Your Anduril equity is worth a lot — on paper, for an unknown time.

What's publicly reported

The core planning challenge: illiquid concentrated equity

Most financial planning content for tech employees assumes some near-term liquidity event. Anduril's situation is different: you may hold stock worth hundreds of thousands — or millions — of dollars with no certain path to sell it for years. That creates a specific set of decisions that generic financial planning does not address well:

• Your stock options have expiration dates. If you leave Anduril before a liquidity event, your ISOs typically expire 90 days after your last day of employment (unvested are forfeited). If you stay and the company hasn't gone public, ISOs still expire 10 years from their grant date. The calendar is running.
• Early exercise may protect gains — or create an expensive AMT problem. Exercising ISOs today, before the company's valuation rises further, can start the long-term capital gains clock and potentially lock in a lower AMT bargain element. But it requires real cash and creates real AMT exposure.
• Secondary sales are possible but restricted. The secondary market for Anduril equity depends on whether the company allows transfers and whether investors will buy at a given price. Rights of first refusal (ROFR), transfer restrictions, and board approval requirements vary by grant. Availability is uncertain.
• Concentration without diversification means your personal balance sheet is illiquid and volatile even if you never "lose" a dollar on paper. Rising valuations do not help you pay estimated taxes, fund a home purchase, or retire early.

What equity Anduril employees typically hold

Anduril has not publicly disclosed its equity plan structure. Based on the company's profile — a fast-growing Series-F company with a large employee base — employees are most likely to hold one of the following instruments. Verify which applies to you from your grant documents:

Incentive Stock Options (ISOs)

Employees hired earlier in Anduril's history, typically at lower-to-mid salary levels, more likely hold ISOs. Key ISO features that affect planning:

• No ordinary income at exercise (unlike NQSOs or RSU vesting).
• The spread at exercise — the difference between fair-market value (FMV) at exercise and your strike price — is a preference item for the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). If the spread is large and your other income is high, exercising in a single year can trigger a five- or six-figure AMT bill. The ISO AMT calculator models this.
• You can pay the AMT now and recover it in future years as an AMT credit carryforward — when your regular tax liability exceeds your tentative minimum tax. If Anduril goes public and your bracket rises from IPO-year income, you may recover the credit faster than you expect.
• ISOs must be exercised within 90 days of leaving Anduril to retain ISO status; after that they convert to NQSOs (ordinary income tax at exercise). The 10-year grant expiration is absolute.
• Qualifying disposition (sell more than two years after grant and more than one year after exercise) converts the gain to long-term capital gains. In 2026, LTCG rates are 0%, 15%, or 20% federal plus 3.8% NIIT — versus ordinary income rates up to 37% for a disqualifying disposition.

Non-Qualified Stock Options (NQSOs)

Higher-salary employees, executives, and employees hired after the company grew larger more likely hold NQSOs, either because they exceeded the $100,000 annual ISO limit or because the company issued them NQSOs directly.

• The spread at exercise is ordinary income — taxed at your full marginal rate (federal up to 37%, California 13.3%), plus FICA on the spread.
• No AMT complexity, but the ordinary income tax bill at exercise can be significant. On a $5 strike exercising when FMV is $100, a 10,000-share exercise creates $950,000 of ordinary income — roughly $370,000 federal + $126,350 California + FICA on any uncapped amount.
• Your basis in the shares equals the FMV at exercise. Gains above that basis after you sell (in a future tender, secondary, or IPO) are capital gains — long-term if you hold more than one year, short-term if less.

Restricted Stock Units (RSUs)

Some later-stage private companies (Databricks is one example) have shifted from options to RSUs. RSUs at a private company typically include a double-trigger requirement: vesting plus a liquidity event (IPO, acquisition, or tender). If you hold RSUs with a double-trigger, the shares may be fully vested on your cliff schedule but will not settle — and trigger no income — until the second trigger fires. See the double-trigger RSU guide for mechanics.

Four planning scenarios for Anduril employees

Scenario 1: You plan to stay through an IPO or acquisition

The most common situation. The question is how to position your equity for that event without doing nothing and hoping for the best.

• If you hold ISOs, model AMT exposure from a staggered early exercise over 2–3 years rather than waiting for a single-year spike at the IPO. Exercising 25–30% of your unvested options each year (after they vest) spreads the AMT bargain element and starts your LTCG clock on each tranche.
• If you hold NQSOs with a long time to expiration and the company's 409A is still relatively low, early exercise can convert future ordinary income to capital gains — if the company's value rises as expected.
• Check the QSBS clock for early-grant ISOs. Section 1202 requires that you hold qualified small business stock for more than five years. The stock must have been issued when the company had gross assets under $50 million (per IRC § 1202(d)). Anduril almost certainly exceeded $50M in gross assets after its early funding rounds — this likely disqualifies most employees from QSBS treatment. But if you are an early employee with grants from 2017–2018, verify your specific grant date against Anduril's reported capital history with a tax advisor. See the QSBS guide for the full five-part eligibility test.
• Establish a target concentration before the liquidity event. If Anduril represents 60–80% of your household net worth today, decide in advance what percentage you will diversify in the first 12 months after the IPO or acquisition — and put that in writing in a financial plan so emotion doesn't override it when the window opens.

Scenario 2: You are leaving Anduril (or recently left)

This is the highest-urgency scenario. You typically have 90 days from your last day to exercise vested ISOs — after that, they convert to NQSOs (losing the AMT-vs-LTCG advantage) or expire entirely, depending on your plan terms. Confirm your exact post-termination exercise window from your option grant documents — some companies offer 6 months or longer for NQSOs.

• Do not let ISOs expire without a deliberate decision. Even if exercise is expensive today, calculate whether the expected IPO gain justifies the exercise cost and AMT. The 90-day clock is not extended for any reason.
• Estimate the total cash cost before exercising. Exercise price (strike × shares) plus the AMT bill on the ISO spread. The ISO AMT estimator takes about five minutes and shows the total out-of-pocket cost versus your expected gain at a range of exit prices.
• NQSOs have more flexibility. They typically have longer exercise windows (often until grant expiration, 10 years from grant) and no AMT complexity. But ordinary income at exercise can be large if the 409A has risen significantly.

Scenario 3: A tender offer or secondary sale opportunity arises

Anduril has not publicly announced a tender offer schedule. If one is announced, the decision framework is the same as for any company: how much to sell, what you will net after taxes, and how the sale affects your concentration.

• Unexercised options are typically not eligible for tender offers — only shares. If you hold options, you may need to exercise first (paying strike + taxes) and then tender the resulting shares. The tender-offer net proceeds estimator models this for ISOs (long-term shares), short-term shares, and unexercised options.
• ROFR mechanics: if a third party offers to buy your shares on the secondary market, Anduril likely has a right of first refusal — they can match the price and buy the shares themselves. This does not kill the sale; it redirects it. But it does mean you cannot guarantee that a specific buyer will end up with the shares.
• Tax on a secondary sale: if you already exercised and held for more than one year (and meet the ISO qualifying disposition rules), the gain is long-term capital gains. A secondary sale may also implicate state-specific tax rules if you have moved states since exercise — state source-income rules vary.

Scenario 4: You want to reduce estate-tax exposure on expected gains

This matters primarily if your Anduril equity, other assets, and expected future income could approach the estate/gift exemption by the time the equity is liquid.

• The 2026 estate and gift tax exemption is $15 million per person / $30 million married, permanently set by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA, July 2025).¹
• Gifting vested stock options or shares now — when Anduril's 409A valuation is still below its expected exit value — can transfer future appreciation out of your estate at a lower gift-tax cost. Exercised shares (with a basis equal to 409A at exercise) can be gifted into a trust using the annual exclusion ($19,000 per recipient in 2026) or against the lifetime exemption.
• This is an area where a fee-only advisor working with an estate attorney is essential. Option grants typically cannot be transferred to a trust without triggering income tax — the rules differ depending on whether they are ISOs or NQSOs and whether the plan allows transfers. Do not gift options or shares without competent tax counsel.

Six-step planning checklist for Anduril employees

1. Pull your grant documents and build a vesting schedule. List every grant: type (ISO/NQSO/RSU), grant date, strike price, grant-date FMV (409A), shares, vesting cliff and schedule, and expiration date. Knowing when each grant expires and when each tranche vests is the foundation for every other decision.
2. Model the 409A vs. exit price gap. Your unrealized gain on paper equals (expected exit price − strike) × shares − any taxes you will owe. Use the ISO AMT estimator for ISO grants and run the NQSO math separately. Understand the total pre-tax gain, the total after-tax gain, and how sensitive both are to exit price assumptions.
3. Evaluate early exercise for ISO tranches with low 409A. If some ISO tranches vested when the 409A was $5–15/share and the current 409A is much higher, early exercise of those specific tranches — before the 409A rises further — limits your AMT bargain element and starts the LTCG and QSBS clocks. Model each tranche separately.
4. Check your 90-day clock if you are leaving. Set a calendar reminder the week before your last day, and again on day 60 and day 80 of the post-termination period. These windows do not pause.
5. Estimate quarterly taxes if you exercise this year. ISO exercise does not generate ordinary income — but it does generate AMT. AMT is not subject to the standard withholding rules (no employer withholding on ISO exercise). You may need to make a Q4 estimated tax payment (due January 15, 2027) to avoid an underpayment penalty. Use the estimated-taxes guide safe-harbor rules to calculate the required payment.
6. Establish a post-event diversification target now, in writing. A common mistake is waiting until the IPO day to decide how much to sell. By then, emotions, lock-up restrictions, and tax confusion create decision paralysis. Decide in advance: "I will sell X% in month 1 post-lockup, reduce my position to Y% of net worth by end of year 2." The concentration glidepath calculator models what that looks like over time.

Holding Anduril equity with no IPO in sight?

Get matched with a fee-only fiduciary who works pre-IPO equity — ISO exercise timing, AMT modeling, secondary-sale decisions, and a multi-year diversification plan that accounts for the full picture. Free, no obligation.