Gift and inheritance tax in France

One tax, assessed on each beneficiary's share

France levies a single national duty on gifts and on inheritances. There is no regional or communal layer, which is the first difference with Switzerland, where the tax is cantonal and twenty-six regimes coexist.

The duty is assessed on the net share coming to each beneficiary, not on the estate as a whole. Two children inheriting equally are each taxed on their own share, each with their own allowance. The rate then depends on the relationship between the deceased or the donor and the person receiving.

Allowances come before the scale, and several of them stack

An allowance is a deduction, never a threshold that is lost in full once it is exceeded. A child receiving 150 000 euros is taxed on 50 000. The allowances have not been revalued since 2012.

• 100 000 euros for a child or a parent, for gifts as for inheritances, article 779 I.
• 15 932 euros for a brother or a sister, 7 967 euros for a nephew or a niece, article 779 IV and V.
• For gifts only, 80 724 euros between spouses or PACS partners, 31 865 euros for a grandchild, 5 310 euros for a great-grandchild.
• 159 325 euros for a beneficiary who cannot work in normal conditions because of a disability, article 779 II. It stacks with the allowance for the relationship.
• 1 594 euros on any share of an estate where no other allowance applies, article 788 IV. This one has no equivalent for gifts, which is why an unrelated heir has an allowance and an unrelated donee has none.

The scales

In the direct line, between parents and children, the scale runs in seven brackets from 5 per cent to 45 per cent, the top rate applying above 1 805 677 euros. Between spouses and PACS partners, gifts follow a scale of their own whose first three brackets differ from the direct line.

Between brothers and sisters, 35 per cent up to 24 430 euros and 45 per cent above. Between relatives up to the fourth degree inclusive, a flat 55 per cent. Beyond the fourth degree and between unrelated persons, a flat 60 per cent, which is what a partner outside marriage or PACS pays.

The surviving spouse and the surviving PACS partner pay no inheritance duty at all, article 796-0 bis. A brother or a sister is exempt as well, but on three cumulative conditions set by article 796-0 ter: living with the deceased for the five years before death, being single, widowed, divorced or legally separated, and being over fifty or unable to work. Those conditions are rarely met, so the simulator does not assume them. Tick the box if they are satisfied.

Gifts made within fifteen years are counted again

Article 784 requires earlier gifts between the same two people to be declared. Those made less than fifteen years before the new transfer reduce the allowance still available and push the new transfer into the higher brackets. Fifteen years after a gift, the allowance is fully restored.

The family gift of a sum of money is the exception. Article 790 G allows 31 865 euros free of duty every fifteen years, provided the donor is under eighty and the donee is an adult, and the recipient is a descendant or, where there is no descendant, a nephew or a niece. Article 790 G III excludes that gift from the clawback, so it does not consume the ordinary allowance.

Cross-border: the third criterion is the one that surprises

Article 750 ter gives France three separate grounds to tax, and only the first two are widely known.

• The donor or the deceased is domiciled in France: all assets are taxable, in France and abroad, whatever the domicile of the beneficiary.
• The donor or the deceased is domiciled abroad: only assets situated in France are taxable, whether held directly or through a company.
• The donor or the deceased is domiciled abroad but the beneficiary is domiciled in France on the day of the transfer and has been for at least six of the ten preceding years: assets in France and abroad are taxable. The six years need not be continuous. A beneficiary who has lived in France for less than six years out of ten is outside this rule, which is how the provision was designed to spare temporary assignments.

France and Switzerland: no treaty since 2015

A succession treaty signed on 31 December 1953 governed Franco-Swiss estates until 2014. France gave notice of denunciation on 17 June 2014, published by decree 2014-1270 of 30 October 2014, and the treaty ceased to apply to the estates of persons dying from 1 January 2015. No new treaty has been concluded. There has never been a Franco-Swiss treaty on gifts.

The practical consequence is that the third criterion of article 750 ter applies in full. A treaty would normally neutralise it, because succession treaties allocate the right to tax by reference to the residence of the deceased and the place where the assets are, without looking at where the heir lives. With no treaty, an heir resident in France for six of the last ten years is taxable in France on a Swiss bank account left by a parent who lived and died in Switzerland, while the canton of that parent's domicile taxes the same account.

Article 784 A softens this and does not cure it. Duty paid abroad is credited against the French duty, but only where France taxes worldwide assets, and only up to the French duty on the assets situated abroad. The claim is made on form 2740-SD.

Which law governs the estate is a separate question from who taxes it

Regulation (EU) 650/2012 has applied to the estates of persons dying on or after 17 August 2015. It designates the law of the State where the deceased had his habitual residence at death, and allows a person to choose instead the law of a State of his nationality. Article 1 states that the regulation does not apply to revenue matters, and recital 10 leaves the calculation and payment of tax to national law.

Switzerland is not a member of the European Union and is not bound by the regulation. Swiss conflict rules follow the federal act on private international law, whose succession chapter was revised by the act of 22 December 2023 and has applied in that form since 1 January 2025. Article 90 keeps the last domicile of the deceased as the connecting factor, article 86 gives jurisdiction to the authorities of that last domicile, and article 91 allows a person to submit the estate to the law of a State of his nationality, a Swiss national being unable to depart from Swiss law on the disposable portion.

The two systems do not use the same test. The European regulation attaches to habitual residence, Swiss law to domicile, and the two do not always point to the same country for the same person.

Devolution and taxation can therefore point to different countries at the same time, and often do. Deciding one says nothing about the other.