We consider the wave equation with a boundary condition of memory type. Under natural conditions on the acoustic impedancek of the boundary one can define a corresponding semigroup of contractions [9]. With the help of Tauberian theorems we establish energy decay rates via resolvent estimates on the generator −A of the semigroup. We reduce the problem of estimating the resolvent of −A to the problem of estimating the resolvent of the corresponding stationary problem. Under not too strict additional assumptions on k we establish an upper bound on the resolvent. For the wave equation on the interval or the disk or for certain acoustic impedances making 0 a spectral point of A we prove our estimates to be sharp.Let e τ (t) = e −τ t 1 [0,∞) (t) andMSC2010: Primary 35B40, 35L05. Secondary 35P20, 47D06. We use the convention to identify functions defined on the interval [0, ∞) with functions defined on R but zero to the left of t = 0. 1 2 Poincaré inequality: If Ω is a bounded Lipschitz domain then there exists a C > 0 such that for all p ∈ H 1 (Ω) with Ω p = 0 we have Ω |p| 2 ≤ C Ω |∇p| 2 .3 Here and in the following we abbreviate L p ν ((0, ∞)τ ; L 2 (∂Ω)) simply by L p ν for p ∈ {1, 2}.