USA – NEVADA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Robert E. Armstrong, Zach Noland and Ian DeValliere, McDonald Carano
eg, with powers of appointment, trust protectors, and decanting authority, so plans can adapt if the law changes again. Influx of California and Washington Residents A significant and continuing driver of Nevada private- wealth activity is the migration of California and Wash - ington residents seeking relief from increasingly hos - tile tax environments. California imposes one of the highest top marginal income-tax rates in the country and, unlike Nevada, taxes trust income based on the residence of trustees and beneficiaries, and this expo - sure follows many families even after they leave. Add - ing to the sense of instability is a recurring legislative appetite for taxing wealth directly. Proposals such as Assembly Bill 259, which, together with a proposed constitutional amendment, would have imposed an annual “wealth tax” of up to 1.5% on the worldwide net worth of the ultra-wealthy, and a recently pro - posed ballot initiative styled the “Billionaire Tax Act” have drawn national attention. None has been enact - ed yet, but their persistence signals a policy trajectory that many high net worth Californians would rather not wait out. Washington has created similar pressure through a dif - ferent mechanism. Although the state has no income tax on wages, it imposes one of the most aggres - sive transfer-tax and capital-gains-tax regimes in the country. Washington is one of the few states to levy a standalone estate tax, and it does so with a compara - tively low exemption of USD3 million per individual with no portability between spouses. That means estates well below the USD15 million federal threshold remain fully exposed at state level. And the rate struc - ture has been volatile: effective 1 July 2025, Wash - ington raised its top marginal estate-tax rate to 35%, briefly the highest state estate-tax rate in the nation, before reversing course by restoring the prior 10-20% schedule effective 1 July 2026. On the income side, Washington’s capital-gains excise tax now reaches 9.9% on long-term gains exceeding USD1 million, and, in March 2026, the state enacted a new 9.9% tax on high earners that is expressly drafted to cap - ture income diverted to incomplete non-grantor trusts. For residents holding concentrated, highly appreci - ated positions or substantial estates, the combination of a low estate-tax exemption, elevated capital-gains
rates, and a newly enacted income tax, layered atop persistent legislative interest in a standalone wealth tax, has made relocation to Nevada an increasingly attractive option. Nevada offers a stark contrast to both California and Washington: no state income tax, no wealth tax, robust asset protection, and a trust regime built for long-term, multi-generational planning. The result is a steady flow of high-net-worth individuals estab - lishing Nevada residency and situsing new trusts in the state, together with a parallel stream of existing California and Washington trusts being re-sitused to Nevada through decanting and modification. For Nevada trust companies and practitioners, this migra - tion has become one of the most reliable sources of new engagements, and the newly clarified administra - tion criteria under NRS 164.045 make the transition path cleaner for incoming trusts. Accelerating Formations of Retail and Licensed Family Trust Companies The pace of trust-company formation in Nevada con - tinues to increase. As of April 2026, Nevada is home to 34 licensed retail trust companies with a further 12 applications pending before the Nevada Financial Institutions Division; 42 licensed family trust compa - nies with two applications pending; and seven foreign independent trust companies with one application pending. The number of pending retail trust company applications – more than a third of the retail trust com - panies currently licensed in Nevada – appears espe - cially telling and signals continued robust growth in that segment. Comparisons with the other leading trust jurisdictions offer insightful context. South Dakota remains the larg - est chartered-trust-company market in the country by number of charters and assets, with 114 chartered trust companies at the end of 2025, comprising 69 public and 45 private companies, and slightly more than USD900 billion in trust assets under manage - ment, administration, or custody. But South Dakota’s charter count has declined for two consecutive years, from 118 in 2023 to 115 in 2024 and 114 at the end of 2025, reflecting attrition among self-directed IRA custodians, the conversion of a significant crypto cus - todian to a national trust bank charter, and the exit of
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