed the modernization toolkit available to a trustee holding an inherited IRA. Where the UDTA gives a trustee statutory backing to divide the trustee office between an administrative trustee and one or more trust directors, the UTDA gives the trustee statutory backing to move the trust's assets and terms wholesale into a modernized instrument without going to court or securing every beneficiary's consent.^[2]

Both acts matter more after the SECURE Act than before. The 2019 SECURE Act's compression of the beneficiary distribution period from the full remaining-life expectancy stretch to a hard ten years for most non-spousal beneficiaries turned a substantial fraction of pre-2020 trust-drafted inherited-IRA vehicles from tax-efficient shelters into tax accelerators, and the July 2024 final regulations at TD 10001 confirmed the compressed schedule and added an annual-RMD-within-the-ten-year-window overlay for beneficiaries of an account owner who had reached the required beginning date before death.^[3] A trust drafted in 2005 or 2012 as a conduit stretch-IRA vehicle now typically needs modernization. Decanting under a UTDA framework is the fastest, cheapest, and least-court-involved way to accomplish that modernization when a defect exists.

Fifteen states have adopted the UTDA in some form as of August 2026. Colorado led in 2016; Virginia followed as the first state to replace a preexisting decanting statute with the UTDA in 2017; Washington, North Carolina, New Mexico, Alabama, California, Maine, Illinois, and Nevada rounded out the first-wave enactments through 2019; Kansas adopted in 2023; Connecticut in 2024; Arkansas, the District of Columbia, and Massachusetts in the 2025-2026 legislative cycle. Each enactment carries subtly different modifications from the uniform text on the two most consequential dimensions — the notice period and the tax-safe-harbor scope — and each state's enactment interacts differently with its pre-existing trust-code framework depending on whether the state had a prior decanting statute (Virginia, Illinois, and Nevada each did) or was writing on a blank slate (Colorado, Washington, and Kansas each essentially were).

⚖️

Model your inherited-IRA drawdown against your state's decanting framework

Free, instant, no signup — compare pre-decanting conduit-trust outcomes against post-decanting accumulation-trust outcomes across the 10-year window.

Open calculator →

The UTDA framework at the uniform-text level

The Uniform Trust Decanting Act was promulgated by the Uniform Law Commission at its July 2015 annual meeting after two years of drafting under a committee chaired by Stan Kent, a ULC commissioner from Colorado, with Susan T. Bart of ArentFox Schiff serving as reporter and substantial input from the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), the American Bar Association's Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section, state attorney general representatives, and corporate-fiduciary institutions.^[4] The uniform text runs to twenty-nine sections. The load-bearing provisions for most drafting purposes are §§2, 5, 7, 11, 12, 15-19, 22, and 25.

UTDA §	Subject	Drafting significance
§2	Definitions	Establishes "authorized fiduciary," "first trust," "second trust," "expanded distributive discretion," and "limited distributive discretion" as the operative statutory categories. The definitional structure at §2 is what drives the entire §11-vs-§12 two-tier framework.
§5	Applicability	The UTDA applies to any trust with its principal place of administration in the adopting state, and to trusts moved to the state after adoption. Retroactive application to trusts created before adoption is the norm — Colorado, Virginia, Washington, and North Carolina all made the UTDA retroactive by default.
§7	Notice	The load-bearing procedural provision — sixty days' advance written notice to each qualified beneficiary, the settlor if living, each holder of a presently exercisable power of appointment, any trust director whose authority may be affected, and (for charitable trusts) the state attorney general. No beneficiary consent is required; no court approval is required.
§11	Decanting under expanded distributive discretion	The broader authority — a trustee holding expanded discretion may decant into a second trust with substantially modified dispositive provisions, subject to the vested-interest protection at §11(c) and the tax-safe-harbor overlay at §§18-19.
§12	Decanting under limited distributive discretion	The narrower authority — a trustee holding only limited discretion (typically an ascertainable-standard HEMS clause under IRC §2041(b)(1)(A)) may decant only into a second trust whose beneficial provisions are substantially the same as those of the first trust. Administrative-modernization decantings almost always proceed under §12.
§15	Trust for beneficiary with disability	Special-needs-trust-preservation provision — a decanting may convert a first trust into a special-needs-trust second trust to preserve government-benefit eligibility for a beneficiary who has developed a disability since the first trust's creation, even when the trustee otherwise holds only limited discretion.
§16	Protection of charitable interest	Charitable-interest-preservation provision — a decanting cannot reduce a charitable interest below its value in the first trust, and the attorney general has standing to enforce the protection.
§17	Trust limitation on decanting	An express spendthrift clause or express prohibition on decanting in the first trust instrument overrides the UTDA's default authority. The trustee may not decant.
§18	Change in compensation	The decanting cannot increase the trustee's compensation without beneficiary consent or court approval.
§19	Marital deduction, charitable deduction, and other tax attributes	The tax-safe-harbor overlay — grantor status, marital-deduction QTIP qualification, charitable-deduction qualification, GST grandfathered status, and QSST/ESBT Subchapter S qualification are all preserved through the decanting unless the second trust expressly changes them.
§22	Court involvement	The declaratory-judgment mechanic — a fiduciary or a beneficiary may seek court approval or instruction on any decanting-related matter, but no court involvement is required for a properly noticed exercise.
§25	Later-discovered property	Property discovered after the decanting is completed passes to the second trust automatically.

Three of the uniform text's design choices are worth flagging because they diverge from the pre-UTDA state decanting statutes that had been on the books in Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. First, the §11-vs-§12 two-tier framework based on discretion scope is a UTDA innovation — most pre-UTDA statutes applied a single set of decanting rules regardless of the trustee's discretion scope. Second, the mandatory sixty-day notice at §7 is longer than the notice period in most pre-UTDA statutes and shorter than the Massachusetts pre-UTDA statute's ninety-day period. Third, the tax-safe-harbor overlay at §§18-19 is more explicit than pre-UTDA statutes' passive assumption that tax attributes carry through — the UTDA's affirmative preservation language gives the trustee cleaner cover in a subsequent IRS audit.^[5]

Colorado — the first UTDA adopter (2016)

Colorado enacted the UTDA as Senate Bill 16-085, signed by Governor Hickenlooper on May 10, 2016, effective August 10, 2016, codified as Part 9 of Article 16 of Title 15 of the Colorado Revised Statutes at C.R.S. §§15-16-901 through 15-16-931.^[6] The Colorado enactment placed the UTDA as a standalone article within the Colorado Probate Code's Trust Administration article, coordinated with but structurally independent of the Colorado Uniform Trust Code at C.R.S. Article 5.

Colorado's placement matters because Colorado is not a Uniform Trust Code state — Colorado has its own trust code framework at C.R.S. Title 15, Articles 5, 15, and 16, only partially aligned with the UTC. The UTDA sits as a self-contained decanting article that does not depend on UTC §111 (nonjudicial settlement agreements), UTC §411 (modification by consent), or UTC §412 (modification by unanticipated circumstances) for its operative effect. A Colorado trustee needs to know the UTDA on its own terms, without back-reference to UTC principles the state has not adopted.

Colorado's modifications from the uniform text are modest. C.R.S. §15-16-905 (the applicability provision, corresponding to UTDA §5) makes the UTDA fully retroactive to any trust with its principal place of administration in Colorado on the effective date, subject only to the express-prohibition-in-instrument override at §15-16-917 (UTDA §17). C.R.S. §15-16-911 (UTDA §11) preserves the two-tier framework verbatim. C.R.S. §15-16-919 (UTDA §19) preserves the tax-safe-harbor overlay verbatim.

Why Colorado is a favored UTDA situs

Colorado combines a well-drafted UTDA enactment with a favorable state trust-income-tax framework — the Colorado Department of Revenue treats non-resident-beneficiary irrevocable trusts as non-resident trusts for state income tax purposes if the trust has no Colorado-resident beneficiary. On a $3M inherited-IRA trust with a single out-of-state beneficiary, this saves roughly 4.4% (the Colorado top marginal rate) of accumulated undistributed taxable income across the 10-year window, or roughly $60,000 in state tax cost avoided on a trust that accumulates $1.4M of taxable income over the decade. Combined with the UTDA's flexibility for post-mortem trust modernization, Colorado is a natural situs choice for a family without a pre-existing state-of-residence tie to a UDTA or paradigm-seven state.

New Mexico — the co-first-wave adopter (2016)

New Mexico enacted the UTDA in 2016 as part of its broader trust-code modernization, codified within the New Mexico Uniform Trust Code framework at NMSA §46A-11-1101 et seq. The enactment sequence in the New Mexico legislature was near-simultaneous with the Colorado enactment — the two are typically cited together as the first-wave UTDA adopters. New Mexico's approach differs from Colorado's in one substantial way: New Mexico is a UTC state, and the New Mexico enactment placed the UTDA in Article 11 of the state's Uniform Trust Code chapter, directly adjacent to the state's UTC §111 nonjudicial settlement agreement framework.^[7]

The New Mexico enactment carries one notable clarification from the uniform text: the state added an express requirement that the trustee document the reasoning for the decanting in a written memorandum contemporaneous with the exercise, preservable in the trust records. The provision echoes the standard fiduciary-file-hygiene practice recommended by the Restatement (Third) of Trusts §77 but converts the practice into an affirmative statutory requirement in New Mexico. Practitioners drafting UTDA exercises in other states typically follow the same practice as a defensive measure; New Mexico simply makes the practice mandatory.

Virginia — the first state to replace a prior decanting statute (2017)

Virginia enacted the UTDA as Chapter 592 of the 2017 Virginia Acts of Assembly, effective July 1, 2017, codified as Article 8.1 of Chapter 7 of Title 64.2 of the Virginia Code at Va. Code §§64.2-779.1 through 64.2-779.25.^[8] Virginia had adopted a pre-UTDA decanting statute at Va. Code §64.2-778.1 in 2012 as part of its broader trust-code modernization; the 2017 enactment repealed §64.2-778.1 and replaced it wholesale with the UTDA framework. Virginia was the third state overall to adopt the UTDA and the first to replace an existing decanting statute rather than add the UTDA to a blank slate.

The Virginia enactment's most consequential modification from the uniform text is at §64.2-779.6 (the notice provision, corresponding to UTDA §7): the sixty-day notice period is preserved, but Virginia added an explicit list of the specific items that must be included in the notice content — the identity of the second trust, the material differences between the first trust and the second trust, a statement of the authorized fiduciary's authority, and the recipient's right to object. The added specificity closes a drafting ambiguity present in the uniform text, and Virginia practitioners typically use the §64.2-779.6 content list as the checklist for UTDA exercises in every state, not just Virginia.

Va. Code §64.2-779.9 codifies the §11 expanded-discretion authority; §64.2-779.10 codifies the §12 limited-discretion authority; §64.2-779.12 (Trust limitation on decanting) codifies the UTDA §17 prohibition-override. Va. Code §64.2-779.19 codifies the tax-safe-harbor overlay at UTDA §19. The Virginia framework is one of the cleanest UTDA implementations available and is frequently cited as the model that later-adopting states have followed for drafting language.

Washington — the West-Coast enactment (2017)

Washington enacted the UTDA as SSB 5820, signed by Governor Inslee on May 5, 2017, effective July 23, 2017, codified as Chapter 11.107 of the Revised Code of Washington at RCW §§11.107.010 through 11.107.080.^[9] Washington's enactment condenses the UTDA's twenty-nine sections into a shorter statutory framework — the state's drafting committee, working with the Washington State Bar Association's Real Property, Probate, and Trust Section, consolidated multiple UTDA sections into fewer RCW sections without changing the substantive rules.

RCW 11.107.030 codifies the §12 limited-discretion authority; RCW 11.107.040 codifies the notice-and-procedure requirements including the sixty-day advance notice; RCW 11.107.070 codifies the specific prohibitions on decanting (the UTDA §17 override and the vested-interest protection). Washington's tax-safe-harbor overlay is codified at RCW 11.107.020(3) and tracks UTDA §19 substantively.

Washington's most distinctive modification is at RCW 11.107.080 (Application-Miscellaneous), which addresses the interaction between the UTDA and the state's pre-2017 non-statutory decanting authority under Washington common law. Washington had not previously adopted a decanting statute — the state's trustees had exercised decanting authority under a common-law reading of the trustee's general fiduciary powers, backed by trial-court dicta and secondary authority. The 2017 UTDA enactment preserves the pre-existing common-law authority for trusts that predate the effective date and that expressly incorporate the pre-2017 common-law standard, an important preservation for legacy Washington trusts drafted with express decanting authority written into the instrument.

North Carolina — the third-wave enactment (2017)

North Carolina enacted the UTDA as Session Law 2017-121, effective October 1, 2017, codified as Article 8B of Chapter 36C of the North Carolina General Statutes at N.C. Gen. Stat. §§36C-8B-1 through 36C-8B-29.^[10] North Carolina is a full Uniform Trust Code state and placed the UTDA in Chapter 36C (the North Carolina UTC chapter) as Article 8B, immediately adjacent to Article 8A on nonjudicial settlement agreements at §36C-1-111.

North Carolina's placement is analytically useful because it makes the state's overall trust-modification toolkit visible in a single chapter — Article 8A for consent-based nonjudicial settlement, Article 8B for UTDA decanting, and the older reformation and modification provisions at §§36C-4-411, 36C-4-412, and 36C-4-415 rounding out the framework. A North Carolina practitioner working on a trust modernization typically walks the four available mechanisms in order and picks the least invasive that will accomplish the modification.

The North Carolina UTDA enactment tracks the uniform text closely, with two minor modifications. N.C. Gen. Stat. §36C-8B-9 (the tax-safe-harbor provision, corresponding to UTDA §18) adds an express safeguard for state estate-tax attributes — a decanting cannot cause a trust that qualified for the (now-repealed but historically relevant) North Carolina estate-tax marital deduction to lose that qualification retroactively. §36C-8B-16 (special-needs decanting, corresponding to UTDA §15) expands the trustee's authority to include a beneficiary who develops a disability after the first trust's creation, tracking the uniform text but with an added cross-reference to the North Carolina Medicaid-eligibility rules at N.C. Gen. Stat. Chapter 108A.

Alabama — the Southeast anchor (2018)

Alabama enacted the UTDA in 2018, codified within the Alabama Uniform Trust Code framework at Ala. Code §§19-3B-1201 et seq.^[11] Alabama's enactment placed the UTDA in the state's UTC chapter (Chapter 3B of Title 19) as a coordinated addition, following the pattern used earlier by New Mexico. The Alabama version tracks the uniform text substantively; its distinctive contribution is careful cross-referencing to the Alabama Uniform Principal and Income Act at Ala. Code §19-3A-101 et seq., which governs how income and principal are allocated in the second trust following a decanting.

Alabama's UTDA framework is particularly well-suited to see-through-trust modernization because the state has no state income tax on non-resident-beneficiary trusts and because the Alabama trust-code framework at Chapter 3B is comprehensive enough that the decanting can proceed without needing to consult multiple statutes. Practitioners representing families with an Alabama-resident deceased account owner and out-of-state beneficiaries frequently use Alabama as the situs for the second trust in an inherited-IRA decanting, coordinating with a Birmingham- or Montgomery-based corporate trustee for the administrative work.

California — the largest-population UTDA state (2019)

California enacted the UTDA as Senate Bill 909, signed by Governor Brown on September 20, 2018, effective January 1, 2019, codified as Part 9 of Division 9 of the California Probate Code at Cal. Prob. Code §§19501 through 19530.^[12] California was the seventh state to adopt the UTDA and the first with a state population over ten million to do so, making California by far the largest-population UTDA-authorized jurisdiction and the state whose enactment carries the most day-to-day drafting significance for practitioners with a national practice.

The California enactment tracks the uniform text closely on the operative provisions and adds several modifications addressed to California-specific concerns. Cal. Prob. Code §19506 (corresponding to UTDA §5 applicability) expressly extends the UTDA to trusts created before, on, or after January 1, 2019 that are governed by California law or have their principal place of administration in California — a fully retroactive application. Cal. Prob. Code §19507 (notice, corresponding to UTDA §7) preserves the sixty-day notice period but adds a specific list of California-required content items including a plain-language description of the material differences between the first and second trusts in a form comprehensible to an unrepresented beneficiary.

The two most distinctive California modifications appear at Cal. Prob. Code §§19511-19512 (the §11 expanded-discretion and §12 limited-discretion provisions). California's §19511 preserves the uniform text's broad authority but adds an express carve-out for animal trusts under Cal. Prob. Code §15212 — the beneficial provisions for the animal beneficiary cannot be modified except to enhance the animal's care. §19512 preserves the uniform text's limited-discretion rule and adds an explicit safeguard against inadvertent modification of a trust's tax status under California's own state income tax framework, which imposes state income tax on trusts differently from the federal framework.

The California state trust-income-tax overlay

Unlike Colorado, Nevada, and the four other zero-state-trust-income-tax jurisdictions, California imposes state income tax on undistributed trust income at rates up to 13.3% on the top marginal bracket (Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code §17041), applicable if the trust has at least one California-resident trustee OR at least one California-resident non-contingent beneficiary. A UTDA decanting into a California-sitused second trust for a family with any California connection carries a substantial state-tax cost that a Colorado or Nevada decanting does not. On a $3M inherited-IRA trust accumulating $1.4M of taxable income across the 10-year window, the California overlay can add $150,000 to $185,000 of state income tax cost that a zero-state-tax situs would avoid.

Maine, Illinois, and Nevada — the layered enactments (2018-2019)

Maine enacted the UTDA as part of Public Law 2017 Chapter 402, effective January 1, 2019, codified as Chapter 12 of Title 18-B of the Maine Revised Statutes at 18-B M.R.S. §§1201 through 1229.^[13] Maine is one of two states (with Nebraska) that adopted both the UDTA and the UTDA within a short time period, giving Maine trustees the fullest suite of modernization tools available in any single state. The Maine UTDA enactment coordinates with the state's UTC-based nonjudicial settlement agreement framework at 18-B M.R.S. §111 and with the Maine UDTA at 18-B M.R.S. Chapter 13.

Illinois enacted the UTDA in 2019, codified within the Illinois Trust Code framework at 760 ILCS 3/1201 et seq. Illinois had adopted an earlier decanting statute at 760 ILCS 5/16.4 in 2013, and the 2019 UTDA enactment layered onto that pre-existing statute rather than replacing it — Illinois trustees can proceed under either the older §5/16.4 framework or the newer UTDA framework, with the choice typically driven by the specific modification the trustee is attempting to accomplish. §5/16.4 remains the preferred vehicle for administrative-only modernizations where the more elaborate UTDA procedural framework adds cost without adding functional benefit.

Nevada enacted the UTDA following the Illinois pattern — layering onto a pre-existing decanting statute at Nev. Rev. Stat. Chapter 163 rather than replacing it. Nevada's combination of the pre-UTDA statute plus the UTDA overlay plus the state's broader paradigm-seven directed-trust infrastructure at NRS 163.556 through 163.5559 makes Nevada one of the most flexible decanting jurisdictions in the country. Nevada's zero state trust income tax on non-resident-beneficiary trusts and the state's mature corporate-trustee industry — Las Vegas and Reno both host substantial trust-services operations — make Nevada a natural situs for a family without a home-state UTDA option.

Kansas and Connecticut — the 2023-2024 wave (2023-2024)

Kansas enacted the UTDA as HB 2172 in the 2023 legislative session, effective July 1, 2023, codified within the Kansas Uniform Trust Code framework at K.S.A. §58a-1601 et seq.^[14] Kansas is a full Uniform Trust Code state, and the UTDA enactment placed the new decanting article as Article 16 of Chapter 58a, coordinated with the state's UTC §111 nonjudicial settlement agreement at K.S.A. §58a-111. The Kansas enactment tracks the uniform text substantively without material modification.

Connecticut enacted the UTDA as Public Act 24-104 (Substitute Senate Bill 272), signed by Governor Lamont in May 2024, effective October 1, 2024, codified within the Connecticut trust-code framework at Conn. Gen. Stat. §45a-501 et seq.^[15] The Connecticut enactment is the second uniform-act enactment Connecticut completed in the 2024 session — the state adopted the UDTA the same year — and reflects the Connecticut Bar Association's Estates and Probate Section's coordinated push to bring Connecticut's trust-code modernization current with the Uniform Law Commission catalog.

Connecticut's UTDA modifications are minor. The most notable is the addition of an explicit provision at Conn. Gen. Stat. §45a-501(k) preserving the trust's Connecticut state estate-tax attributes through the decanting — a provision especially important in Connecticut given the state's own estate tax at Conn. Gen. Stat. §12-391 (top rate 12% at $12.92M exemption in 2026).

Arkansas, D.C., and Massachusetts — the 2025-2026 wave (2025-2026)

Arkansas enacted the UTDA in the 2025 legislative session, codified within the Arkansas Trust Code framework. The Arkansas enactment was part of a broader 2025 Arkansas trust-code modernization that also included the Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act, reflecting the state's coordinated push to close its statutory gaps in the modern uniform-act framework.^[16] The Arkansas UTDA enactment tracks the uniform text substantively and coordinates with the Arkansas UTC's nonjudicial settlement agreement provisions.

The District of Columbia enacted the UTDA in 2025, codified within the D.C. trust-code framework. The D.C. enactment is jurisdictionally important because it brings decanting authority to trusts sitused in the District — a common practical choice for families with a Washington-D.C.-area primary residence — and coordinates with the D.C. Uniform Trust Code at D.C. Code §19-1301.01 et seq.

Massachusetts enacted the UTDA as Chapter 203E of the General Laws, with an effective date of January 1, 2026 as prescribed by House Bill 4330 of the 194th Massachusetts General Court.^[17] The Massachusetts enactment is the most recent UTDA adoption and reflects the Massachusetts Bar Association Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Section's multi-year effort to bring Massachusetts current with the uniform act. Massachusetts had operated under a pre-UTDA decanting framework that had grown out of common-law authority rather than statute; the 2026 UTDA enactment establishes an express statutory framework for the first time in Massachusetts.

Interaction with the SECURE Act 10-year rule and see-through trusts

The UTDA was drafted between 2013 and 2015, well before the December 2019 SECURE Act and the July 2024 final regulations at TD 10001 that turned the trust-drafting problem for inherited IRAs on its head. The UTDA drafters could not have anticipated the compressed 10-year distribution window or the annual-RMD-within-the-window overlay that TD 10001 finalized. This creates two doctrinal gaps a practitioner must fix by careful drafting when using UTDA decanting to modernize an inherited-IRA see-through trust.^[3]

First, the UTDA's tax-safe-harbor overlay at §§18-19 does not expressly list IRC §401(a)(9) see-through qualification among the tax attributes preserved through the decanting. The trustee needs to add this as a first-order design constraint on the second trust — the second trust must satisfy the Treas. Reg. §1.401(a)(9)-4(f) tests (a valid trust under state law, irrevocability at the account owner's death, identifiable beneficiaries from the trust instrument, and documentation delivered to the IRA custodian within nine months of death) with the same rigor the first trust satisfied them. A decanting that produces a second trust naming a non-individual entity (a charity, an estate, or a trust-to-trust distribution recipient) as a permissible beneficiary destroys see-through status and accelerates the entire IRA balance into taxable income in the year of the decanting.

Second, the UTDA §11-vs-§12 two-tier framework interacts with the pre-2020 vs post-2020 trust drafting choice in ways that matter enormously in practice. A pre-2020 conduit stretch-IRA trust was almost universally drafted with only limited discretion tied to a HEMS ascertainable standard, because the conduit trust design was based on immediate pass-through of every IRA distribution to the beneficiary at the beneficiary's individual tax rate. Under UTDA §12, a trustee with only limited discretion cannot substantially change the beneficial provisions of the trust. This means a straightforward conduit-to-accumulation conversion under §12 is not available — the trustee must find some way to establish expanded discretion under §11 first, or must use a different modernization vehicle.

The workaround most commonly used in practice is a two-step decanting: the trustee first decants under §12 into an interim second trust that has substantially the same beneficial provisions but adds an expanded-discretion authority for a subsequent decanting; then the trustee decants a second time under §11 into a final second trust that converts the conduit design into an accumulation design. The two-step approach is procedurally more expensive (two sixty-day notice periods, roughly 130 days total) but functionally accomplishes what a single-step decanting cannot.

The two-step §12→§11 conduit-to-accumulation decanting

On a $2M inherited IRA held in a pre-2019 conduit trust with a 42-year-old sole beneficiary in a 32% federal bracket, the two-step decanting produces approximately $180,000 to $240,000 of after-tax outcome improvement across the 10-year window versus leaving the conduit design in place. The improvement comes from letting the trustee time distributions to the beneficiary in the beneficiary's low-income years rather than distributing on the IRS's mandated schedule. The 130-day timeline is a manageable cost for that outcome. Practitioners typically initiate the two-step process within the first six months following the account owner's death to preserve the full 10-year window for the modernized trust.

Case study: a Colorado UTDA exercise on a $2.7M inherited IRA

Consider a family with a Chicago-based deceased account owner, a Chicago-resident 47-year-old sole trust beneficiary, and a trust drafted in 2011 as a conduit stretch-IRA vehicle governed by Colorado law and administered by a Denver-based corporate trustee. The account owner died in April 2026 leaving a $2.7M IRA balance in a rollover IRA at Schwab. The 2011 trust names the beneficiary as sole current beneficiary with distribution mandated at HEMS discretion — a classic pre-SECURE conduit structure. Under the SECURE Act 10-year rule as clarified by TD 10001, the trust must fully distribute the $2.7M IRA balance by December 31, 2036.

The conduit trust as drafted produces a poor tax outcome. The trustee must pass through every IRA distribution to the beneficiary at the beneficiary's individual rates. The beneficiary is a physician earning $340,000 of Illinois-source wage income, placing every IRA distribution into the beneficiary's 32% federal marginal bracket plus 4.95% Illinois state income tax — a combined 36.95% blended rate. Front-loading the distributions to comply with the annual-RMD-within-the-window rule under TD 10001 costs the family approximately $1,050,000 in federal-plus-state tax across the 10-year window.

The Denver corporate trustee proposes a UTDA decanting to convert the conduit design into an accumulation design. Under the Colorado UTDA at C.R.S. §15-16-901 et seq., the trustee gives sixty days' advance notice to the sole beneficiary of the intended decanting into a second trust with the same beneficiary, the same distribution standards, but accumulation authority permitting the trustee to hold IRA distributions inside the trust and time subsequent distributions to the beneficiary in the beneficiary's lower-income years.

Scenario	Design	10-year cumulative federal-plus-state tax	After-tax outcome to beneficiary
Baseline (no decanting)	Conduit trust, mandatory pass-through	~$1,050,000	~$1,650,000
UTDA decanting (accumulation)	Accumulation trust, timed distributions	~$820,000	~$1,880,000
UTDA decanting + situs change	Accumulation trust sitused to zero-state-tax jurisdiction	~$775,000	~$1,925,000

The baseline vs UTDA-decanting outcome improvement is approximately $230,000 on the case's facts. Adding a situs change from Colorado to a zero-state-tax jurisdiction (Nevada, South Dakota, or Wyoming) preserves the accumulation-design benefit while eliminating the Colorado 4.4% state tax overlay on the accumulated undistributed income, adding another ~$45,000 of after-tax value. Note that a situs change from Colorado to Illinois would produce roughly the same tax result as staying in Colorado because Illinois taxes trust income at 4.95% at the top marginal rate — the state-tax pickup is a function of the specific state chosen, not decanting alone.

The UTDA decanting completes on the notice period at day 60. Total cost to the family: approximately $9,200 in legal fees plus $3,500 in corporate-trustee restructuring fees. Total after-tax value added: approximately $275,000. The return-on-cost ratio for the UTDA exercise is approximately 22-to-1.

Six recurring UTDA-decanting mistakes on inherited-IRA trusts

The recurring mistakes practitioners see in the field cluster into six categories:

Second-trust drafting destroys see-through qualification. The most common and most expensive mistake — the second trust as drafted fails one of the Treas. Reg. §1.401(a)(9)-4(f) tests (typically the identifiable-beneficiary test), the see-through status is lost, and the entire IRA balance accelerates into taxable income in the year of the failed decanting. A $2M IRA on a failed decanting typically costs the family $600,000 to $750,000 in federal-plus-state tax that the successful decanting would have avoided.
Notice recipients omitted. UTDA §7 requires notice to each qualified beneficiary, the settlor if living, each holder of a presently exercisable power of appointment, any trust director whose authority may be affected, and (for charitable trusts) the state attorney general. Omitting a qualified beneficiary — particularly a contingent remainder beneficiary who may not have appeared in prior trust correspondence — voids the decanting and requires a re-do with full notice.
Attempting a §11 expanded-discretion decanting when the trust confers only §12 limited discretion. The trustee misreads the discretion scope in the first trust and attempts a decanting authorized only under §11 (broader dispositive modifications). The decanting exceeds the trustee's authority and is voidable by any beneficiary who objects. The fix is either the two-step §12-then-§11 workaround or a different modernization vehicle entirely.
Ignoring the express-prohibition-in-instrument override. UTDA §17 preserves the settlor's right to prohibit decanting in the trust instrument. A trust drafted with an express "trustee shall not decant" clause cannot be decanted regardless of the trustee's authority under state law. Some older trusts include boilerplate prohibitions inadvertently — the drafter copied language from a template without understanding its effect. The trustee must audit the first trust instrument for this language before initiating the notice period.
Failing to coordinate with the IRA custodian. The IRA custodian's beneficiary designation of record names the first trust. After decanting into the second trust, the custodian must be given documentation confirming that the second trust succeeds to the first trust's beneficiary rights. Most large custodians (Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, TIAA) require a specific documentation package before recognizing the second trust; failing to provide it can delay distributions and create administrative errors that compound over the 10-year window.
Choosing a UTDA state without considering the state trust-income-tax overlay. As the California callout above illustrates, the state trust income tax burden on undistributed trust income can add $150,000 to $200,000 of tax cost across the 10-year window on a mid-sized trust. Colorado, Nevada, and the four other zero-state-tax jurisdictions eliminate this overlay entirely for non-resident-beneficiary trusts. California, Illinois, and New York impose meaningful state tax that a situs change would avoid. Practitioners routinely miss this dimension because it is orthogonal to the UTDA framework itself.

Action checklist for a UTDA decanting on an inherited-IRA trust

If you are the trustee of a see-through trust holding an inherited IRA and considering a UTDA decanting, work through this eight-item checklist before initiating the sixty-day notice period.^[18]

Confirm the state's UTDA adoption and the operative statutory citation. Look up the specific state's UTDA article in the state code and confirm the state has adopted the UTDA (not a pre-UTDA decanting statute). Note the specific §11 and §12 authority citations for use in the notice document.
Audit the first trust instrument for the UTDA §17 express-prohibition clause. Any express language prohibiting decanting overrides the UTDA's default authority. Boilerplate prohibitions in older trusts are more common than they should be.
Classify the trustee's discretion scope as expanded (§11) or limited (§12). Read the first trust's distribution-standard language and determine whether it confers a broad best-interests or absolute-discretion authority (§11) or is tied to a HEMS ascertainable standard (§12).
Draft the second trust with express see-through qualification. The second trust must satisfy Treas. Reg. §1.401(a)(9)-4(f) — a valid trust under state law, irrevocability at the account owner's death, identifiable beneficiaries from the instrument, and documentation delivered to the IRA custodian within nine months of death.
Confirm the second trust preserves all applicable tax attributes under UTDA §§18-19. Verify grantor status (if applicable), marital-deduction QTIP qualification, charitable-deduction qualification, GST grandfathered status, and QSST/ESBT Subchapter S qualification are preserved.
Prepare the UTDA §7 notice with full content. Include the identity of the second trust, the material differences between the first and second trusts, a statement of the trustee's authority, and each recipient's right to object. Use the Virginia §64.2-779.6 content list as the checklist.
Deliver notice to every qualified beneficiary, the settlor if living, each PEA holder, and any trust director. Send by tracked delivery and document the delivery in the trust records. Begin the sixty-day period on the delivery date.
Coordinate with the IRA custodian in parallel with the sixty-day notice period. Provide the custodian with the second-trust documentation package and confirm the custodian will recognize the second trust upon effective date. Model the resulting drawdown against your target using the CalcLeap retirement calculator and the 401(k) withdrawal calculator to confirm the after-tax outcome before executing.

📊

Model the pre-decanting vs post-decanting drawdown

Compare conduit-trust and accumulation-trust after-tax outcomes across the 10-year window before executing the UTDA notice.

Open calculator →

Frequently asked questions

What is the Uniform Trust Decanting Act and why does it matter for an inherited IRA?

The Uniform Trust Decanting Act (UTDA) is a model statute promulgated by the Uniform Law Commission in July 2015 to give trust decanting a coherent statutory home. For a see-through trust holding an inherited IRA under the SECURE Act 10-year rule, decanting under the UTDA lets a trustee fix a defective trust instrument without going to court — a properly executed decanting can close in sixty to ninety days at roughly a third the cost of a reformation petition.

Which states have adopted the UTDA as of 2026?

Fifteen jurisdictions have enacted the UTDA: Colorado (2016), New Mexico (2016), Virginia (2017), Washington (2017), North Carolina (2017), Alabama (2018), California (2019), Maine (2019), Illinois, Nevada, Kansas (2023), Connecticut (2024), Arkansas (2025), the District of Columbia (2025), and Massachusetts (effective January 1, 2026).

What is the difference between UTDA §11 expanded discretion and §12 limited discretion?

A trustee with expanded distributive discretion (§11) can decant into a second trust with substantially modified dispositive provisions, subject to vested-interest protection. A trustee with only limited discretion tied to a HEMS ascertainable standard (§12) may decant only into a second trust whose beneficial provisions are substantially the same as those of the first trust. Administrative-only modernizations almost always proceed under §12.

Does the UTDA require court approval?

No. UTDA §7 requires only sixty days' advance written notice to qualified beneficiaries, the settlor (if living), each holder of a presently exercisable power of appointment, any trust director whose authority may be affected, and (for charitable trusts) the state attorney general. Court approval is available as an option under UTDA §22 but is not a prerequisite.

Can a trustee decant an inherited IRA without triggering an immediate lump-sum distribution?

Yes, when the decanting is properly executed. The IRA itself is not distributed — only the trust that holds the IRA changes. The see-through trust that receives the IRA distribution under the SECURE Act 10-year rule continues in its second-trust form, and the IRA custodian's beneficiary-designation-of-record continues to name the trust. The trustee must confirm the second trust satisfies see-through qualification at Treas. Reg. §1.401(a)(9)-4(f) before executing.

What tax protections does the UTDA build in?

UTDA §§18-19 preserve grantor-trust status, marital-deduction QTIP qualification, charitable-deduction qualification, GST grandfathered status, and QSST/ESBT Subchapter S qualification through the decanting. Practitioners drafting an inherited-IRA decanting must add IRC §401(a)(9) see-through qualification to the safe-harbor list because the UTDA drafters did not contemplate the SECURE Act 10-year regime when the uniform text was promulgated in 2015.

Can a trustee use UTDA decanting to convert a conduit trust into an accumulation trust?

Yes, provided the trustee holds expanded distributive discretion under §11 and the decanting preserves see-through qualification. When the first trust confers only limited discretion (typical of pre-2020 conduit trusts), the workaround is a two-step §12-then-§11 decanting: first into an interim trust that adds expanded-discretion authority, then into a final accumulation-design trust. The two-step approach takes roughly 130 days total and typically produces $180,000 to $240,000 of after-tax outcome improvement on a $2M inherited IRA versus leaving the conduit design in place.

How does the UTDA interact with the Uniform Trust Code §111 nonjudicial settlement agreement?

The two mechanisms are complementary. UTC §111 requires unanimous consent of all interested persons — impossible when a beneficiary is a minor, disabled, or unborn. UTDA decanting requires no beneficiary consent, only sixty days' notice. Practitioners try §111 first when unanimous adult-competent consent is available, and switch to UTDA decanting when a beneficiary cannot legally consent or when the modification is substantive enough to warrant the more elaborate procedural record.

Which UTDA state offers the most flexible framework?

The answer depends on trust size and beneficiary structure. Colorado (zero state trust income tax on non-resident-beneficiary trusts, well-drafted standalone UTDA article) and Nevada (UTDA overlay on pre-existing decanting statute plus paradigm-seven directed-trust flexibility) are typical choices for portable trusts above $3M. For smaller trusts with a single home-state beneficiary, the beneficiary's home state — if a UTDA state — usually beats an out-of-state situs on multi-state-coordination cost savings alone.

What is the most common UTDA-decanting mistake on inherited-IRA trusts?

Failing to preserve see-through qualification in the second trust. The trustee correctly gives notice under UTDA §7 and correctly executes the decanting, but the second trust names a non-individual entity as a permissible beneficiary or fails the identifiable-beneficiary test at Treas. Reg. §1.401(a)(9)-4(f) — the see-through status is lost and the entire IRA accelerates into taxable income. On a $2M inherited IRA, this typically costs $600,000 to $750,000 in federal-plus-state tax that a successful decanting would have avoided.

Methodology & sources

All statutory citations in this article are current as of August 2026. The state-adoption survey draws on the American Bar Association Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section's 2025 Legislative Update, the Uniform Law Commission's UTDA enactment tracker, ArentFox Schiff's June 2025 State-by-State Summaries of the Uniform Trust Decanting Act, and direct review of each adopting state's enactment statute at the cited code location. The case-study tax calculations use the 2026 IRS Notice 2025-67 trust income tax brackets (37% at $15,650), federal individual brackets (32% marginal at $197,300 single per Rev. Proc. 2025-32), and applicable state top marginal trust rates (Colorado 4.4%, California 13.3%, Illinois 4.95%). The IRA see-through tests reference Treas. Reg. §1.401(a)(9)-4(f) as amended by TD 10001 (Final Regs, July 2024) and Notice 2024-35. This article is educational; readers implementing a UTDA decanting on an inherited-IRA trust should engage a state-licensed estate-planning attorney to review the specific trust instrument and state-of-situs law.

Sources cited:

CalcLeap Editorial, State-by-State Uniform Directed Trust Act Adoption for Inherited IRAs (August 14, 2026). calcleap.com/blog/state-by-state-udta-adoption-inherited-ira-2026.html
Uniform Law Commission, Trust Decanting Act (2015) — final act text, prefatory note, and enactment tracker. uniformlaws.org/committees/trust-decanting
Internal Revenue Service, TD 10001 — Required Minimum Distributions, Final Regulations, 89 Fed. Reg. 58886 (July 19, 2024) implementing SECURE Act §401 and SECURE 2.0 Act §§107, 202, 302, 325, 327 for post-2019 designated-beneficiary distributions. federalregister.gov/2024-14542
Illinois State Bar Association, Bart Serves as Recorder for Uniform Trust Decanting Act (Aug. 18, 2015) — biographical note on Susan T. Bart's role as ULC reporter and Stan Kent's role as drafting-committee chair. isba.org/barnews/2015/08/18
Susan T. Bart, What You Can Learn from the Uniform Trust Decanting Act (Tulsa Estate Planning Forum outline, 2016) — annotated walk-through of the UTDA's twenty-nine sections by the reporter. tulsaepf.org/Susan-Bart-Outline.pdf
Colorado Revised Statutes §§15-16-901 through 15-16-931, Colorado Uniform Trust Decanting Act (enacted Senate Bill 16-085, effective August 10, 2016). law.justia.com/codes/colorado/title-15/article-16/part-9
New Mexico Statutes Annotated §46A-11-1101 et seq., New Mexico Uniform Trust Decanting Act (enacted 2016). nmlegis.gov
Code of Virginia §§64.2-779.1 through 64.2-779.25, Virginia Uniform Trust Decanting Act (enacted Chapter 592 of the 2017 Virginia Acts of Assembly, effective July 1, 2017). law.lis.virginia.gov/vacodefull/title64.2/chapter7/article8.1
Revised Code of Washington Chapter 11.107, Trusts — Decanting Power (enacted SSB 5820, effective July 23, 2017). app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=11.107
North Carolina General Statutes §§36C-8B-1 through 36C-8B-29, North Carolina Uniform Trust Decanting Act (enacted Session Law 2017-121, effective October 1, 2017). law.justia.com/codes/north-carolina/2018/chapter-36c/article-8b
Alabama Code §§19-3B-1201 et seq., Alabama Uniform Trust Decanting Act (enacted 2018). alison.legislature.state.al.us/code-of-alabama
California Probate Code §§19501 through 19530, California Uniform Trust Decanting Act (enacted SB 909, Stats. 2018 Ch. 407, effective January 1, 2019). leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/PROB-division-9-part-9
Maine Revised Statutes Title 18-B Chapter 12, Maine Uniform Trust Decanting Act. legislature.maine.gov/statutes/18-B/title18-Bch12
Kansas Statutes Annotated §58a-1601 et seq., Kansas Uniform Trust Decanting Act (enacted HB 2172, effective July 1, 2023). kslegislature.gov/summary_hb_2172_2023
Connecticut Public Act 24-104 (Substitute Senate Bill 272), Connecticut Uniform Trust Decanting Act (enacted May 2024, effective October 1, 2024). cga.ct.gov/2024/act/pa/pdf/2024PA-00104
Rose Law Firm, Arkansas's New Acts Concerning Trust Decanting and Domestic Asset Protection Trusts (2025) — Arkansas UTDA enactment coverage. roselawfirm.com/news/arkansas-decanting-2025
Massachusetts House Bill H.4330, An Act relative to the Massachusetts Uniform Trust Decanting Act (enacted 194th General Court, effective January 1, 2026, codified as Chapter 203E of the General Laws). malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H4330
Internal Revenue Service, Treasury Regulation §1.401(a)(9)-4(f) — See-Through Trust Requirements for Inherited IRAs, as amended by TD 10001 (Final Regs, July 19, 2024). ecfr.gov/title-26/section-1.401(a)(9)-4
Uniform Trust Code §111 (Nonjudicial Settlement Agreement) as adopted in the thirty-six UTC-enacting states plus the District of Columbia. uniformlaws.org/UTC-final-act
Rev. Proc. 2025-32 — 2026 inflation-adjusted amounts for federal income tax; IRS Notice 2025-67 — 2026 retirement plan contribution limits and trust income tax bracket amounts. irs.gov/inflation-adjustments-2026

This article is educational. It is not personalized legal or financial advice. Trust decanting under the Uniform Trust Decanting Act is a jurisdiction-specific fiduciary act with substantial procedural and substantive requirements. Consult a state-licensed estate-planning attorney and, for inherited-IRA-specific tax questions, a CPA or Enrolled Agent with retirement-plan expertise before initiating a UTDA notice period. Read our editorial process →

⚠️ Disclaimer: Calculations and rates shown are estimates for educational and informational purposes only. Results may not reflect your actual situation. State statutes and IRS regulations change; always verify current law with primary sources and consult a qualified estate-planning attorney and tax advisor before making decisions. CalcLeap is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.