Estate planning in France for international families

French gift and inheritance tax: who pays, on what, and how much

France taxes gifts and estates according to three connecting factors: the tax domicile of the donor or deceased, the tax domicile of the recipient, and the location of the assets (French Tax Code, art. 750 ter). For an international family, the first question is therefore not the rate but the scope.

• Donor or deceased domiciled in France. All assets, in France and abroad, are within the scope of French tax, whatever the residence of the heirs.
• Donor or deceased domiciled abroad. In principle only assets situated in France are taxable, including shares in non-listed companies with their seat outside France whose assets consist mainly of French real estate, in proportion to that real estate and excluding property used by the company in its own business. The next point sets out the exception.
• Recipient domiciled in France. When the heir or donee is domiciled in France on the day of the transfer and has been for at least six of the previous ten years, assets received from abroad are also taxable in France, even if the donor or deceased lived abroad.
• Rates in the direct line. After allowances, a progressive scale from 5% to 45% (art. 777): 5% up to €8,072, 10% up to €12,109, 15% up to €15,932, 20% up to €552,324, 30% up to €902,838, 40% up to €1,805,677, 45% above. Between siblings, 35% then 45% above €24,430; up to the fourth degree, 55%; beyond, 60%.
• Allowances. €100,000 per parent and per child (art. 779); €80,724 for gifts between spouses or civil partners (art. 790 E and 790 F), who are fully exempt on death (art. 796-0 bis); €31,865 for gifts to grandchildren (art. 790 B); €15,932 between siblings; €7,967 for nephews and nieces; €159,325 for a disabled recipient, on top of the others. Gifts previously made by the same donor to the same donee within the previous fifteen years are added back (art. 784), except cash gifts exempted under art. 790 G, so allowances are renewed every fifteen years. The grandchildren allowance applies to gifts only.
• Cash gifts. An additional €31,865 allowance applies to gifts of money in full ownership by a donor under 80 to an adult child or grandchild, or, failing descendants, to a nephew or niece (art. 790 G), every fifteen years for the same donor and donee.
• Life insurance. Sums paid on death in respect of premiums paid before the age of 70 are outside inheritance tax but bear a specific levy after a €152,500 allowance per beneficiary: 20%, then 31.25% on the fraction above €700,000 (art. 990 I). Premiums paid after 70 are subject to inheritance tax beyond a global €30,500 allowance for all contracts on the same insured (art. 757 B), the investment income on those premiums not being taxed. Both regimes have their own territorial conditions.
• Treaties. France has concluded inheritance tax treaties with a limited number of States, which may displace these rules and grant a tax credit: for instance with the United Kingdom (1963) and the United States. There is no comprehensive inheritance or gift tax treaty with Israel, and the France-Switzerland treaty, denounced by France in 2014, ceased to apply to estates from 2015. Each treaty is analysed on its own terms.

A worked example. A parent domiciled outside France, in a State that has no inheritance tax treaty with France, leaves a Paris flat worth €1,000,000 to two children. The flat is situated in France and is taxable there. Each child receives €500,000, deducts the €100,000 allowance and pays French inheritance tax on €400,000 under the direct-line scale: €78,194.35 each, €156,388.70 in total, before any tax that the State of residence may also levy. The same flat held by the parent while domiciled in France would have been taxed in the same way, but so would the rest of the estate worldwide.

For the treaty position in the main corridors, see France-UK estate tax, France-US estates and France-Israel inheritance and gift tax; treaty texts are in our tax treaty atlas.

Family cash gifts: what the 2027 Finance Bill proposes

Article 4 of the 2027 Finance Bill (no. 3210) creates a temporary measure for gifts of money in full ownership made between 1 January and 30 June 2027 to a child, grandchild or great-grandchild or, failing descendants, to a nephew or niece (or, by representation, a great-nephew or great-niece), who is an adult or emancipated minor and under fifty on the day of the gift. This is a draft bill, not passed.

• A single 6% rate. Gift tax would be levied at a single rate of 6%, up to €100,000 per donor and per donee (article 4, I, A).
• A 5% rate with a payment to a charity. The rate would fall to 5% if the donee pays, between the gift and its filing, at least 1.1% of the sums received to an organisation referred to in article 200, 1 ter of the French Tax Code; that payment would not qualify for the income tax reduction of that article (article 4, I, B).
• An exemption raised to €50,000. For these gifts, the limit of the article 790 G exemption, currently €31,865 every fifteen years for a donor under eighty, would be raised to €50,000, subject to the other conditions of that article, including the donor's age (article 4, IV).
• No tax recall. These gifts would be disregarded for the fifteen-year recall of prior gifts under article 784, and would be filed or registered by the donee within one month of the gift (article 4, II and III).

The law in force remains, until promulgation, the article 790 G exemption and the article 779 allowances. A gift made before 1 January 2027 would not fall within the measure, even if the bill were adopted as tabled.

Three 2026 decisions on international couples and estates

The European regulations designate the competent court and the applicable law. These decisions clarify their scope.

• Spouses with the same foreign nationality. Where the spouses did not choose the applicable law before the marriage (Article 3), and have the same foreign nationality but do not establish their first habitual residence in the same State, the law of that common nationality governs their matrimonial property regime (Hague Convention of 14 March 1978, Article 4, second paragraph, point 3), even if one of them is also French. The rule does not apply where the spouses have more than one common nationality (Article 15, last paragraph, save in the case of Article 7, second paragraph, point 1). The Court of Cassation also asks the Court of Justice whether the date on which a divorce takes effect between the spouses as regards their property falls within the Rome III Regulation (Cass. 1st civ., 1 July 2026, No. 24-15.575, FS-B, published in the Bulletin).
• The carer's statutory legacy. A statutory legacy conferred on death on certain persons close to the deceased for the care they provided to the deceased during a period before death, irrespective of any testamentary disposition made by the deceased, where they received neither a gift nor remuneration for that care, owed in any event in addition to the compulsory share and from which the beneficiary may be excluded only on grounds of disinheritance, falls within the notion of "succession" in Regulation No 650/2012. The courts of the Member State of the deceased's habitual residence at the time of death therefore have jurisdiction over it, for the succession as a whole (CJEU, 26 March 2026, C-618/24, Isergartler, concerning the statutory legacy of Austrian law).
• Co-ownership between former spouses married under separation of property. A claim, brought after the divorce, for the liquidation and division of co-owned immovable property acquired solely by spouses married under an agreed separate-property regime falls within the matter of matrimonial property regimes under Regulation 2016/1103, and not under the Brussels I bis Regulation, which excludes that matter. The property concerned was located in Paris; the Court leaves open the case where third parties are co-owners (CJEU, 24 September 2026, C-300/25, Duftošek).