Estate planning in seven countries: the documents you need, the taxes you face, and the rules that differ
Every estate plan is six documents doing five jobs. What changes when you cross a border is the tax, the probate, and whether the law lets you choose your heirs at all. One framework, seven rulebooks, and the places plans actually break.
General information, not advice.
Key facts
A complete estate plan in any of the seven countries has six parts: a will, one or more trusts where they fit, powers of attorney, beneficiary nominations, a letter of wishes, and a record of what you own and where it is.
Four of the seven charge no tax at death on the estate itself (Australia, Canada, Israel, Singapore); Canada taxes capital gains at death instead; the United States taxes estates above US$15 million per person and the United Kingdom above £325,000 plus a £175,000 residence band; Germany, France and Spain tax the recipient.
In France, Germany, Spain and Brazil the law reserves a share of your estate for your children whatever your will says; in the other markets it does not, and family-provision, elective-share or dependants' claims apply instead.
What does an estate plan actually contain?
An estate plan is the set of documents that decide who gets what you own, who is in charge while you cannot be and after you are gone, and how the tax on the way is handled. Done properly it has six parts, and most families have two or three of them. The rest are the plan's weak points.
Document | What it does | Who needs it |
|---|---|---|
Will | Names who receives your estate, who administers it, and who raises minor children | Everyone with anything to leave or anyone to protect |
Trust (living, family or testamentary) | Holds assets for people under rules you set, for control, protection or tax | Blended families, business owners, anyone with young or vulnerable heirs, most high-net-worth estates |
Powers of attorney and health directives | Let someone act for you if you lose capacity, for money and for care | Everyone over fifty, and everyone with a business |
Beneficiary nominations | Direct retirement accounts, superannuation, pensions and life policies, usually outside the will | Everyone with a pension, super, IRA, 401(k) or policy |
Letter of wishes | Tells trustees and executors how to use their discretion, in your words | Anyone with a trust or a discretionary gift |
Asset record | A current list of what you own, where, and how to reach it, digital accounts included | Everyone; it is what the executor spends the first month rebuilding otherwise |
The framework: own, hold, pass, protect, decide, explain
Six verbs cover every plan in every country. Own: know what you have and where its legal home is. Hold: choose whether it sits in your name, joint names, a trust or a company. Pass: decide who receives it and by which document. Protect: shield it from the claims and taxes that apply where it sits. Decide: name who acts if you cannot. Explain: leave the reasons behind the choices. The first five have a document each. The sixth has a page, if that.
How do the seven countries differ?
The table is the article. Each row links to the country's full page.
Country | Tax at death | Probate or equivalent | Forced heirship | Retirement money | Capacity document |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Federal estate tax at 40% above US$15 million per person from 2026, indexed; twelve states and the District of Columbia add an estate tax with thresholds from US$1 million (Oregon) upward; five states (Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania) charge an inheritance tax on the recipient | Probate by state court; revocable trusts avoid it | None; the surviving spouse's elective share, usually a third to a half, in most states | Beneficiary designation binds; most non-spouse heirs must empty an inherited IRA or 401(k) within ten years | Durable power of attorney; health-care proxy and advance directive | |
Inheritance tax at 40% above £325,000 plus £175,000 residence band, both frozen to April 2030; unused pensions inside the estate from April 2027 | Grant of probate through HMCTS; tax due before the grant in larger estates | None in England and Wales (Inheritance Act claims); legal rights to a share of moveable property in Scotland | Expression of wish, scheme trustees decide; inside inheritance tax from 6 April 2027 | Lasting power of attorney, registered with the Office of the Public Guardian | |
None; capital gains taxed at death (deemed disposition at fair market value, one-half inclusion), with a rollover to a spouse | Probate by province; Ontario's estate administration tax is 1.5% above C$50,000, Alberta's is capped at C$525, Quebec notarial wills need none | None outside Quebec; dependants' relief claims | RRSP and RRIF brought into income on the final return unless rolled to a spouse; TFSA passes to a successor holder | Continuing or enduring power of attorney; protection mandate in Quebec | |
None; capital gains when the heir sells; superannuation death benefits taxed at 17% on the taxable component when paid to a non-dependant | Probate through the state Supreme Court | None; family-provision claims in every state | Binding death benefit nomination; lapses after three years unless non-lapsing | Enduring power of attorney and enduring guardianship, by state | |
None since 1981; gains taxed when heirs sell, on the deceased's cost basis | Inheritance or probate order from the Registrar of Inheritance Affairs | None; maintenance claims by a spouse, minor children or dependent parents | Pension and provident funds by nomination, outside the estate | Enduring power of attorney, registered with the Administrator General | |
None since 15 February 2008; no capital gains tax | Grant of probate, Family Justice Courts | None for non-Muslims; faraid for Muslims, a will disposing of at most a third | CPF nomination, outside the will; the Public Trustee distributes without one | Lasting power of attorney under the Mental Capacity Act | |
Inheritance tax on the recipient by relationship: Germany €500,000 to a spouse and €400,000 to each child before tax; France exempts the spouse and allows €100,000 per child; Spain's regions relieve most of the state scale, Madrid by 99% | Notarial settlement, no probate; European Certificate of Succession across borders | Yes: the Pflichtteil (half the intestate share, in cash), the réserve héréditaire (half to three-quarters), the legítima (two-thirds) | Survivor rules by scheme; France's assurance-vie passes outside the estate with its own tax regime | Vorsorgevollmacht; mandat de protection future; poderes preventivos |
The six documents and the six verbs apply in any country; the rows are what change.
Where do estate plans break?
Not in the documents. In the gaps between them, and in the years after they were signed.
The nomination that overrides the will
Retirement accounts, superannuation, pensions and life policies pass by nomination, not by will, in every one of the seven countries. A will that leaves everything equally to three children does nothing about the pension nominated to the first wife twenty years ago. In Australia the binding nomination lapses after three years unless the fund offers a non-lapsing form; in the United States the designation on a 401(k) is governed by federal law and beats even a divorce decree in some circuits; in the United Kingdom the pension trustees decide, guided by an expression of wish that families forget to update. Check every nomination at every life event; they are the most common cause of the wrong person being paid.
The asset in the wrong country
A London flat, a Florida condominium, a Tel Aviv apartment: each sits under its own succession law and often its own tax, and a will drafted at home may not be recognised where the asset is. Land follows the law of the place where it sits, everywhere. Cross-border families usually need a will per country, or a choice of law under the EU regulation, and an executor who can act in each place. Cross-border families walks three cases through.
The second marriage nobody updated for
Marriage revokes a will in England and Wales, Australia and several Canadian provinces (though Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta have abolished that rule); it does not in most US states. Divorce revokes gifts to the former spouse in England, Australia and most US states, and leaves them standing in others. A plan written before the second marriage, left alone, is the single most reliable source of litigation in this field. Blended families sets out the structures that hold.
The executor who was never told
Executors are routinely named without being asked, without being told where the documents are, and without any record of what the person actually owned. The first month of an estate is spent as detective work: letters to every bank, a search for the policy, a guess at the crypto. The asset record and one conversation remove it. The executor's first ninety days is what that month looks like with and without them.
The capacity document signed too late
A power of attorney has to be signed while the person can still understand it. Families wait for the diagnosis, and the diagnosis is often the point at which the document can no longer be made, which means a court or tribunal process instead: guardianship in the United States and Australia, deputyship in England, a court-appointed deputy in Singapore. Decide while you can.
The tax nobody modelled
A Canadian cottage bought for C$60,000 and worth C$1.5 million is deemed sold at death and taxed on the gain in the final return; a UK family whose wealth is mostly pension faces 40% from April 2027 where it faced nothing; an Australian family that lets a binding nomination lapse pays 17% on the taxable component of the super that goes to adult children. None of these taxes is a surprise to the profession. All of them are surprises to families, because the plan was made once and the law moved.
Blended families, in one section
Where there is a second spouse and children from a first marriage, "everything to my wife and then to the children" fails about as often as it is written, because nothing binds the survivor. The structures that hold are the life-interest or testamentary trust (the survivor has the income or the home for life, the capital goes to the named children), the QTIP trust in the United States, mutual wills where the law allows them, and a financial agreement made before or during the marriage. Joint tenancy of the home must be severed into tenancy in common or the house passes to the survivor outright whatever the will says. The nominations must match. And the reasons must be said out loud, once, by the person making the choice, or the children will fill the silence themselves.
What the plan costs, and what it saves
A simple will costs a few hundred dollars, pounds or euros in every market. A full plan with a trust, powers of attorney and a review runs from about US$3,000 to US$10,000 in the United States and comparable figures elsewhere; the private-client work above the tax thresholds runs to tens of thousands. Against that: an intestacy in England with a second family can cost the estate a year and a fifth of its value in fees and settlements; a US estate without a revocable trust spends months in a public court process with statutory fees in states like California; an Australian super benefit misdirected to the estate loses 17% and a year; a French estate without a choice of law loses the free disposal the parent thought they had. The plan is the cheapest thing in the estate.
When should the plan be reviewed?
Every five years, whatever has happened.
At every marriage, separation, divorce, birth, death, and move between countries.
When a business is bought, sold or restructured, and before any sale.
When the law changes: the US exemption reset in 2026, UK business relief from April 2026 and pensions from April 2027, Australian aged care from November 2025, France's forced-heirship compensation rule, Brazil's inheritance tax reform.
When a named person can no longer act: an executor, attorney or guardian who has died, moved or fallen out.
Where to start this month
Write the asset record: one page, every account and property, where the documents are.
Read every nomination you hold against your will.
If you have a trust, write the letter of wishes.
Sign the capacity documents your country uses, now, while it is your choice.
Read your country's page for the rules that apply to you.
Frequently asked
Do I need a trust or a will?+
Everyone needs a will. A trust is added when you need control after death (young or vulnerable heirs, a second marriage, a business), protection from claims, or, in the United States, to avoid probate. Trusts and structures has the decision table.
What happens if I die without a will?+
Intestacy law decides, in fixed shares: usually the spouse and children first. Stepchildren and unmarried partners are left out in many countries. Nobody you chose is in charge.
Does my will cover assets abroad?+
Sometimes, and it is never safe to assume. Land follows the law of where it sits; the EU lets you choose the law of your nationality in your will; many families run one will per country.
Can a beneficiary nomination override my will?+
Yes. Pensions, superannuation, retirement accounts and life policies pass by nomination outside the will in all seven countries. Keep them current.
Which countries have no inheritance tax?+
Australia, Canada (which taxes gains instead), Israel and Singapore. The United States taxes estates above US$15 million per person from 2026; the United Kingdom above the nil-rate bands; Germany, France and Spain tax the recipient.
How much does an estate plan cost?+
A simple will costs a few hundred in any currency; a full plan with a trust and powers of attorney runs from a few thousand; private-client planning above the tax thresholds runs to tens of thousands, and saves multiples of that.
Record the part the documents cannot hold
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