The §7520 Rate — November 2026.

For November 2026, Revenue Ruling 2026-21 sets the §7520 rate — the rate used to value annuities, life and term interests, and remainder and reversionary interests — at 6.20%, up from 5.60% in October.

The applicable federal rates (AFRs), on an annual compounding basis, are 4.67% short-term (loans up to three years), 5.08% mid-term (over three years and up to nine), and 5.52% long-term (over nine years). The §382 adjusted federal long-term rate for the month is 4.18%, and the long-term tax-exempt rate for ownership changes during the month is also 4.18%.

Every rate rose again, and this time by more than in either of the two prior months: the short-term AFR is up forty-two basis points from October’s 4.25%, the mid-term up forty-seven from 4.61%, and the long-term up thirty from 5.22%. The mid-term rate drives the headline figure, because §7520 is derived from it — 120% of the mid-term rate compounded annually, rounded to the nearest two-tenths of a percent. The ruling puts 120% of the mid-term AFR at 6.11%, which rounds to 6.20%.

The §7520 rate is the discount rate the law assumes when it values a stream of payments or a future interest, and it decides which planning techniques are in season. A higher §7520 rate favors the strategies that improve as the assumed return rises: qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs), charitable remainder trusts, and, in the right posture, charitable lead annuity trusts. A lower rate favors the opposite camp — grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs), intra-family loans, and installment sales to grantor trusts, each of which works best when the hurdle the transferred assets must clear is low.

November turns a drift into a trend. In August the rate stood at 5.20%; three months later it is a full percentage point higher. A GRAT funded now must outrun a 6.20% hurdle before anything passes to the remainder beneficiaries, while the QPRT and the charitable remainder trust have improved three months running. Anyone who has been holding a decision open in either camp should know that the cost of waiting has grown, and has kept running in the same direction.

The AFRs set the minimum interest a family member may charge on a loan to another without the difference being treated as a gift. A three-year note struck this month prices at 4.67%; a nine-year note at 5.08%; anything longer at 5.52%. The rate is fixed when the note is struck and governs for the life of the note, so a loan made in October at last month’s rates keeps them. As always, the right technique turns on the client’s facts; the rate only tells you which way the wind is blowing.