What Are French Inheritance Laws for U.S. Citizens Living in France?

The short answer: if you are a U.S. citizen whose home is in France, French law governs your entire estate when you die, wherever your assets are, unless your will says otherwise. French law reserves a fixed share of your estate for your children, which you cannot disinherit them from. Under the European Union’s succession regulation you may elect the law of your U.S. state instead, and many Americans do. But three things complicate that election: a 2021 French statute that lets children claw back a share of French assets, a French inheritance tax that reaches worldwide assets and gives children a smaller allowance than Americans expect, and the French tax system’s treatment of the revocable living trust that sits at the center of most American estate plans.

This article explains how the French and American systems interact, where the traps are, and what a U.S. citizen in France should have in place. It does not replace advice from a French notaire, which anyone in this position needs, but it will let you have that conversation knowing what to ask.

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Which Country’s Law Governs Your Estate If You Live in France?

Since August 17, 2015, successions in France have been governed by the EU Succession Regulation, often called Brussels IV. Its general rule is that the law of the country where the deceased was habitually resident at death governs the succession as a whole. Habitual residence is a factual test about where your life is centered, not a matter of citizenship or where you file taxes. An American who has moved to France, lives there year-round, and intends to stay is habitually resident in France.

The regulation applies universally, meaning the law it points to governs even when that law belongs to a non-EU country. That is what makes the choice-of-law election described below available to Americans. It also means that without an election, a U.S. citizen in France will have French law applied to everything: the apartment in Paris, the house in New Jersey, the brokerage account in New York.

What Is French Forced Heirship and How Much Do Your Children Get?

French law does not let a parent disinherit a child. Article 913 of the French Civil Code reserves a portion of the estate, the réserve héréditaire, for the children. With one child, half of the estate is reserved. With two children, two-thirds. With three or more, three-quarters. Only the remainder, the quotité disponible, can be left freely to a spouse, a partner, a charity, or anyone else.

This is the sharpest difference from American state law, under which a competent adult may leave a child nothing at all. Americans in France often discover the reserve only when a notaire explains that the will leaving everything to the surviving spouse cannot be carried out as written. For a blended family, or a family with an estranged child, the reserve can defeat the whole plan.

Can a U.S. Citizen Choose American Law Instead?

Yes, with a caveat that has grown teeth since 2021.

Article 22 of the regulation allows a person to choose the law of a country whose nationality they hold, either at the time of the choice or at death, to govern their succession. The choice must be made expressly in a will or similar instrument. For an American, that means electing the law of the United States, which in practice resolves to the law of the U.S. state with which you are most closely connected, usually your last state of domicile. An election of your home state’s law removes the reserve and lets you leave your estate as you wish under that state’s rules.

The caveat is Article 913, paragraph 3 of the French Civil Code, added by a 2021 statute and effective for deaths on or after November 1, 2021. It provides that where a foreign law governs the estate and that law contains no mechanism protecting children, a child who is a national of an EU member state or habitually resident in one may take a compensatory levy, a prélèvement compensatoire, from the deceased’s assets located in France, up to what French law would have reserved for them.

The provision was challenged as inconsistent with the EU regulation. In 2026, after an exchange with the French government, the European Commission closed the complaint on the basis of a narrow reading: the levy applies only where the foreign law provides no protective mechanism for children at all. The French government has stated that England’s family provision rules count as a functional equivalent, so the levy does not reach estates governed by English law.

Where that leaves an American electing the law of New Jersey, New York, or Connecticut is unsettled. None of those states reserves a share for children or gives a court power to award one, so a child who holds French or other EU citizenship, or who lives in the EU, may still be able to claim against your French property. If your children are dual nationals or live in Europe, this is the single most important question to put to your notaire, and the answer may shape whether French assets should be held in a form that sits outside the succession.

How Does France Tax an Inheritance?

French inheritance tax, the droits de succession, is assessed on each heir’s share rather than on the estate as a whole, and its reach is broad. Under Article 750 ter of the French tax code, if the deceased was domiciled in France, all assets worldwide are taxable in France. Separately, if an heir has been domiciled in France for at least six of the ten years before receiving the inheritance, that heir is taxed in France on worldwide assets received, even from a parent who never left the United States. A credit is allowed for foreign inheritance tax paid on assets located abroad.

The surviving spouse, and a partner in a registered civil partnership known as a PACS, is fully exempt from French inheritance tax. Children are not. Each child receives an allowance of 100,000 euros from each parent, and the balance is taxed on a progressive scale that starts at 5 percent, reaches 20 percent above about 15,900 euros, 30 percent above about 552,000 euros, 40 percent above about 903,000 euros, and 45 percent above roughly 1.8 million euros, according to the French government’s guidance verified in February 2026. Bequests to more distant relatives and to unrelated people are taxed at far higher rates with much smaller allowances. An American used to a federal exemption in the tens of millions should expect a French tax bill on any meaningful inheritance to children.

Does the United States Also Tax the Estate?

Yes. The United States taxes its citizens on their worldwide estate no matter where they live or die, with a basic exclusion of 15 million dollars per person for deaths in 2026. Most Americans in France will owe no federal estate tax, but they still have to consider it, and estates above the exclusion face both systems at once.

The United States and France have an estate and gift tax treaty, signed in 1978 and amended by a 2004 protocol, that allocates taxing rights, provides credits to relieve double taxation, and gives a limited U.S. marital deduction when property passes to a spouse who is not a U.S. citizen. The treaty is the reason a well-coordinated plan can avoid paying tax twice on the same asset, and the reason an uncoordinated one often does not. American heirs also need to understand how the step-up in basis applies to inherited French property for U.S. capital gains purposes, since France’s tax on the transfer and America’s tax on a later sale are separate events.

Why Are American Trusts a Problem in France?

The revocable living trust is the workhorse of American estate planning, and it does not travel well. French law does not recognize the trust as a legal form. French tax law addresses trusts mainly to make sure they cannot be used to avoid tax, and the result is a reporting regime that catches ordinary American arrangements.

Under Article 1649 AB of the French tax code, the trustee of a trust with a French connection must file both an annual declaration and an event-based declaration within a month of the trust’s creation, modification, or termination. A French connection exists if the settlor or a beneficiary is a French tax resident, if the trust holds any French asset, or if the trustee is in France. A U.S. citizen who moves to France with a revocable trust in place, or whose children in France are named as beneficiaries, creates that connection. The penalty for a missed filing is 20,000 euros per failure, and the settlor and beneficiaries can be held jointly liable with the trustee. Transfers through a trust at death can also be taxed on terms less favorable than a direct inheritance.

None of this means a trust is impossible. It means a trust created for U.S. assets should be evaluated with a French advisor before the move, and one should not be created after the move without the same review. Often the better answer is to hold U.S. assets in ways that pass by beneficiary designation or under a U.S. will and to leave the trust out.

What French Planning Tools Should Be on the Table?

French planning has its own instruments, and Americans should ask about them rather than importing American ones:

Assurance-vie. The French life insurance contract is the country’s main estate planning vehicle. Proceeds pass to named beneficiaries outside the succession, and for premiums paid before the policyholder turns 70, each beneficiary receives an allowance of 152,500 euros before a flat tax of 20 percent applies. For an American, the U.S. tax treatment of a French assurance-vie contract must be checked separately, since these contracts do not always qualify as life insurance under U.S. rules.

A French will. A will drafted under French formalities, covering French assets and containing or confirming the choice of law, is the document a notaire will work from. It should be coordinated with the U.S. will so that neither revokes the other.

The matrimonial regime. France treats marriage as a property regime, and the regime that applies to a couple who married in the United States and later moved to France determines what belongs to the estate at all. Some couples adopt a French regime with a clause passing everything to the survivor, which sidesteps the succession for the first death. Whether that fits depends on the children and on U.S. tax consequences.

Lifetime gifts. France allows the children’s allowances to be used every 15 years for gifts, and a donation-partage can fix values and reduce later disputes. Gifts have U.S. reporting consequences as well.

What Happens to Assets Back in the United States?

A house in New Jersey, a co-op in New York, or a brokerage account in Connecticut still passes under U.S. procedures. Real estate in those states will require a probate or ancillary proceeding there unless it is held in a trust or passes by another non-probate route. Retirement accounts pass by beneficiary designation regardless of what any will says. New York imposes its own estate tax, with a basic exclusion far below the federal one, and Connecticut imposes both an estate and a gift tax. Our overview of how probate works in New Jersey and New York explains what a family abroad should expect.

Should You Have One Will or Two?

Two, for almost everyone who owns property in both countries. The reason is practical rather than legal.

Legally, a single U.S. will can govern your entire estate, French apartment included, and the Article 22 election can sit in that one document. The trouble comes at death. The notaire handling the apartment will need the original or a court-certified copy of the U.S. will, an apostille, a sworn French translation, and usually an affidavit from a U.S. lawyer explaining what the will means under state law. If the will pours everything into a revocable trust, the notaire must also work through a structure French law does not recognize. Nothing in France moves until that is done, and the French heirs wait on the U.S. probate court’s calendar.

Two wills solve most of this. A French will, either handwritten (testament olographe) or made before a notaire (testament authentique), covers only French assets, repeats the choice of U.S. law word for word, and names someone who can act in France. The notaire records it in the national register of wills, and the French estate can be settled from the French document while the U.S. estate proceeds on its own track. The U.S. will covers everything else.

Three rules keep two wills from destroying each other:

• No general revocation clause. Each will must state that it revokes only prior wills dealing with the assets it covers and leaves the other will in force. A later French will that revokes “all prior testamentary dispositions” wipes out the American one, and a later U.S. will does the same to the French one. This is the most common cross-border drafting failure we see.
• One choice of law, stated identically in both. Article 22 lets you choose a law to govern your succession “as a whole.” You cannot elect your home state’s law for U.S. assets and French law for French assets. If either will omits the election or words it differently, a court may treat the choice as never made and fall back to French law as the law of your habitual residence.
• One residuary clause and a clear line between the two. Decide which will catches assets in third countries and property acquired after signing, and make sure both documents do not claim the same asset or leave one unaddressed.

A single “international will” under the 1973 Washington Convention is sometimes suggested. France has ratified it, but the United States has not, and only about twenty states have enacted the uniform act that gives such wills effect. Connecticut is among them; New Jersey and New York are not. For most of our clients it is not the practical answer.

Order of signing matters. Have both advisors review both drafts before either is signed, then sign them in a sequence where the second document expressly acknowledges the first.

How Do You Coordinate Planning on Both Sides?

This is not a one-advisor project. A French notaire handles French formalities, the reserve, French tax, and the matrimonial regime. A U.S. attorney handles the U.S. will, the treatment of any trust, U.S. estate and gift tax, any state estate tax, beneficiary designations, and the choice-of-law language. The two need to see each other’s drafts.

Bring to that process a complete asset list showing where each asset is located and how it is titled, the citizenship and residence of each child, your marriage date and place and any marital agreement, and copies of every existing will and trust. Those facts determine which system reaches which asset, and no plan can be built without them.

Plan Well. Live Better.

An American life in France is well worth having, and the estate planning that goes with it is manageable once the two systems are understood together rather than separately. At Milvidskiy Law Group, we handle the U.S. side of cross-border plans and coordinate directly with French counsel so the pieces fit. Learn more about our international estate planning services.

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or tax advice, and it does not address French law as a French practitioner would. Reading this article does not create an attorney-client relationship. Cross-border succession and tax rules depend on individual facts and change frequently. Figures cited are for 2026 and were verified in September 2026 against official U.S. and French government sources; they should be confirmed before relying on them.