NAVIGATION

What is Qualified Small Business Stock?

Definition

Qualified Small Business Stock

Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) is a US tax provision (Section 1202) that allows early startup investors and employees to exclude up to 100% of capital gains from federal taxes upon sale.

Why It Matters for Startups

Directly dictates the cap table and dilution structure during fundraising; understanding Qualified Small Business Stock helps founders model equity distributions when structuring rounds for tax optimization on startup exits.

Detailed Deep Dive

Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) is a US tax provision (Section 1202) that allows early startup investors and employees to exclude up to 100% of capital gains from federal taxes upon exit.

Advertisement

Frequently Asked Questions

Q:What are the main requirements for QSBS?

The company's gross assets must not exceed $50M at the time of stock issuance, and the shares must be held for at least 5 years.

Q:How much tax can be excluded under QSBS?

Up to $10 million in capital gains, or 10 times the taxpayer's basis in the stock (whichever is greater).

Quick Facts

  • CategoryFunding
  • Key ApplicationTax optimization on startup exits

Coverage Trend12 Weeks

12w agoToday

Cite This Term

Reference this definition in your articles, research, or documentation to credit this source:

[Qualified Small Business Stock | SPIDITS Glossary](https://spidits.com/startup-glossary/qsbs)

Qualified Small Business Stock Media Coverage & Intelligence

No Direct Qualified Small Business Stock News Today

We currently have no direct coverage articles matching "Qualified Small Business Stock". Explore trending global startup topics below instead.

Trending Startup Stories

AWS ML BlogSep 30, 2026

Amazon Bedrock expands Claude model availability to in-country inferencing in India

Anthropic's Claude Opus 5, Claude Sonnet 5, and Claude Haiku 4.5 are now available in India through Amazon Bedrock geographic cross-Region inference. You can...

AWS ML BlogSep 30, 2026

Introducing Anthropic models on Amazon Bedrock for in-region inference in Seoul and Singapore

Amazon Bedrock now supports Anthropic's Claude Opus 5 and Claude Sonnet 5 with in-region inference in Seoul, and Claude Sonnet 5 in Singapore. If you have...

AWS ML BlogSep 29, 2026

Prompt engineering fundamentals for Amazon Quick

Prompt engineering in Amazon Quick shapes how accurately its AI-powered feature respond to your requests. Part 1 of a two-part series covers the...

AWS ML BlogSep 29, 2026

Prompt engineering by Quick component: Patterns and pitfalls

Part 2 of our Amazon Quick prompt engineering series goes component by component. Learn the prompt patterns that get the best results from Amazon Quick...