Moving from the United Kingdom to France does not switch off every United Kingdom inheritance-tax connection on the day the removal van leaves. Since 6 April 2025, the UK domestic test has been framed principally by long-term UK residence rather than the former deemed-domicile model. A person who has been UK tax resident for at least ten of the previous twenty tax years may remain within the UK inheritance-tax net for a period after departure. That period is often described as the “ten-year tail”, although the actual tail can be shorter and depends on the residence history.
The French analysis is separate. France may look at the deceased’s French tax domicile, the beneficiary’s residence, the location of each asset and the France–UK inheritance-tax convention. A French domicile fiscal, meaning French tax domicile, is not simply the same question as a UK long-term-residence status or a treaty domicile. The result can affect a family home, investment portfolio, pension-related rights, trust interests and gifts made before death. The useful question is therefore not “Am I British, or do I live in France?” It is: which country can tax which asset, under which connecting factor, at what date, and how will the family prove the answer?
I. How long can UK inheritance tax continue after a move to France?
A. What the UK ten-year tail actually measures
The starting point for a British person moving permanently to France is the United Kingdom government’s current guidance on inheritance tax for a long-term UK resident. From 6 April 2025, the former domicile and deemed-domicile rules were replaced in the UK domestic framework by a residence-based test for foreign assets. The official guidance describes a long-term UK resident as a person who was UK resident for the previous ten consecutive tax years, or for at least ten tax years in the previous twenty tax years. The wording matters: this is a tax-year calculation, not a rough count of calendar years spent in Britain.
The current rules are explained in the official GOV.UK guidance on inheritance tax if you are a long-term UK resident. It states that a long-term UK resident can remain within the relevant UK inheritance-tax rules for between three and ten tax years after leaving the United Kingdom, depending on the person’s preceding residence history. In broad terms, ten to thirteen relevant UK-resident years can produce a three-year tail; fourteen can produce four years; fifteen can produce five years; and a longer history can lead to a longer tail, up to ten years. The precise application must be checked against the statutory definitions and the tax years concerned.
That creates three dates which should never be merged in a file:
- the date on which the person ceased to be UK resident under the UK residence rules;
- the date on which the person became resident, or potentially tax domiciled, in France; and
- the date on which the UK tail ends under the applicable long-term-residence history.
A move in late summer, an overseas work assignment, a split year, or a return visit can make the first date more difficult than the family expects. A person should not count the tail from the day the French lease began without checking the UK tax-year position. The relevant record may include self-assessment returns, P60s, employment contracts, travel calendars, property occupation, family arrangements and the evidence used for the Statutory Residence Test. A French residence permit proves an immigration position; it does not by itself prove the end of UK tax residence.
The UK guidance also warns that returning to the United Kingdom after a period of non-residence can change the outcome. The tail is not a lifetime label attached to a passport. It is a rule applied to a residence history, the departure, any later return and the tax status at the relevant time. A person who left Britain, spent several years in France and then returned should have the entire sequence recalculated. The same applies where a spouse moved first, the other spouse continued working in Britain, or the family retained a UK home that was available for occupation.
The practical test is to construct a year-by-year table before estimating any liability. For each UK tax year, record the days spent in the United Kingdom, the residence conclusion, the source documents and any uncertainty. Then add the departure year and the years after departure. A statement such as “we have lived in France for five years” is not enough. The relevant question is whether the person had the required number of UK-resident tax years before leaving and which tail period follows from that number.
The reform does not mean that every UK asset is always taxed in Britain for the whole tail. Asset-specific exemptions, reliefs, the ownership structure, the status of a trust, the residence of the deceased and the terms of the France–UK convention can change the result. The long-term-residence status is a gateway question, not the final calculation. It should be recorded as one line in the analysis rather than treated as the answer to the whole estate.
B. Why the UK tail and French tax domicile are different tests
French inheritance tax uses its own connecting factors. The relevant French tax is often called inheritance tax in English; the French expression is droits de mutation à titre gratuit, meaning transfer taxes imposed on gifts and inheritances. Article 750 ter of the French Code général des impôts (CGI, the General Tax Code) begins with the words Sont soumis aux droits de mutation à titre gratuit
. The current text is available on Légifrance, Article 750 ter CGI.
Article 750 ter works through several different situations. Where the deceased has French tax domicile, French transfer tax can reach movable and immovable property in France and abroad, subject to the treaty and other rules. Where the deceased is not French tax domiciled, French tax can still apply to French-situs assets. There is also a beneficiary-residence rule: where the heir, legatee or beneficiary is French tax domiciled and has been resident in France for at least six of the previous ten years, the provision can bring assets situated in France or abroad into the French charge. That six-of-ten test is not the UK ten-of-twenty test. It must be calculated separately.
French tax domicile itself is defined by Article 4 B CGI. The official text says: Sont considérées comme ayant leur domicile fiscal en France au sens de l’article 4 A :
It then refers, among other matters, to the household or principal place of stay, professional activity and centre of economic interests. The operative text is Article 4 B CGI on Légifrance. A person can therefore be French tax resident while still having a live UK inheritance-tax question, and a person can have a French immigration document without satisfying every French tax or treaty analysis.
There is a further layer: the France–UK convention on inheritance taxes. The French tax authority’s official doctrine explains that, when a person domiciled in the United Kingdom dies, France may tax succession property situated in France within the treaty’s meaning, and the convention can provide relief against double taxation. The administrative explanation is set out in BOFiP, BOI-INT-CVB-GBR-20-20. It is important to distinguish the treaty’s use of domicile from the post-2025 UK domestic expression “long-term UK resident”. A UK status does not automatically answer the treaty question, and a French tax return does not automatically settle the British one.
The French–UK treaty is designed to allocate taxing rights and reduce double taxation; it is not a universal exemption. The asset must first be classified. A French house, a UK share portfolio, a bank account, an insurance contract, a trust interest and a debt can each have a different situs or treaty treatment. Ownership must also be identified. A jointly held asset is not analysed by looking only at the bank statement or the surviving owner’s name. The family should establish the beneficial ownership, the legal title, the acquisition funds, any survivorship clause and the deceased’s actual share.
The distinction is illustrated by the Court of Cassation, Commercial Chamber, 18 November 2020, no. 18-14.242. In a tax dispute involving a trust, the Court reproduced the statutory connecting factor: Selon ce texte, sont soumis aux droits de mutation à titre gratuit les biens meubles et immeubles situés en France ou hors de France lorsque le donateur ou le défunt a son domicile fiscal en France au sens de l’article 4 B et ceux reçus par l’héritier, le donataire ou le légataire qui a son domicile fiscal en France au sens de cet article.
The decision does not say that every British person living in France owes French tax on everything. It shows why the deceased’s status, the beneficiary’s status and the asset location must be tested against the text rather than reduced to nationality.
For a British family, the correct preliminary matrix is therefore:
- UK long-term-residence status and its remaining tail;
- French tax domicile of the deceased and each relevant beneficiary;
- the six-of-ten French residence history of a beneficiary;
- the treaty domicile at the date of death;
- the location and legal ownership of each asset; and
- the tax already paid or payable in the other country.
Skipping one row can produce an apparently contradictory result: Britain claims foreign assets because the tail is still running, while France claims a French asset because it is situated in France, and the family assumes the treaty will remove both liabilities. The treaty may provide a credit, but the credit is normally limited by the convention and the tax attributable to the overlapping asset. It is not a reason to delay the filing or to leave a country’s return blank.
II. What evidence and filing strategy protect a British estate in France?
A. Which documents prove the timeline, the assets and the treaty position?
A cross-border inheritance file should be built as an evidence file, not as a collection of conclusions. The first document is a residence chronology. Use a table with one row per tax year and columns for country, days, home available, work, family, tax return, residence conclusion and supporting document. Keep the departure date, the first French arrival, the first French tax return, the date of the French tax number, the date of any residence permit and the date of any later UK return. If an adviser has made a split-year or Statutory Residence Test analysis, preserve the calculation and the assumptions that support it.
For the UK side, the file may include:
- HMRC self-assessment returns, tax calculations, notices and correspondence;
- P60s, P45s, payslips and employment or director records;
- travel calendars, flight records and passport evidence, with sensitive copies handled securely;
- leases, completion statements and utility records for UK and French homes;
- evidence of family accommodation, school attendance, healthcare and work location; and
- documents showing when a UK home ceased to be available, or remained available, for the person’s use.
For the French side, preserve the first and subsequent French income-tax returns, tax-residence certificates where available, avis d’impôt (French tax notices), rental or ownership records, employment or business documents, social-security affiliation and evidence of the household’s main life. The certificate of a French residence permit belongs in the file, but it should be labelled as immigration evidence. It should not be presented as conclusive proof of tax domicile.
The asset schedule should identify the asset at the date of death, the owner, the beneficial owner, the acquisition date, the value, the currency, the situs, the supporting account or title document and the proposed country of taxation. For a French property, retain the deed, land-registry information, valuation, mortgage statement and any usufruct or bare-ownership document. Usufruit means a right to use property or receive its income; nue-propriété means bare ownership without that use. These rights are not interchangeable when the estate is valued.
For UK securities, use the broker statement at the date of death, a valuation methodology, the issuer and account location. For bank accounts, record the contractual holder, authorised signatories and beneficial entitlement. For life insurance, record the policy, premium history, beneficiary clause and the law governing the contract. For a pension, separate the nature of the death benefit from the pension-holder’s personal income-tax position. The fact that a product is called a pension in Britain does not decide its French classification.
If a trust is involved, obtain the trust instrument, deeds of appointment, trustee accounts, distribution history, letters of wishes, governing law, settlor details, beneficiary class and the asset register. French law has a specific trust-tax framework. Article 792-0 bis CGI is a useful starting point for classification; the family should compare the current wording on Légifrance, Article 792-0 bis CGI with the instrument and the date of each event. A trust should not be omitted because the family sees it as an administrative wrapper, and it should not be treated as a simple company because a UK document uses familiar language.
Gifts require their own chronology. Article 784 CGI requires earlier gifts to be disclosed in a succession declaration and provides for the aggregation of gifts within the statutory period. Its current text is available at Légifrance, Article 784 CGI. Keep deeds, bank transfers, gift letters, tax receipts and evidence of the recipient’s relationship to the donor. A gift made shortly before the move, a gift made during the UK tail, or a gift to a child who is French tax domiciled can change both the reporting and the rate analysis.
Do not rely on an informal family statement that “the house was always for the children”. Record the legal document and the economic reality. The same principle applies to a loan, an advance, a joint account or a company share transfer. A document can be validly signed yet still fail to answer the tax question if it does not identify who owned the asset and when the transfer became effective.
The file should also contain translations when a French authority, bank or notaire—a French civil-law notary—needs to understand an English document. A translation helps communication, but it does not cure an unclear original, an incomplete apostille trail or a missing chain of title. Keep the original document, the translation, the translator’s details and the date of each version. Do not edit an English will or trust instrument in the translation to make it sound more compatible with French terminology.
B. How should the family file, claim relief and check the result?
The French filing timetable is a hard practical constraint. Article 641 CGI states: De six mois, à compter du jour du décès, lorsque celui dont on recueille la succession est décédé en France métropolitaine; D’une année, dans tous les autres cas.
The current article is published on Légifrance, Article 641 CGI. The place of death is relevant to the six-month or one-year period, but it does not decide the country entitled to tax. A death in England can still lead to a French declaration because of a French property, a French-domiciled beneficiary or another French connecting factor.
Article 800 CGI sets the general declaration obligation. It provides that heirs, legatees and donees must submit a detailed declaration, subject to the limited statutory exemptions. The official text is at Légifrance, Article 800 CGI. An estate with no immediate French cash liability may still require a declaration or a formal analysis. “No tax to pay” and “no filing to make” are different conclusions.
The calculation should be reconstructed in stages. First, identify the gross estate and the debts that can be taken into account. Secondly, apply the relevant exemptions, allowances and relationship-based rules. Thirdly, determine the net taxable share for each heir or beneficiary. Fourthly, apply the French rate schedule, where France has taxing rights. Article 777 CGI states that the transfer-tax rates are set in tables for the net share received by each beneficiary; the current tables are on Légifrance, Article 777 CGI. Article 779 CGI provides, among other allowances, a 100,000 euro allowance on the share of each child or ascendant in the circumstances stated in the text; check the current conditions at Légifrance, Article 779 CGI.
Earlier gifts must be brought into the computation where Article 784 applies. The 2026 text refers to gifts made within the statutory fifteen-year period, subject to the detailed exceptions and rules in the article. That means a family that made a substantial gift before Brexit, or before the move to France, should not assume that the date makes it irrelevant. The date, recipient, instrument, amount and prior tax treatment must be checked.
After the French liability is calculated, compare it with the UK inheritance-tax position. Establish whether the UK long-term-residence tail is active at the death date, which foreign assets it can affect, whether a relief or exemption applies, and what tax is actually paid in Britain. Then check the France–UK convention. The credit mechanism depends on the convention allocation, the asset involved, the tax paid and the procedural route. The official BOFiP material on the convention explains the French treatment and the possibility of a reduction corresponding to UK tax in the situations covered by the treaty, subject to the conditions and time limit.
Do not enter a UK tax figure in a French return without tracing its source. Preserve the HMRC assessment, payment evidence, computation, exchange rate and correspondence. If UK tax is paid after the French declaration, the family may need to use the treaty’s refund or later-claim procedure rather than guessing a credit in the first filing. BOFiP’s treaty guidance refers to a five-year period for requesting the relevant reduction from the date of death in the circumstances it describes. Read that procedure with the current forms and the actual treaty analysis; a general foreign-tax credit from an income-tax return is not a substitute.
The French tax authority uses form no. 2740 for certain claims connected with inheritance-tax conventions. The family should confirm the current version, supporting documents, signing authority and filing office before submission. The form is not a magic key: it must be supported by the estate computation, proof of the UK tax, the treaty connection, the asset allocation and the reason the French tax overlaps. Keep proof of submission and a copy of every attachment.
There may also be a succession-law dispute separate from tax. A will can determine who receives an asset, but it does not automatically determine where that asset is taxed. Conversely, payment of tax does not settle whether a beneficiary was lawfully excluded. The French Civil Code defines the French forced-heirship reserve, réserve héréditaire, as the part of the estate which the law protects for certain heirs. Article 912 states: La réserve héréditaire est la part des biens et droits successoraux dont la loi assure la dévolution libre de charges à certains héritiers dits réservataires
. The current text is at Légifrance, Article 912 of the Civil Code.
Article 913 then limits gifts and testamentary dispositions according to the number of children: one child, two children, or three or more children produce different protected proportions. The current wording is available at Légifrance, Article 913 of the Civil Code. Article 921 provides the conditions and limitation periods for an action for reduction; see Légifrance, Article 921 of the Civil Code. These provisions should be considered alongside the law applicable to the succession, the Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 issues that may remain relevant to a particular estate, any valid choice of law, and the status of the UK after Brexit.
The Court of Cassation has warned against turning a French forced-heirship rule into an automatic override of every foreign succession law. In the Court of Cassation, First Civil Chamber, 27 September 2017, no. 16-13.151, the Court stated: Mais attendu qu’une loi étrangère désignée par la règle de conflit qui ignore la réserve héréditaire n’est pas en soi contraire à l’ordre public international français et ne peut être écartée que si son application concrète, au cas d’espèce, conduit à une situation incompatible avec les principes du droit français considérés comme essentiels ;
The lesson is fact-sensitive. A British will is not automatically invalid in France, but its practical effect on the family, the applicable conflict rule and the children’s position can matter.
Jurisdiction is another question. In the Court of Cassation, First Civil Chamber, 21 September 2022, no. 19-15.438, the Court reproduced the European rule on subsidiary competence: Selon ce texte, titré « Compétences subsidiaires », lorsque la résidence habituelle du défunt au moment du décès n’est pas située dans un État membre, les juridictions de l’État membre dans lequel sont situés des biens successoraux sont néanmoins compétentes pour statuer sur l’ensemble de la succession dans la mesure où le défunt possédait la nationalité de cet État membre au moment du décès.
That case is not a tax calculation. It shows why a French court’s possible jurisdiction, the law governing the estate and the tax authority’s taxing power should be recorded in separate boxes.
Before submitting anything, run a final five-question review:
- Have we proved the UK residence history and calculated the tail from the correct tax years?
- Have we analysed the deceased and each beneficiary under French tax domicile and the six-of-ten rule?
- Have we classified every asset and earlier gift, including trusts, policies, pensions and jointly held accounts?
- Have we applied the France–UK convention to the correct asset and preserved proof of tax paid in the other country?
- Have we filed within the French deadline and retained a complete copy of the declaration, valuation and supporting evidence?
If any answer is “not yet”, the risk is not limited to an arithmetic error. A missing residence document can alter the scope of the estate; a missing gift can alter the rate band; a missing treaty claim can create double payment; and an unreviewed will can create a family dispute long after the tax deadline. The best time to build the evidence is before the death of the second spouse or before a property is sold to fund the tax.
For a British person who has recently moved to France, the most useful next step is often a coordinated residence-and-estate memo. It should state the UK tail, the French tax domicile conclusion, the treaty position, the asset map, the filing deadline, the expected tax in each country and the documents still missing. That memo can then be given to the French notary, the UK tax adviser and the family members who must sign or fund the declarations. It prevents each adviser from working from a different version of the facts.
Conclusion
The UK inheritance-tax tail after a move to France is not automatically ten years, and it does not disappear merely because a British resident obtains French residence documents. Since 6 April 2025, the UK long-term-residence test can leave a three-to-ten-year connection after departure, measured against the relevant tax-year history. France applies different rules, including French tax domicile, the beneficiary’s six-of-ten residence test and the situs of the asset. The France–UK convention may coordinate the two charges, but only after the estate has been classified and the relief procedure has been evidenced.
A robust file therefore begins with a dated residence table, continues with an asset-and-gift schedule, and ends with a treaty-aware calculation and timely declarations. Keep the UK and French concepts separate, quote the law in force on the relevant date, and make the evidence carry the conclusion. A will, a French home or a British passport may be important; none of them, alone, answers the inheritance-tax question.
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