XJuly 15, 2026
In France, if you die leaving three children, you can freely give away only one quarter of your own estate in full ownership.
The other three quarters are reserved for them by law.
This is forced heirship. The ratios are set by Article 913 of the Civil Code. One child and you control half. Two children, a third. Three or more, a quarter. Under French law, your will cannot set it aside.
It is not a French quirk. It runs through the civil law tradition. Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and, in its common regime, Spain all reserve a share for descendants. Across the Gulf, Muslim estates generally follow Sharia shares, with wills generally capped at a third, subject to local rules and heir consent.
A few systems keep no fixed reserved share for children at all. England and Wales, and the United States in every state but Louisiana. A will can leave a child nothing. In England and Wales a child can still ask a court for provision, but that is discretionary, not a share.
In participating EU states there is one lever. The EU Succession Regulation, for deaths on or after 17 August 2015, lets you elect the law of a nationality you hold, which can switch the reserve off.
It is not clean, and the rules keep moving. France built a claw-back on French assets in 2021, but in June 2026 the European Commission accepted Paris's reading that English family provision already counts as protection, so an English election should not trigger it. Germany went the other way, refusing chosen English law for a child's compulsory share in 2022 where the ties ran deep.
Moving can shift your tax exposure. Forced heirship is far stickier, and the escapes are partial and contested.
Everyone prices the rate. Almost nobody asks who holds the pen.
Before the tax, one question. Do you decide who inherits, or does the law. Tell me where I am wrong.
Data from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer I build at Lucky Nomads.
France
Germany
Italy
Portugal
Spain
Switzerland
United States