Inheritance: allowances, rates and a return within twelve months

Anna and her brother inherit €1,600,000 from their father: a flat worth €300,000, the rest in a current account and securities. Each receives €800,000, below the allowance for children, so no inheritance tax is due. Yet before they can file the estate return they must pay €9,000 of mortgage and cadastral tax on the flat. An estate that is exempt is never an estate that costs nothing.

Each heir is taxed on what they receive

Italian inheritance tax does not fall on the deceased's estate as a whole but on what each beneficiary receives. Article 7 of the consolidated act on inheritance and gift tax, Legislative Decree 346 of 1990, applies its rates to the total net value of the assets and rights passed on, and sets its allowances per beneficiary.

Two consequences follow. First, the family relationship with the deceased fixes both the allowance and the rate, heir by heir. Second, two children inheriting together each enjoy a full allowance of their own; they do not split one between them.

The same article settles a useful point for estates not yet accepted. Until acceptance, the tax is worked out treating as heirs the persons called to inherit who have not renounced. So someone called to the estate is already part of the calculation before deciding whether to accept.

Allowances and rates for 2026

The spouse and relatives in the direct line, meaning children, grandchildren and parents, pay 4% on whatever exceeds one million euros each. Brothers and sisters pay 6% on the part above €100,000 each. These are the only two allowances linked to kinship.

Everyone else gets no allowance at all. Other relatives up to the fourth degree, such as uncles, cousins and nephews, in-laws in the direct line and collateral in-laws up to the third degree pay 6% on the whole amount received. Anyone else, a partner who is not a spouse or a friend included, pays 8%.

A separate rule protects people with a severe disability recognised under article 3, paragraph 3, of Law 104 of 1992. For them the tax applies only to the part of their share or legacy above €1,500,000, whatever their degree of kinship with the deceased.

Real estate: mortgage tax, cadastral tax and the first-home relief

When the estate includes property, inheritance tax is not the end of the bill. The agency's fact sheet on the estate return says that, before filing, heirs must compute and pay the mortgage and cadastral taxes, stamp duty and, where they ask for a certificate of filing, the related registry fees and special charges.

These taxes are due even when the allowance brings inheritance tax to zero. That is what most often surprises heirs in the direct line: the one-million allowance concerns inheritance tax, not the taxes attached to recording and re-registering the property.

The first-home relief works for heirs too. When the beneficiary meets its conditions, mortgage and cadastral taxes drop to a flat €200 each. The agency's fact sheet on gifts of property says as much, noting that first homes enjoy the same relief granted on inheritance.

In Anna's case the flat is worth €300,000: 2% gives €6,000 of mortgage tax and 1% gives €3,000 of cadastral tax. Had Anna or her brother met the first-home conditions, the two taxes would have cost €400 in all instead of €9,000.

Who files the return, and when

The estate return, the dichiarazione di successione, must be filed within 12 months of the date the succession opens, which is normally the date of death. The agency lists several people who are bound to file it, but when more than one person is obliged, a single return is enough.

• Persons called to inherit and legatees, or their legal representatives, unless they renounced before the deadline
• Those put in possession of the assets when the deceased is absent or presumed dead
• Estate administrators and curators of vacant estates
• Executors of the will
• Trustees, in the case of a testamentary trust

Someone not in possession of the estate can also free themselves from the duty by asking, before the deadline, for a curator to be appointed. By contrast, anyone who simply lets the twelve months pass without renouncing remains bound to file, even if they have not yet decided whether to accept.

When no return is needed

Article 28, paragraph 7, of the consolidated act spares the simplest estates from filing, but only when three conditions are all met. If one of them fails, the obligation comes back, possibly long after the death, for example when an asset nobody knew about turns up.

• The estate passes to the spouse and direct-line relatives of the deceased
• The assets are worth no more than €100,000
• The assets include no real estate and no rights in rem over real estate

Exemption is not the same as doing nothing. To release accounts and securities, heirs declare to banks, Poste Italiane and other intermediaries that they are exempt, as article 48, paragraph 4, provides. The intermediary forwards that declaration within fifteen days to the agency office covering the deceased's tax domicile.

The exemption declaration may be signed digitally and handed over as a file, or signed by hand on paper. In the second case the intermediary either sends a scanned copy with the signer's identity document by certified email, PEC, or posts the original by registered mail with return receipt.

Filing, self-assessing and paying

The return, which includes the request to update the land registry, is filed online from the agency's reserved area using SPID, the electronic identity card or the national services card. Alternatively you can use the agency's software, go through an authorised intermediary such as an accountant or a CAF, or book an appointment at an office.

The agency also offers a pre-filled return. Proof of filing is the electronic receipt, and with the return you can request a certified copy, the attestation of filing, which is exactly what banks ask for before releasing current accounts and securities.

Heirs who file a return listing property do not have to file an IMU return as well: the agency's offices send a copy to the municipalities. If they opt out of the automatic land-registry update, they must request it from the regional land-registry offices within 30 days of the return being registered.

Payment changed in 2025. For estates opened from 1 January 2025, under Legislative Decree 139 of 2024, the tax is self-assessed: section EF of the return computes it automatically. It is due within 90 days of the filing deadline, or it can be paid together with the return itself.

Payment made on filing is debited from a current account held by the filer or by the person transmitting the return, at a participating bank or Poste Italiane; that is why the return asks for the IBAN and the account holder's tax code. Returns handed in at an office can also be paid with an F24 form.

If the amount to be spread, the tax minus the down payment, is at least €1,000, you may pay in instalments. A down payment of at least 20% comes first; the rest can be split into up to 8 quarterly instalments, or 12 above €20,000. Interest runs on them, each due on a quarter's last day.

The plan tolerates minor slips: an instalment short by no more than 3%, and in any case by no more than €10,000, or a down payment up to seven days late. The plan is lost, however, if the down payment is not made on time or if an instalment is still unpaid when the next one falls due.

Estates opened before 2025 stay on the old system: the office assesses the tax and serves a notice, payable by F24 within 60 days. An heir filing now for a relative who died in 2024 therefore follows that route, not self-assessment.

A word on dates. Legislative Decree 123 of 2025, as amended in December 2025, repealed the consolidated inheritance act with effect from 1 January 2027. Estates opened in 2026 follow the rules described here; for later ones the new text will need reading.