Inheritance in Spain for non-residents: planning how to pass on your property

Which law governs your estate

Since 17 August 2015, Spain applies the European Succession Regulation, which sends your whole estate to one law: that of the country where you live at the time of death. In your will, you can choose the law of your nationality instead.

The choice also works for the law of a country outside the European Union. The UK is not bound by the Regulation, but Spain applies it to everyone, so a British or American owner can place their estate under their national law.

If Spanish law applies, children are entitled to two thirds of the estate, one third of which you can allocate to one of them. In Spain, the notary handling the estate issues the European Certificate of Succession, which proves who the heirs are elsewhere in the EU.

A Spanish will for your Spanish property

You sign an open will before a Spanish notary, who reads it to you before you sign. The notary then records it in the Registro General de Actos de Última Voluntad, the central register of wills.

Fifteen working days after the death, your heirs request the certificate of last wills. They need it to be declared heirs, to divide the estate before a notary and to register the property in their names. A will made abroad can also be notified to the Spanish register through a Spanish consulate.

Your heirs' tax when they live outside Spain

Spain taxes non-resident heirs and recipients of gifts on assets located in Spain. Inheritance and gift tax falls on the person who receives the property.

Since 11 July 2021, every non-resident, from any country, may use the rules of the relevant autonomous community instead of the state scale, which runs from 7.65% to 34%. When the deceased lived abroad, that is the region holding the largest share of their Spanish assets; for a gift of property, the region where the property sits.

Your heirs file form 650 within six months of the death and can obtain six more months if they ask within the first five. A gift is declared on form 651 within thirty working days. Filing takes place online with the state tax agency.

The rules where our offices are

For children, spouses and parents, the regions where we have offices grant substantial relief, provided the return is filed on time.

Plusvalía and capital gains on a gift

The heir or recipient also files the plusvalía municipal, the local tax on the rise in land value: within six months of the death, extendable to a year, or within thirty working days of a gift. Each town hall may grant up to 95% relief to children, spouses and parents on death.

A gift has a consequence that inheritance does not: it creates a taxable capital gain for the donor. A non-resident donor reports it on form 210 at 19%. On death, no capital gains tax is due.

Your home country

United Kingdom: there is no inheritance tax treaty with Spain. Since 6 April 2025, a long-term UK resident, meaning resident for at least ten of the previous twenty tax years, is within inheritance tax on assets abroad, with a credit for Spanish tax paid on the same property.

United States: no treaty either. The estate tax of a US citizen or resident covers all their assets, with a credit for foreign death taxes and a basic exclusion of $15,000,000 for deaths in 2026.

France and Spain share a 1963 inheritance treaty under which a property is taxed in the country where it sits.

What you can arrange today

If your heirs one day decide to sell, Alveo Properties guides them from the valuation to the signing. Until then, a few steps make their task easier.

Legal references

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