How much does an inheritance cost in France: taxes, notary, bank

"How much will the estate cost us?" is often the first practical question heirs ask — and one of the most poorly answered online, between outdated scales and confusion between tax and fees. The honest answer fits in one sentence: it depends almost entirely on your relationship to the deceased and on what the estate contains. A surviving spouse pays no inheritance tax at all; an unrelated heir can pay 60%.

This guide reviews the four expense items of an inheritance — inheritance tax, notary fees, bank fees and funeral costs — with the scales and allowances applicable in 2026, checked against the consolidated texts (General Tax Code, Commercial Code, Monetary and Financial Code).

The four expense items of an inheritance

"Estate fees" and "inheritance tax" are often confused. In reality, four distinct items can add up, and their relative weight varies enormously from one situation to another: an estate passing between spouses with no real property may cost almost nothing, while passing assets to an unrelated person can absorb more than half of them.

• Inheritance tax: the tax computed on each heir's share, after the allowance, using a scale that depends on the family relationship.
• Notary fees: regulated emoluments, identical at every notary's office, deed by deed — plus disbursements and, precisely, the duties owed to the Treasury which the notary collects.
• Estate bank fees: capped since November 2025 at 1% of the assets, up to €857 per bank.
• Funeral costs: borne by the family, with two relief mechanisms — direct payment from the deceased's account and a €1,500 tax deduction.

Inheritance tax: who is exempt, who gets which allowance

The surviving spouse and the civil (PACS) partner are fully exempt from inheritance tax (Article 796-0 bis of the General Tax Code). Beware of a frequent confusion, however: this exemption does not make the PACS partner an heir. Without a will, the PACS partner inherits nothing — the exemption only applies to what the deceased left them by will. Spouses, on the other hand, inherit from each other by law.

For all other heirs, everything starts with an allowance: a fraction of the share received that escapes tax (Article 779 of the General Tax Code). The scale only applies beyond it.

• Child (or parent) of the deceased: €100,000 allowance each.
• Brother or sister: €15,932.
• Nephew or niece: €7,967.
• Heir whose disability prevents them from working under normal conditions: €159,325.
• Failing any other allowance — unmarried partner, friend, distant relative: only €1,594 (Article 788 of the General Tax Code).

The 2026 scale in the direct line, with a full example

Between parents and children (the "direct line"), the scale of Article 777 of the General Tax Code is progressive: each bracket of the taxable share — after the allowance — is taxed at its own rate.

Example: an only child inherits €350,000. After the €100,000 allowance, the taxable share is €250,000. The first three brackets amount to about €1,381 of tax, then most of it is taxed at 20%: in total, €48,194 of inheritance tax, an effective rate of about 13.8% of the amount received. Remember the order of magnitude rather than the marginal rate: inheriting €350,000 in the direct line costs neither 5% nor 20%, but something in between.

• Up to €8,072: 5%.
• From €8,072 to €12,109: 10%.
• From €12,109 to €15,932: 15%.
• From €15,932 to €552,324: 20% — the bracket where most estates play out.
• From €552,324 to €902,838: 30%.
• From €902,838 to €1,805,677: 40%.
• Above €1,805,677: 45%.

Outside the direct line: rates that climb very quickly

As soon as you leave the direct line, the scale changes in nature. Between brothers and sisters, the tax is 35% up to €24,430 of taxable share, then 45% beyond. Between relatives up to the fourth degree — uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, first cousins — there is a single rate: 55%. Beyond the fourth degree and between unrelated persons, it reaches 60%.

The comparison speaks for itself: on €100,000 received, a child pays no tax at all (the allowance covers everything), while a nephew pays about €50,600 — a €7,967 allowance, then 55% on the rest. It is the same inheritance, and more than half goes to tax. Hence the importance, for transfers outside the direct line, of planning ahead with a professional — life insurance, gifts, a will — rather than enduring the default scale.

Life insurance is computed separately

Sums paid to a life-insurance beneficiary do not, as a rule, follow the inheritance-tax scale: they have their own, often gentler, tax treatment. For premiums paid by the deceased before age 70, each beneficiary has a €152,500 allowance, then the taxable share is levied at 20% up to €700,000 and 31.25% beyond (Article 990 I of the General Tax Code).

For premiums paid after age 70, the regime switches: a global allowance of €30,500 — shared between all beneficiaries, all policies combined — applies to the premiums, and the excess is subject to inheritance tax according to the family relationship (Article 757 B of the General Tax Code). The gains accumulated on the policy are not taxed under this rule. Under both regimes, a beneficiary spouse or PACS partner is exempt. Special rules remain for the oldest policies: when in doubt, have the subscription date and payment dates checked.

The policy still has to be claimed: life-insurance money nobody knows exists benefits nobody. The search is free through AGIRA, and on Ciclade for sums already transferred to the Caisse des Dépôts — no paid service is ever needed.

Notary fees: regulated emoluments, deed by deed

Notary emoluments are set by ministerial order (Articles A444-53 et seq. of the Commercial Code): they are the same in every office, and the current tariff is carried over until 29 February 2028. What "the notary" costs therefore depends on which deeds your estate requires — not on the office you choose. The regulated amounts are exclusive of VAT (20%), and you must add disbursements (civil-status documents, formalities) as well as the taxes the notary collects for the Treasury.

The deed of notoriety, which establishes who inherits, costs €56.60 excl. VAT (€67.92 incl. VAT) in emoluments, excluding ancillary formalities. Many websites — and some official pages — still quote €57.69: that is the old tariff, in force before March 2020. The estate declaration is billed on a degressive scale over the gross assets: about €1,416 excl. VAT (nearly €1,700 incl. VAT) for €300,000 of assets. If there is real property, the property certificate follows its own scale — around €1,236 excl. VAT for a €200,000 property.

Other deeds each have their own regulated tariff: the inventory of movable property, or the partition deed if the heirs exit joint ownership — the most expensive deed, with a proportional scale reaching nearly 1% above €60,000. Finally, on the portion of proportional emoluments computed on brackets above €100,000, the notary may grant a discount, capped at 20% (Article A444-174): it can be asked for, never demanded.

Bank fees: capped, but never free again

Every bank where the deceased held accounts charges estate-processing fees. Since 13 November 2025, they are capped at 1% of the assets held in the institution, up to €857 per bank — and since 19 June 2026, there is no longer any legal free-of-charge case: the three exemptions provided by the 2025 law were struck down by the Constitutional Council. The key point is that the cap applies per institution: three banks, three caps.

We devote a detailed analysis to this subject — text by text, with what was upheld and what was struck down — in our article on estate bank fees, listed below among the related articles.

Funerals: two relief mechanisms worth knowing

Funeral costs are incurred in the very first days, before the estate is even organised. Two mechanisms prevent them from weighing entirely on the relatives' finances. First, the person arranging the funeral can have the invoice paid directly from the deceased's bank account, up to €5,965 (Article L.312-1-4 of the Monetary and Financial Code, 2026 amount), even though the accounts are blocked.

Then, when the tax is computed, funeral costs are deducted from the estate's assets for a flat €1,500 (Article 775 of the General Tax Code). The real cost of a funeral usually exceeds this flat amount — compare the quotes, which funeral directors are required to provide, before committing.

File the declaration on time: delays are expensive

The estate declaration must be filed within 6 months of the death when it occurs in mainland France, and within a year in all other cases (Article 641 of the General Tax Code). Small estates are exempt from filing: in the direct line, for the spouse and the PACS partner, no declaration is required if the gross assets are under €50,000 and there is no unregistered prior gift; for other heirs, the threshold is €3,000 (Article 800 of the General Tax Code).

Past the deadline, lateness has a price: 0.20% interest per month on the tax due, then a 10% surcharge added from the thirteenth month after a death in mainland France. Yet lateness rarely comes from negligence: it comes from the time lost reconstructing the estate — finding the accounts, the contracts, the organisations. That is precisely the detective work that can be avoided.

The cost nobody computes: what is never found

The scales above describe what a well-managed estate costs. But the real extra cost, in many families, lies elsewhere: bank fees multiplied by accounts scattered across forgotten institutions, a declaration filed late for want of reconstructing the estate in time, and assets nobody claims — until they are transferred to the Caisse des Dépôts.

That is Vitalegis's role: during their lifetime, the holder lists their accounts, contracts and organisations, and designates the relatives who will receive this directory when the time comes. They will know where to look from the very first week — without playing detective, and without losing anything along the way.