French Succession Law After Aliyah: Which Country Decides Who Inherits

Making aliyah from France quietly changes which country's law decides who inherits from you. Under Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 article 21(1), the law of the State where you were habitually resident at death governs the succession as a whole, so the reserved share French law hands your children can give way to Israeli succession law, over the Lyon apartment as much as the Netanya one ¹. What does not change is the French tax bill, and a French statute passed in 2021 can, on conditions set out below, still pull French assets back to the French reserve.

> This is general information, not tax, legal, or financial advice. Cross-border and Israeli tax interact in complex ways, so consult a qualified cross-border professional before acting. Meidahon sells no products and makes no personal recommendations.

Which country's law decides who inherits from you?

The State where you were habitually resident when you died, which for a settled oleh is Israel. Article 21(1) applies one law to "the succession as a whole", movable and immovable, wherever situated, and article 20, headed "Universal application", says any law the Regulation designates applies "whether or not it is the law of a Member State" ¹. Israel sitting outside the EU changes nothing. A French notaire (the French notary, a public officer, not a US-style notary public) settling the estate of a French national who died habitually resident in Israel is directed by French law to apply Israeli succession law to the entire estate. Forced heirship travels with that choice, because article 23(2)(h) places "the disposable part of the estate, the reserved shares and other restrictions on the disposal of property upon death" inside the applicable law ¹.

Three qualifications belong on the same screen as that answer.

You can choose French law back. Article 22(1) lets you choose the law of a State whose nationality you hold at the time of the choice or at death, expressly in a disposition of property upon death or demonstrably from its terms, and the choice covers the succession as a whole ¹. A French oleh who kept French nationality can therefore re-impose the reserve over Israeli assets too. Article 83(4) goes further: a disposition made before 17 August 2015 in accordance with a law the deceased could have chosen is deemed to carry that choice, so an old French will drafted around the reserve may already be making it silently ¹.

A recent move can be undone. Article 21(2) lets an authority apply another State's law where it is clear from all the circumstances that the deceased was "manifestly more closely connected" with it, and Recital 25 gives the example of someone who "had moved to the State of his habitual residence fairly recently before his death" ¹. The first years after aliyah are that window.

Habitual residence is its own test, and it is not a tax test. Recital 23 asks for an overall assessment of the deceased's life in the years before death, one that reveals "a close and stable connection" with the State ¹. It is neither Israeli tax residence nor French tax domicile under CGI article 4 B, whose three criteria the Cour de cassation has held are alternative and independent of one another, as DGFiP's published doctrine records ⁷, so an oleh can satisfy one test and fail another in the same year. One further refinement is a question for the family's advisers rather than for a web page: where Israeli law applies by default under article 21(1), article 34 makes the French authority look at Israel's own private international law rules for a renvoi back, while a deliberate choice under article 22 switches renvoi off entirely ¹. What Israel's own conflict rule returns is exactly the point on which a notaire will want an Israeli legal opinion, not a general article.

What does French law reserve for your children, and can that be signed away?

A fixed fraction for descendants that no will can remove. The reserved portion (réserve héréditaire) is one half where the deceased leaves one child, two thirds with two children and three quarters with three or more (Code civil article 913); ascendants and collateral relatives have no reserved portion at all, and reserved rights together may not exceed three quarters of the estate (European Judicial Network country factsheet for France, prepared with the Council of the Notariats of the EU, last updated 24 November 2024) ². What is left is the quotité disponible, the freely disposable part.

Heirs cannot waive the reserve itself unless they waive the succession outright, but an adult forced heir can waive in advance the right to bring the abatement claim (action en réduction) under Code civil article 929, in an authentic deed before two notaries, signed separately by each waiving party in the presence of the notaries alone ². For a family already split between France and Israel, that step exists only while the parent is alive; after the death what is left is a limitation clock, and it runs on an either-or basis, five years from the opening of the estate or two years from the date the interference was discovered (Code civil article 921, same factsheet, 24 November 2024) ².

Three asymmetries hit a family split between Lyon and Netanya. The notaire is not optional where the estate includes immovable property, and draws the acte de notoriété establishing the order of succession and the immovable-property certificates recording the transfer, and assists the heirs with the declaration de succession (the French estate tax return) and the payment of the duty ². The central register of wills (Fichier central des dispositions de dernières volontés) is fed by notaries registering wills, and what goes into it is the testator's civil status and the details of the notary holding the will rather than its contents, so anyone producing a death certificate is directed to that notary ². Nothing in that mechanism reaches a will deposited only in Israel, which no French notary has registered there. And doing nothing is itself a decision, on two clocks that run in opposite directions: an heir has ten years to accept or waive and is deemed to have waived after that, but an heir who is ordered to decide must answer within two months and is deemed to have accepted unconditionally if they do not, with unconditional acceptance carrying indefinite liability for the estate's debts (same factsheet, 24 November 2024) ². A family in Israel that treats a French summons as foreign paperwork can inherit the debts by silence.

Can France still tax your estate once you live in Israel?

Yes, on a test that has nothing to do with which law governs. The Regulation says so itself: article 1(1) states it "shall not apply to revenue, customs or administrative matters" ¹. French death duty territoriality is set by CGI article 750 ter and turns on tax domicile under CGI article 4 B, assessed separately for the deceased and for each beneficiary, per DGFiP doctrine BOI-ENR-DMTG-10-10-30 as of 12 September 2012 ⁷.

The third limb is the one olim do not see coming, because it keys on where a child lives rather than on where the parent died. DGFiP's own doctrine says the limb exists to tax in France "les biens français et étrangers figurant dans les successions ouvertes à l'étranger", imposes two cumulative conditions on the recipient (French tax domicile at the moment the duty is triggered, and French tax domicile for at least six years within the ten years preceding the year of receipt), and adds expressly that the six years need not be continuous, all per DGFiP doctrine as of 12 September 2012 ⁷. Where either condition fails and the deceased was not French domiciled, French-situs assets remain taxable anyway under the second limb ⁷. "Situated in France" also reaches past the apartment, to debts owed by a debtor domiciled in metropolitan France or the overseas departments, to securities issued by the French State, by a French public-law body or by a company with its registered office or effective management in France whatever its assets consist of, and to shares in an unlisted company seated outside France whose assets are mainly French real estate, in proportion to that real estate ⁷.

Each beneficiary's net share carries an allowance of 100,000 euros in the direct line (CGI article 779-I), applicable to successions opened on or after 17 August 2012, per DGFiP doctrine as of 24 May 2023 ⁹. Successions between spouses and between PACS partners are exempt (CGI article 796-0 bis), per DGFiP doctrine as of 29 September 2014 ¹⁰. Above the allowance the duty follows a progressive scale set by CGI article 777, and the scale that applies is the one in force on the day of death, which is why this page publishes no bracket table (BOI-ENR-DMTG-10-50-30, DGFiP doctrine as of 29 September 2014) ¹⁰. The declaration de succession is due six months from the date of death where the deceased died in metropolitan France and one year in all other cases (CGI article 641, per DGFiP doctrine as of 30 October 2014), so a death in Israel gives the family twelve months rather than six, as a general rule about place of death and not a concession to olim ⁸.

Where does an assurance-vie death benefit sit?

Outside the succession, and outside the Regulation, which excludes "insurance contracts and arrangements of a similar nature" from its scope under article 1(2)(g) ¹. French tax keeps it apart too: sums caught by the CGI article 990 I levy are not subject to death duties ¹¹. That levy has a territoriality rule of its own, and leaving can switch it off. DGFiP states that its scope is fixed at the date of death by the tax domicile of either the beneficiary or the insured: the beneficiary is caught where they are French tax domiciled at death under CGI article 4 B and have been for at least six of the ten years preceding the death, or wherever the insured is French tax domiciled at death (BOI-TCAS-AUT-60, DGFiP doctrine as of 30 March 2023) ¹¹. Where it does apply, the levy runs after an allowance of 152,500 euros per beneficiary, at 20 percent on the taxable share up to 700,000 euros and 31.25 percent on the fraction above that limit, on the same 30 March 2023 doctrine ¹¹. Premiums paid after the insured's seventieth birthday on contracts taken out from 20 November 1991 escape that levy entirely and instead attract ordinary death duties on the fraction of premiums exceeding 30,500 euros (CGI article 757 B), same source and date ¹¹. Everything about the contract during your lifetime, including its Israeli treatment, lives on Assurance-Vie and PEA After Aliyah.

What does Israel charge, and how is who-inherits settled there?

Nothing in tax, and through one of two orders from a registrar. Israel's Estate Tax Law 5709-1949 is recorded in the Knesset's legislation database as repealed with a validity end date of 3 April 1981, and a search of that database for estate-tax legislation returns no other statute of the kind ¹⁴. Israel has levied no estate or inheritance tax since. The Succession Law 5725-1965 is recorded as in force, most recently republished on 7 July 2024 ¹⁵.

The two Israeli routes tell you the rule without needing the statute's section text. Where the deceased left a will, those entitled under it apply to the Registrar of Inheritance Affairs, רשם לענייני ירושה (rasham le'inyanei yerusha), for a probate order, צו קיום צוואה (tzav kiyum tzava'a), which is the step that brings the will into effect (gov.il, page last updated 16 June 2026) ¹⁷. Where the deceased left no will, the application to the same Registrar is for a succession order, צו ירושה (tzav yerusha), instead (gov.il, page last updated 16 June 2026) ¹⁶. A will is what decides; the statute is what applies when there is none. That is precisely why the article 22 choice matters so much to a French family: choosing French law puts the French reserve back over the whole estate, Israeli assets included ¹.

One asymmetry is worth carrying to the notaire. For a deceased whose place of residence at death was in Israel, both Israeli service pages offer a combined application for the order together with its registration with the Authority for Registration and Settlement of Land Rights ^{16 17}. That shortcut is conditioned on Israeli residence at death, so a family whose parent died while still resident in France should ask the Registrar which route is open rather than assume the combined one. Israeli intestate shares, the Israeli will forms and the two probate routes in detail are covered in Israeli Inheritance Law Basics.

Is there a France-Israel treaty on inheritance tax?

No. DGFiP publishes its conventions country by country and names each one's subject in the document title. The succession or gift tax conventions on that list are with thirteen states: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, the United States, Finland, Italy, Monaco, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland (denounced with effect from 1 January 2015) and Tunisia. Israel is not among them. The Israel entry holds exactly two documents, and both are the same income instrument, one of them the version consolidated for the multilateral convention (impots.gouv.fr, both files last updated 18 January 2022) ¹².

That instrument is the convention signed in Jerusalem on 31 July 1995, approved by loi n° 96-503 of 11 June 1996 and in force since 18 July 1996. Its Article 2, headed "Impôts visés", limits it to taxes on income and taxes on capital, and the taxes it lists for each State are income tax, corporation tax, the payroll tax and the wealth tax on the French side, and the Income Tax Ordinance taxes, land appreciation tax, property tax and employers' tax on the Israeli side ¹³. Death duties appear nowhere in Article 2. Read the whole text, though, and succession duty does surface in exactly one article, Article 24 ("Non-discrimination"), whose paragraph 6 extends each State's gift and succession tax exemptions to the other State and its local authorities and, on a reciprocity condition, to non-profit organisations working in scientific, artistic, cultural, educational or charitable fields, treats the absence of such a tax as an exemption for the purposes of that paragraph, and whose paragraph 8 makes Article 24 apply "notwithstanding Article 2" to taxes of every kind ¹³. That is a rule for public authorities and charities. It gives a family no tie-breaker, no credit and no exemption on death duties. This is also the treaty that Meidahon's other French pages use for pensions and rent, and it does not reach a death duty.

What does bridge the two systems is older and narrower. Both States are Contracting Parties to the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 on the Conflicts of Laws Relating to the Form of Testamentary Dispositions, in force for France since 19 November 1967 and for Israel since 10 January 1978 ¹⁸, and Regulation article 75(1) expressly keeps that Convention in play instead of article 27 on the formal validity of wills ¹. Its Article 1 validates a will whose form complies with the internal law of the place where it was made, of a nationality held at the making or at death, of a domicile or habitual residence at the making or at death, or, for immovables, of the place where they are situated ¹⁹. France has recorded declarations and reservations to that Convention while Israel's entry carries none ¹⁸, so an unusual will form remains a question for the notaire. Both States are also Apostille parties, France since 24 January 1965 and Israel since 14 August 1978, so an Israeli death certificate or succession order can reach a French notaire authenticated by apostille instead of consular legalisation ²⁰. That solves authentication, not recognition: what the notaire may then do with the document is a separate question.

The European Certificate of Succession does not close the gap either, because every operative provision is bounded to Member States: it is issued "for use in another Member State" (article 62(1)), produces effects "in all Member States" (article 69(1)), is a valid document for recording property in a register of a Member State (article 69(5)), and its certified copies are valid for six months, extendable only in exceptional, duly justified cases (article 70(3)) ¹. Nothing in the Regulation gives it any effect outside the Member States, so it is not the document that will move a Netanya apartment or an Israeli bank account.

What is the 2021 French claw-back, and whose family does it name?

Code civil article 913, third paragraph, added by article 24 of loi n° 2021-1109 of 24 August 2021. In the enacted text, where at the time of death the deceased or at least one of their children is a national of an EU Member State or habitually resident in one, and the foreign law applicable to the succession "ne permet aucun mécanisme réservataire protecteur des enfants", each child, or that child's heirs or assigns, may take a compensatory levy (prélèvement compensatoire) on the assets existing in France on the day of death, so as to be restored to the reserved rights French law gives them, capped at those rights ³. The same article 24 adds a paragraph to Code civil article 921 obliging the notaire, on finding during the settlement that an heir's reserved rights may be affected by the deceased's gifts, to inform each affected and known heir individually, and where applicable before any partition, of their right to seek reduction of the gifts that exceed the disposable part ³. Article 24 II sets entry into force at the first day of the third month following publication and applies the provision to successions opened from then, including where the gifts were made earlier ³; the law appeared in the Journal officiel n° 197 of 25 August 2021 ⁴, which puts entry into force at 1 November 2021.

Whether Israeli law meets the "no mechanism protecting children's reserved shares" condition is not something this page decides, and it is the first question to put to a notaire and an Israeli lawyer together. What is settled is who the provision reaches: a French oleh who kept French nationality meets the EU-nationality condition personally, and one whose child stayed in Paris meets it through the child ³.

The history explains the drafting. The old droit de prélèvement, article 2 of the loi du 14 juillet 1819, let French co-heirs levy on French assets a portion equal to what a foreign law denied them abroad. The Conseil constitutionnel struck it down in full on 5 August 2011, holding that reserving the levy to French heirs alone created a difference of treatment between heirs coming equally to the same succession under French law that was not directly related to the object of the law ⁵. The Cour de cassation then held on 27 September 2017 that a foreign law which ignores the reserve is not in itself contrary to French international public policy and can be set aside only where its concrete application produces a situation incompatible with principles of French law considered essential, upholding Californian law where it was not argued that any heir would be left in precariousness or need and the case was closely connected with California ⁶. Two caveats belong with that ruling: the deceased there died on 14 November 2004, so the Regulation did not apply to the case, and the test is deliberately fact-specific rather than a guarantee. Parliament then legislated again in 2021 and keyed the new levy to EU nationality or EU habitual residence instead of French nationality ³.

How does the clock run from your aliyah date?

Two of these periods count from the move rather than from the death. Article 10 only bites where the deceased's habitual residence at death was not in a Member State, which is a settled oleh's position exactly. On that footing article 10(1)(a), the limb the Regulation ranks first, gives the courts of a Member State holding estate assets jurisdiction over the succession as a whole, with no time limit, where the deceased still held that Member State's nationality at death; failing that, article 10(1)(b) gives the same whole-estate jurisdiction where the deceased had their previous habitual residence there, "provided that, at the time the court is seised, a period of not more than five years has elapsed since that habitual residence changed" ¹. Keeping French nationality therefore leaves French courts open to the whole estate for as long as any asset stays in France; renouncing it closes that door five years after habitual residence shifts. Recital 25 runs on the same clock from the other direction, since it is the recent mover whose French connection can still be held manifestly closer ¹.

What do the numbers look like for a Lyon parent with one child still in Paris?

Assume a widowed parent who made aliyah from Lyon, kept French nationality, was no longer French tax domiciled under CGI article 4 B, and died habitually resident in Israel after several settled years. Both facts have to be stated, because habitual residence and tax domicile are separate tests. The estate is a Lyon apartment worth 400,000 euros, a French bank account of 60,000 euros and a Netanya apartment worth 2,600,000 shekels. Three children: two in Israel, and one, call her Léa, French tax domiciled throughout the last ten years. The two currencies stay apart on purpose, because no exchange rate published today would still be the right one on a future date of death.

Habitual residence at death is Israel, so article 21(1) points at Israeli law for the whole estate, Lyon apartment included ¹.

If the will divides equally. French-situs assets total 400,000 plus 60,000, so 460,000 euros. Each child's third is 460,000 divided by 3, or 153,333 euros to the nearest euro, plus 2,600,000 divided by 3, or 866,667 shekels. For the two children in Israel, neither French tax domiciled, France taxes only the French-situs slice of 153,333 euros under CGI article 750 ter 2°; the 100,000 euro direct-line allowance leaves a taxable base of 53,333 euros each ^{7 9}. For Léa, the third limb applies, so France taxes her whole share, the 153,333 euros and the 866,667 shekels once converted ⁷. Her single 100,000 euro allowance is applied once against that combined net share, so it is exhausted by the French slice alone and the entire shekel slice sits above it ⁹. Israel charges nothing on any of it ¹⁴, and no succession convention exists to relieve the French charge ¹². One child's address, not the parent's, is what pulled a Netanya apartment into a French tax base.

If the will leaves everything to one person. Three children means a French reserve of three quarters and a disposable quarter, so each child's French reserved right would be three quarters divided by three, a quarter of whatever estate the reserve is calculated on ². Under Code civil article 913, third paragraph, and only if its conditions are met, each child may seek a compensatory levy against the assets existing in France, here the 460,000 euros, restoring them only up to those reserved rights ³. Notice the ceiling. If that calculation takes in the Israeli side too, which is a question for the notaire rather than for this page, the three claims together come to three quarters of the whole estate, and that figure passes the 460,000 euros sitting in France as soon as the Israeli side is worth more than about a third of the French side. The levy stops at the French assets either way, because the statute limits it to assets existing in France on the day of death ³. The Netanya apartment is not levied against.

The assurance-vie sits apart from both. If the contract names the two children in Israel and neither they nor the insured parent is French tax domiciled at death, the CGI article 990 I levy does not reach those payouts. Léa's beneficiary share does attract it, because she satisfies the beneficiary limb of the same test ¹¹.

Does any of this apply if you came from the UK, the US, Canada or South Africa?

The conflict-of-laws mechanism does not. Recital 82 records that under Protocol No 21 the United Kingdom and Ireland are not taking part in the Regulation and are not bound by it, and Recital 83 says the same for Denmark under Protocol No 22 ¹. A British oleh's succession conflict rules are therefore not the ones described here, and Americans, Canadians and South Africans were never inside the Regulation at all. Their death taxes each have their own page: US estate tax exposure for American olim, UK inheritance tax after aliyah, Canadian deemed disposition at death and South African estate duty and donations tax. Only the Israeli half is shared: no Israeli death tax, and a will that has to work in two systems at once.

What changes if you also hold a US passport?

Aliyah removes a treaty rather than adding one. The IRS table of estate and gift tax treaties lists France as "Estate & Gift" and does not list Israel at all (page last reviewed or updated 8 September 2025) ²¹. So the instrument that used to sit between the United States and France on death duties does not follow a French-American oleh to Israel.

On the receiving side, a US person must report gifts or bequests from a nonresident alien or foreign estate only where the aggregate received from that person or estate, plus foreign persons known or reasonably known to be related to them, exceeds 100,000 dollars in the taxable year, identifying separately each gift above 5,000 dollars, in Part IV of Form 3520. The penalty under IRC section 6039F(c) is five percent of the value of the gift or bequest for each month it goes unreported, capped at 25 percent, absent reasonable cause (IRS page last reviewed or updated 17 April 2026) ²². Inheriting a French pooled vehicle also inherits a PFIC problem: a US person who is a direct or indirect shareholder of a passive foreign investment company files Form 8621 on the events the IRS lists, including an annual report required under section 1298(f) (IRS page last reviewed or updated 30 March 2026) ²³. The mechanics live in The PFIC problem for American olim and Inheriting from abroad as an oleh.

What should you settle now?

Four questions are worth answering while everyone can still be asked. Whether an existing French will contains, or is deemed by article 83(4) to contain, a choice of French law ¹. Whether any child is French tax domiciled and for how long, because that single fact decides whether Israeli assets enter a French tax base ⁷. Whether the French assets could bear an article 913 levy if the will departs from the French reserve ³. And whether your Israeli and French wills contradict each other, which is the subject of Cross-border wills; read it alongside this page, because the French reserve is not automatic once habitual residence has moved. Article 21(1) settles which law governs, and it is an article 22 choice-of-law clause in a French will that can put the French reserve back over your Israeli assets ¹. Beneficiary designations run on a separate track again, in Pension beneficiary designations after aliyah.

Read French Financial Planning for Aliyah next: it sets out what happens to a French portfolio, property and wrappers on the move, and it is the page to work through before taking any of this to a notaire or a cross-border adviser.

Frequently asked questions

The law of the country where you were habitually resident at death, which for a settled oleh is Israel. Under EU Regulation 650/2012 article 21(1) that one law governs the whole estate, the Lyon apartment included, so the French reserve stops being the default. France can still tax, and a 2021 statute can, on conditions, reach French assets.