French Inheritance Tax for Non-Residents and Cross-Border Estates

When French inheritance tax applies to non-residents

French inheritance tax — the transfer duty on death, or droits de mutation à titre gratuit — can apply to a person who never lived in France and whose heirs live abroad. It applies whenever the estate contains an asset situated in France, and it can apply to an entire worldwide estate where either the deceased or the heir has a sufficient French connection. Living outside France does not, on its own, put an estate beyond the reach of French tax.

The reason is that French inheritance tax is built on where things are and where people are, not on nationality. A British, American or other foreign owner of a flat in Paris, a house in the Dordogne, or shares in a French property company will, at death, expose that French asset to French inheritance tax regardless of where they died or where their children live. Equally, an heir who has settled in France may find that a parent's whole estate — including assets that never touched French soil — is taxed in France because of the heir's own residence. The scope of the tax is fixed by one provision of the General Tax Code, Article 750 ter, which every cross-border estate has to be measured against.

Three points frame everything that follows. First, French inheritance tax is a separate question from which succession law governs the estate: the law that decides who inherits (often the deceased's national law, under the EU Succession Regulation) is not the same as the tax that decides what France charges on the transfer. Second, the tax charge can be reduced or eliminated where a bilateral tax treaty exists, or through a credit for foreign tax already paid. Third, even a fully taxable French estate keeps the ordinary allowances, exemptions and rates — so the exposure is rarely as large as a headline figure suggests. This article works through each of these in turn.

The territoriality rules (Article 750 ter)

Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code sets out three situations in which French inheritance tax applies, and the scope of the charge differs in each. In summary: if the deceased was tax-resident in France, France taxes their worldwide estate; if the deceased was not French-resident, France taxes only the assets situated in France; and, whatever the deceased's residence, France taxes the worldwide estate a beneficiary receives where that beneficiary has been French-resident for at least six of the last ten years. These are the three doors into French inheritance tax, and an estate is caught if it passes through any one of them.

First: a deceased domiciled in France. Where the deceased had their tax domicile in France, transfer duty is due on the whole of their estate — all movable and immovable property, whether situated in France or abroad, including French and foreign securities of every kind and, where relevant, assets held in a trust within the meaning of Article 792-0 bis (Article 750 ter, 1° of the General Tax Code). This is the widest charge: French residence of the deceased pulls the entire worldwide estate into French tax. It is set out here for completeness, because a "non-resident" estate is defined by contrast with it — but it is not the case most foreign owners are in.

Second: a non-resident deceased, French assets only. Where the deceased was not resident in France and the heirs are themselves domiciled outside France, only the movable and immovable property situated in France has to be declared and taxed (Article 750 ter, 2° of the General Tax Code). This is the ordinary position of the foreign owner: a non-resident who dies owning a French property, a French bank account or shares in a French company exposes those French-situated assets — and nothing else — to French inheritance tax. Foreign assets, from a London flat to a New York brokerage account, fall outside the French charge in this scenario. The practical work is therefore one of situs: identifying which assets French law treats as situated in France. French real estate is the clearest case, and it is the reason most non-resident estates are taxed at all.

Third: a French-resident heir. The third door is opened not by the deceased but by the beneficiary. Where the deceased is a non-resident but an heir, legatee or donee has their tax domicile in France, the assets that beneficiary receives are taxed in France on a worldwide basis — French and foreign property alike — provided the beneficiary has been domiciled in France for at least six of the ten years preceding the transfer (Article 750 ter, 3° of the General Tax Code). This rule looks through the deceased's non-residence to the heir's own residence, and it is the one that most often surprises families: a child who has moved to France can, on that basis alone, bring a foreign parent's entire estate into French inheritance tax. The six-of-ten-years condition is examined in the next section.

Two features of the territoriality rules matter in practice. The charge applies "subject to international tax conventions" — a bilateral treaty, where one exists, can reallocate the taxing right and override the default position (see double-tax relief, below). And certain transmissions are analysed outside the succession altogether: a life-assurance capital sum (assurance-vie) payable on death to a named beneficiary does not form part of the deceased's estate (Article L. 132-12 of the Insurance Code) and is taxed under its own dedicated regime, even though it is reported on a separate partial declaration. The core of Article 750 ter, though, is the three-way split above, and getting the estate into the right category is the first step in any cross-border succession.

The six-of-ten-years rule for the heir

The six-of-ten-years rule is the mechanism that turns a French-resident heir into a taxpayer on a foreign estate. Under Article 750 ter, 3° of the General Tax Code, where the deceased is a non-resident, a beneficiary who is tax-domiciled in France is taxed in France on everything they receive — assets in France and assets abroad — but only if that beneficiary has been domiciled in France for at least six of the ten years immediately before the year of the transfer. The rule exists to stop long-settled French residents from escaping French tax simply because the person who died lived elsewhere.

The condition has to be read carefully, because it is a threshold, not a snapshot. It is not enough that the heir happens to be living in France at the moment of the death. The heir must have accumulated at least six years of French tax domicile within the ten-year window that precedes the transfer. An heir who moved to France two years ago does not meet it; an heir who has lived in France for the last eight years does. This distinction is decisive: it determines whether a French-resident child inherits a foreign estate free of French tax (French assets only, if any) or whether the whole estate — the family home abroad, foreign investments, foreign bank accounts — is drawn into the French charge.

The same worldwide-taxation logic appears elsewhere in the Code, which is a useful cross-check on how the rule is meant to operate. For transfers routed through a trust, the assets are taxable in France where they are situated in France or abroad and are received by heirs, legatees or donees who are tax-domiciled in France, on the same condition that they have been so domiciled for at least six of the ten years preceding the year in which they receive the assets (Article 750 ter, read with Article 792-0 bis of the General Tax Code). The six-of-ten test is therefore a general feature of French cross-border transfer taxation, not a quirk of ordinary successions.

Because the rule operates beneficiary by beneficiary, it can split a single estate. Where a non-resident dies leaving two children, one long-resident in France and one living abroad, the French-resident child may be taxable in France on their worldwide share while the other child is taxable in France only on the French-situated assets in their share. Each beneficiary's position is assessed on their own residence history, and the declaration has to reflect that. This is exactly the kind of situation where the interaction between residence, situs and any applicable treaty needs to be mapped out in advance.

Double-tax relief for cross-border estates

Cross-border estates carry a real risk of being taxed twice — once by France on the French-situated (or worldwide) assets, and once by another country on the same assets under its own rules. French law and France's tax treaties both provide mechanisms to relieve that double charge. The general principle is a credit: where France is the State of residence for the transfer, foreign tax already paid abroad on the same assets is set against the French tax, up to the amount of French tax due (as the General Tax Code applies the elimination-of-double-taxation mechanism, Article 750 ter). Relief flows both from this domestic rule and, more powerfully, from any bilateral tax convention that applies to the estate.

The starting point is that double taxation is characterised where the same person is taxable on the same assets by more than one State. Where a bilateral succession or gift tax convention exists between France and the other country involved, that treaty governs: it allocates the right to tax between the two States, and its elimination-of-double-taxation provisions apply in the ordinary way. As the Code puts it in the trust context — but the principle is general — where the transferred assets are passed by gift or succession, the treaty's double-taxation relief applies under ordinary conditions, and where France is the State of residence, the tax paid abroad is creditable against the French tax within the limit of the tax due in France (Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code, as applied to international conventions). The credit cannot exceed the French tax; it removes the double charge without ever producing a refund of foreign tax.

Two consequences follow for a foreign family. First, the existence and terms of a treaty matter enormously, because a bilateral convention can reallocate the taxing right — for instance, giving the country of residence sole taxing rights over certain movable assets — and so change the analysis before any credit is even reached. Whether a treaty applies, and what it says, has to be checked for the specific countries involved; the relief is not automatic and its shape varies from one convention to the next. Second, even without a treaty, the domestic credit still operates where France is the State of residence, so foreign tax paid on the same assets is not simply lost. The mechanics — which State taxes first, how the credit is computed, and how the "limit of the French tax due" is applied — are technical, and they are where cross-border estates are won or lost.

Where a convention applies, France may also use the taux effectif (effective-rate) rule to compute the French tax: the rate is worked out by reference to the whole estate, then applied only to the share France is entitled to tax under the treaty. The important message for a non-resident family is not the arithmetic but the sequence: identify whether a treaty covers the estate, determine which State has the taxing right over each asset, and only then apply the credit for foreign tax against the French charge. Approached in that order, most apparent double charges resolve; approached carelessly, families pay twice.

The allowances and rates that still apply

A non-resident estate is taxed on the same allowances, exemptions and scale as a resident one. Once the taxable French assets (or, where the rule applies, the worldwide estate) have been identified, the tax is calculated exactly as for any French succession: each beneficiary's share is reduced by their personal allowance, and the progressive scale is then applied to the taxable balance according to the family relationship. Non-residence changes the scope of what is taxed; it does not create a separate, harsher tariff.

The child allowance. Each child (and, by representation, the descendants of a predeceased child) takes an allowance of €100,000 on their share before any tax is due (Article 779, I of the General Tax Code). A non-resident's children inheriting French property claim this €100,000 allowance in the same way as a resident's children. A specific allowance of €159,325 applies to any heir who is unable to work normally because of a physical or mental disability, whatever their relationship to the deceased (Article 779, II), and an allowance of €15,932 applies to each brother or sister (Article 779, IV). These allowances have not been index-linked since 2013, so the figures are fixed.

The scale. The tax on the balance is charged on the progressive scale in force at the date of death, determined by the relationship between the beneficiary and the deceased (Article 777 of the General Tax Code). In the direct line — parents and children — the scale rises in bands to a top marginal rate of 45%. Transfers between brothers and sisters are taxed at 35% and then 45%; more remote relatives are taxed at 55%; and transfers between unrelated persons are taxed at 60%. The relationship, not the residence, fixes the rate, so a non-resident child inheriting French property is taxed on the same direct-line scale as a resident child.

The spouse and PACS partner exemption. A surviving spouse and a surviving partner in a civil partnership (PACS) are wholly exempt from inheritance tax (Article 796-0 bis of the General Tax Code). This exemption is not limited to French couples: it benefits partners in a partnership validly concluded abroad. So where a non-resident dies leaving French assets to their spouse or PACS partner, those assets pass free of French inheritance tax entirely — the exemption applies to the transfer regardless of the couple's residence.

The résidence-principale allowance. Where the French property is the deceased's main home, a 20% allowance is applied to its market value, provided that at the date of death it was also occupied as a main home by the surviving spouse, the PACS partner, or a minor or protected adult child of the deceased, their spouse or their partner (Article 764 bis of the General Tax Code). This 20% reduction turns on the property genuinely being the household's principal residence — it does not apply to a second home or a let property — which, for many non-resident owners whose French house is a holiday home, means the allowance is not available. Where it does apply, it reduces the taxable value before the allowances and scale are applied.

The declaration deadline. The timing is where non-residents diverge from residents. The succession declaration must in principle be filed within six months of the death where the death occurs in metropolitan France (Article 641 of the General Tax Code), but that period is extended to one year where the death occurs abroad. This matters directly to a foreign family: if the deceased died outside France, the heirs have twelve months, not six, to file the declaration and pay the duty. A late-filing surcharge of 10% applies from the thirteenth month after death in either case, but the underlying deadline is longer for a death abroad — a point often missed, and one that governs when the tax actually has to be paid.

Settling a French estate from abroad

Settling a French estate from another country follows the same steps as any French succession, but the distance and the cross-border paperwork make each step slower. A French estate with real property is handled by a notaire, the public officer who establishes who inherits, draws up the deed of notoriety and the transfer documents for the French property, and oversees the tax declaration. Heirs abroad do not need to travel for most of this; the notaire can act on documents sent from abroad and on a power of attorney. The stages below set out how it works in practice.

Two practical points recur. Where the property has never been formally registered in the deceased's name — an old, undocumented title — the filing deadline is extended to twenty-four months so that the title can be reconstructed first (Article 641 bis of the General Tax Code). And because the surviving spouse or PACS partner is exempt (Article 796-0 bis), an estate passing to a spouse often owes no French inheritance tax at all, though the declaration and the property transfer still have to be completed. The administrative burden does not disappear just because the tax bill does.

The non-resident declaration

A non-resident estate is declared to a specific office. French estates that include real property whose title was not registered in the deceased's name before death are filed with the tax office of the deceased's domicile if they lived in France, or — for a non-resident — with the non-residents' collection office (recette des non-résidents, 10 rue du Centre, 93465 Noisy-le-Grand Cedex) (Article 641 bis of the General Tax Code). That office is the point of contact for a non-resident succession, and it is where the declaration is lodged and the duty paid. The French tax authority's own guidance for international situations confirms that a non-resident's French succession is declared and settled through the service dedicated to non-residents (impots.gouv.fr — declaring a succession in France).

The content of the declaration is the same as for any French succession: it lists the assets that are taxable in France, applies the personal allowances and the scale, records any earlier gifts within the reporting period, and computes the duty. Where a treaty applies or foreign tax has been paid on the same assets, the double-tax relief is claimed here, and the effective-rate rule is used where a convention requires it. For a non-resident deceased whose heirs are also abroad, only the French-situated assets are entered; where the six-of-ten-years rule brings an heir's worldwide share into charge, the foreign assets in that share are declared as well.

The old idea that a non-resident inheritance always requires an "accredited fiscal representative" should be treated with caution. There is no general requirement to appoint a fiscal representative to file an inheritance-tax declaration for a French estate. A representative or agent may be used — a notaire commonly acts for heirs abroad under a power of attorney — but that is a matter of convenience, not a statutory condition of the succession declaration itself. Where any representation requirement genuinely applies to a particular situation, it should be confirmed against the current official guidance rather than assumed; the safe default for a non-resident inheritance is that the heirs, usually through their notaire, file with the non-residents' office.

The single most important thing a non-resident family can do is start early. The documents — death certificate, identity and family records, property title, valuations — take time to assemble and translate from abroad, the notaire needs them before the deed of notoriety can be drawn, and the one-year deadline for a death abroad, though longer than the domestic six months, still runs from the death. Leaving the French declaration until the foreign estate is settled is the most common way that families drift into late-filing surcharges on the French duty.

Frequently asked questions about French inheritance tax for non-residents

Do non-residents pay French inheritance tax?

Yes, where the estate contains French-situated assets. A non-resident who dies owning property in France — real estate above all — exposes those French assets to French inheritance tax, even if they died abroad and their heirs live abroad; only the French-situated assets are taxed in that case (Article 750 ter, 2° of the General Tax Code). The estate keeps the ordinary allowances and scale, so the tax is charged on the same terms as for a resident.

Is French property taxed if I live abroad?

Yes. French real estate is situated in France, so it falls within French inheritance tax on the owner's death whatever their country of residence (Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code). Where the property was the deceased's main home and is still occupied as a main home by the spouse, PACS partner or a minor child, a 20% allowance reduces its taxable value (Article 764 bis); for a second home or a let property, that allowance is not available.

How does the 6-of-10-years rule work?

Where the deceased is a non-resident but an heir is tax-domiciled in France, that heir is taxed in France on their whole worldwide share — French and foreign assets — provided they have been domiciled in France for at least six of the ten years before the transfer (Article 750 ter, 3° of the General Tax Code). An heir who moved to France only recently does not meet the threshold and is taxed only on French-situated assets; a long-settled heir is taxed on everything they receive.

Can I be taxed twice?

Double taxation is possible where two countries tax the same assets, but relief is available. Where a bilateral tax treaty applies, it allocates the taxing right between the two States and eliminates the double charge; and where France is the State of residence, foreign tax already paid on the same assets is credited against the French tax, up to the amount of French tax due (Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code, as applied to international conventions). Whether a treaty applies, and its terms, has to be checked for the specific countries involved.

How do I settle a French estate from another country?

Instruct a French notaire, who establishes the heirs, prepares the deed of notoriety, values the French assets, files the succession declaration and transfers the property. Heirs abroad can act by sending certified documents and a power of attorney rather than travelling. Where the death occurred abroad, the declaration deadline is one year from death rather than the six months that applies to a death in France (Article 641 of the General Tax Code).

Does the surviving spouse pay French inheritance tax?

No. A surviving spouse and a surviving PACS partner are wholly exempt from French inheritance tax, and the exemption extends to partnerships validly concluded abroad (Article 796-0 bis of the General Tax Code). So French assets passing to a spouse or partner on death carry no French inheritance tax, though the succession declaration and the property transfer must still be completed.

Which office handles a non-resident French estate?

A non-resident succession is declared to the non-residents' collection office (recette des non-résidents) at Noisy-le-Grand, rather than to a local tax office (Article 641 bis of the General Tax Code). The declaration lists the taxable French assets, applies the allowances and scale, and claims any treaty relief or foreign-tax credit. In practice a notaire acting for the heirs handles the filing.

How our French lawyers help with French inheritance tax for non-residents

Cross-border estates are where French inheritance tax is easiest to get wrong and most expensive to get wrong. We advise non-resident owners and their heirs on exactly what French tax applies to a French estate — which assets are in charge under Article 750 ter, whether the six-of-ten-years rule pulls in a foreign estate through a French-resident heir, and how the allowances, the spouse exemption and the scale reduce the bill. Where a family is exposed to tax in two countries, we work through whether a treaty applies, which State has the taxing right, and how the foreign-tax credit is claimed, and we handle the non-resident declaration and the property transfer through a French notaire.

This article is for general information only. It does not constitute legal or tax advice and does not create a lawyer-client relationship. How French inheritance tax applies depends on the assets, their location, the residence of the deceased and each heir, and any applicable tax treaty. Contact our French lawyers for advice on your situation before acting.