Germany Inheritance & Gift Tax Calculator (Erbschaftsteuer)

About the Germany Inheritance & Gift Tax Calculator (Erbschaftsteuer)

Work out German inheritance tax (Erbschaftsteuer) or gift tax (Schenkungsteuer) for what you receive. Your relationship to the person who leaves or gives it decides the tax class (§ 15 ErbStG) and the allowance (§ 16): €500.000 for a spouse or registered partner, €400.000 for a child, €200.000 for a grandchild, €100.000 for other class I relatives and €20.000 for everyone else. What is left after the allowance is rounded down to full €100 and taxed at one rate from the table of § 19, with the hardship relief that softens the step above each band limit.

A child who inherits €650.000 pays €27.500: €250.000 taxable at 11%. The calculator also takes debts, the €15.000 lump sum for funeral and estate costs, the pension allowance of a surviving spouse or child and earlier gifts from the same person within ten years. Nothing you type leaves your browser. Without a pass the page gives a free preview of your own result: your tax class, your allowance and the labels of the working’s first rows, with the tax due and every other figure hidden until you unlock it with a Pro pass.

Tax classes and allowances

• Class I: spouse and registered partner (€500.000); children and stepchildren, and the children of a child who has died (€400.000); grandchildren (€200.000); great-grandchildren, and parents and grandparents when they inherit (€100.000).
• Class II (€20.000): parents and grandparents receiving a gift, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, step-parents, children-in-law, parents-in-law and a divorced spouse or former civil partner.
• Class III (€20.000): everyone else, including a partner you are not married to.

On a death, a surviving spouse or registered partner also has a pension allowance of €256.000, and a child one of €52.000 down to €10.300 by age, up to the 27th birthday; survivors’ pensions that are not subject to inheritance tax reduce it by their capital value (§ 17). The allowances of § 16 apply where the tax liability is unlimited: when the deceased, the giver or you live in Germany, German citizens also for five years after moving abroad (§ 2(1) No. 1 ErbStG).

Rates (§ 19 ErbStG)

One rate applies to the whole taxable acquisition (class I / II / III):

• up to €75.000: 7% / 15% / 30%;
• up to €300.000: 11% / 20% / 30%;
• up to €600.000: 15% / 25% / 30%;
• up to €6.000.000: 19% / 30% / 30%;
• up to €13.000.000: 23% / 35% / 50%;
• up to €26.000.000: 27% / 40% / 50%;
• above: 30% / 43% / 50%.

Hardship relief (§ 19(3)): just above a band limit, the tax above what the lower band would charge is at most half of the amount above the limit (three quarters where the rate is above 30%), so crossing a limit never costs more than that.

What is deducted first

• Debts and burdens you take on: the deceased’s debts, legacies, compulsory shares you pay out (§ 10(5)).
• Funeral and estate costs: €15.000 in total without proof, or more with receipts.
• Household goods up to €41.000 and other personal belongings up to €12.000 in class I, €12.000 together in classes II and III, are tax-free; money, securities, coins, precious metals, gems and pearls do not count as such (§ 13(1) No. 1). Leave the exempt part out of the value.
• The family home can be exempt: given or left by one spouse or registered partner to the other, or inherited by a child for up to 200 m² of living space, when it is lived in (§ 13(1) Nos. 4a to 4c).

The taxable acquisition is then rounded down to full €100 (§ 10(1)).

The ten-year rule

Everything you receive from the same person within ten years is added together (§ 14 ErbStG): the allowance applies once in ten years, not to each gift. The tax on the total is reduced by the tax the earlier gifts would bear under today's rules, or by the tax actually paid on them when that is higher, but never below the tax on the latest gift alone; and the tax a further acquisition causes is at most half of it. Gifts more than ten years apart each get the full allowance.

Limitations

• You enter the value: the calculator does not value property, shares in companies or business assets, and the reliefs for business assets (§§ 13a to 13c, 28a) and for let residential property (§ 13d) are not included.
• For an unlimited tax liability (§ 2(1) No. 1). Limited tax liability reduces the allowances (§ 16(2)) and is not covered; neither is relief for tax paid abroad or a double taxation treaty.
• With earlier gifts the calculator uses this acquisition’s tax class and allowance for all of them; if a parent first received gifts (class II) and then inherits (class I), ask your tax office.
• The pension allowance needs the capital value of untaxed survivors’ pensions, which the tax office works out; without it the result may be too low.
• An estimate under the ErbStG, not tax or legal advice: the tax office’s assessment decides.

Privacy

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