Inheritance Tax in Europe by Heir: What a Child, Sibling, Nephew or Friend Pays on €500,000 in 2026

We ran each country's inheritance tax calculator on this site four times, once for each heir, with the same facts every time: one person receives €500,000 in cash and investments, there's no home in the estate, and the heir has had no earlier gifts from the person who died. The only thing that changes is the relationship, which moves the heir into a different tax class or group.

A few country details:

• Germany: the calculator deducts the flat €15,000 allowance for estate costs before the personal allowance. Siblings and nieces and nephews share tax class II, and friends are class III.
• Spain: inheritance tax is largely set by the regions, so we used Madrid, with an heir aged 35 who had no wealth of their own. We also show the state scale with no regional relief for comparison. Madrid's relief for siblings, nieces and nephews is modelled; other regions vary widely.
• Netherlands: siblings, nephews and friends all fall in the same "other" category, so they pay the same.
• Ireland: Capital Acquisitions Tax uses Groups A, B and C, with the thresholds that apply from 7 October 2026.
• Finland: class I covers children; siblings, nephews and friends are all class II.

We left Greece out. We could not confirm the tables behind its calculator on a Greek government site, and a 2026 law changed the rules for deaths from 16 September 2026 in ways the calculator doesn't yet reflect.

If your question is only about children, our article on inheritance tax on 500,000 left to a child compares more Spanish regions plus the UK and the US.

Sort by any column. The friend column is the starting sort, since that's where the differences are largest.

The second table shows which class each calculator put the heir in and the tax-free allowance it deducted. That's usually where most of the difference comes from.

No country here taxes a child more than any other heir. In Italy a child's €1,000,000 allowance covers the whole €500,000, so the tax is €0. Madrid charges €1,060 thanks to its regional relief, though the state scale alone would take €106,022. Germany's €400,000 child allowance leaves just €9,350 to pay.

The Netherlands and France stand out at the other end. A Dutch child pays €78,887 and a French child €78,194, or 15.8% and 15.6% of the inheritance. Ireland sits in the middle at €26,400 and Finland at €69,000.

Moving from a child to a sibling changes the bill sharply. In Germany it goes from €9,350 to €116,250, because the allowance falls to €20,000 and the rate scale for class II is steeper. In Madrid a sibling pays €86,073 against €1,060 for a child, even after the region halves the Group III bill.

France takes €215,388 from a sibling, or 43.1%. There's an important exception the calculator doesn't test: a sibling who is single, widowed or divorced, over 50 or unable to work, and who lived with the deceased for the five years before the death, pays nothing at all.

Italy again charges least. A sibling gets a €100,000 allowance and pays €24,000.

For a niece or nephew, France is the toughest place in our comparison at €270,618, or 54.1% of the inheritance. Ireland charges €150,480 under Group B. In Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, a nephew pays the same as a sibling.

For an unrelated friend, France takes €299,044, the Netherlands €183,026, Ireland €157,740 and Germany €139,500. In Germany that's about 15 times what a child pays. A friend in Italy pays €40,000, with no allowance at all but a low flat rate.

Denmark and Poland don't use the euro, and we don't convert currencies, so the third table runs 500,000 kroner and 500,000 złoty instead. Those are much smaller sums than €500,000, so compare the rules, not the totals.

Denmark's estate duty has one allowance for the whole estate, DKK 392,300 in 2026. A child pays DKK 16,155 on what's left. Siblings, nephews and friends also pay a supplementary duty, which brings their bill to DKK 39,041. The Danish tax ministry says the supplement for siblings is abolished from 2027.

Poland puts children and siblings in a group that is fully exempt, provided the heir reports the inheritance to the tax office within six months. A nephew pays PLN 55,803 on 500,000 złoty and a friend PLN 97,434.

Every figure assumes one heir, cash and investments, and no earlier gifts. Real estates often look different:

• Earlier gifts. Germany adds gifts from the same person in the previous ten years, France in the previous fifteen, and Ireland counts every gift and inheritance within the same group since December 1991. Any of those can push the tax up.
• Family homes and businesses. Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Finland have reliefs for a family home or a business that their calculators don't apply. Poland's housing relief is in its calculator, but we left it off because this estate holds no home.
• Life insurance and pensions, which often pass outside the estate on their own terms.
• Spain's other regions, and the full detail of Catalonia's relief, which the calculator approximates.
• France's sibling exemption described above, and the extra allowance for a disabled heir.
• Ireland before 7 October 2026. An inheritance valued before that date used lower thresholds.
• Splitting an estate between several heirs. Each heir is taxed on their own share in most of these countries, and Denmark's allowance is shared across the estate.

Run your own numbers in the France, Germany or Spain inheritance tax calculators, the Ireland CAT calculator or the Netherlands inheritance tax calculator. Each lets you set the exact relationship and amount, and its page explains the reliefs it leaves out. For a planned gift rather than an inheritance, the rules and allowances are often different, so check before relying on these figures.