Most retirement accounts treat your spouse well when you die.
IRAs let them roll it over. 401(k)s let them take it as their own. Social Security switches them to a survivor benefit. The system is built to keep the surviving spouse standing.
Your HSA is the same way, with one enormous asterisk.
If your spouse is the named beneficiary on the account, the HSA becomes their HSA. Same rules, same tax treatment, no tax bill, no paperwork drama. It is arguably the cleanest inheritance in the entire tax code.
If your spouse is not the named beneficiary, or if you never named anyone at all, the account stops being an HSA the day you die. The whole balance turns into taxable income. In one year. To whoever gets it.
Same account. Same money. Two completely different outcomes, decided by one line on a form most people filled out in a hurry fifteen years ago and never looked at again.
Let's go through both paths, the exact rules, and the five minute check you should run today.