Key West runs on the energy of people who came from somewhere else. Walk down Duval Street or visit the harbor and you will find restaurants, charter businesses, guesthouses, and shops built by immigrant families. If you are one of those owners, you have probably spent years thinking about your visa, your green card, or your path to citizenship. What often gets overlooked is what happens to everything you have built if you become incapacitated or pass away before that paperwork is finished. For non-citizens, estate planning and immigration law are deeply connected, and a plan that ignores one side can quietly undermine the other.
Our firm handles estate planning under Florida law. We do not practice immigration law, so for the immigration side of these questions we routinely refer clients to a trusted outside attorney. But the two areas have to be coordinated, and that coordination is exactly where immigrant business owners get caught off guard.
The Non-Citizen Spouse Problem: QDOT Trusts
One of the most important and least understood rules involves married couples. When one U.S. citizen spouse leaves assets to another U.S. citizen spouse, the unlimited marital deduction generally allows those assets to pass free of federal estate tax. That deduction does not apply the same way when the surviving spouse is not a U.S. citizen. The federal government worries that a non-citizen spouse could take inherited assets and leave the country before any estate tax is ever collected.
The standard solution is a Qualified Domestic Trust, or QDOT. Property passing into a properly structured QDOT can qualify for marital deferral even though the surviving spouse is not a citizen. For a Key West business owner married to a green-card holder or a spouse on a temporary visa, this can be the difference between a smooth transition and an unexpected tax bill. If your spouse is in the middle of a green-card process, the timing of naturalization can also change which planning tools make sense, which is one more reason to keep both attorneys talking.
Estate Tax Exposure for Non-Resident Owners
Immigration status also affects how the federal estate tax reaches your assets. A non-resident, non-citizen owner is generally taxed only on assets considered situated in the United States, and the exemption available to non-residents is dramatically smaller than the one available to citizens and domiciled residents. U.S. real estate, including that Key West property you worked so hard to buy, is squarely within reach. Whether you are treated as a U.S. resident for estate tax purposes turns on domicile, which is a different test than the one used for income tax or immigration. Getting this analysis right requires looking at your status and your intentions together.
Florida Tools That Still Apply to You
The good news is that core Florida planning tools protect non-citizens too. Florida’s constitutional homestead protections can shield your primary residence from most creditors and govern how it passes at death, regardless of citizenship. A valid Florida will under Section 732.502 requires your signature and two witnesses, and a revocable living trust under Chapter 736 can help your family avoid probate and keep your business running without court delay. For an owner whose family may not all be citizens, a trust is often more flexible than relying on a will alone.
Beneficiaries, Children, and Powers of Attorney
Immigration status can complicate inheritance for the people you leave behind. A beneficiary who is undocumented or mid-process may face practical hurdles receiving or managing assets, and naming a non-citizen as trustee or personal representative raises its own questions. If you have minor children, your estate documents should designate a guardian, and immigrant parents in particular should think through what happens if a named guardian lives abroad or has uncertain status.
Travel is another pressure point. Business owners frequently leave the country for consular interviews, document gathering, or family matters tied to a visa case. A durable power of attorney and a health care surrogate ensure that if something happens while you are abroad, someone you trust can sign for your business, pay employees, and make medical decisions without a Florida court stepping in.
Why You Need Both Kinds of Counsel
A pending green-card or naturalization case can change the best estate strategy month to month, so your estate plan should be built to flex as your status evolves. We handle the Florida estate side, and we work alongside immigration counsel rather than guessing at it. If you still need help on the immigration side, including marriage-based green cards, we recommend bringing in a dedicated immigration attorney early. For many of our clients, having a Russian-speaking immigration attorney who can explain the process in their own language makes the whole experience far less stressful.
If you are new to the Keys and building something here, do not wait until your immigration case is finished to think about your estate. Contact our Key West office to start a plan that protects your family and your business at every stage of your journey.
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For more on our Florida practice, see our overview of powers of attorney in Florida. Morgan Legal Group's affiliated New York office also handles .
