Which law governs your estate, what Italy reserves to your family, and how property and a business pass to the next generation.
Moving to Italy changes who inherits from you, not merely what they pay. That is the part families are least prepared for, and it is the reason succession planning belongs in the conversation before the move rather than years afterwards.
The tax is the smaller question. Italian rates are among the lightest in Europe, the charge falls on what each beneficiary receives rather than on the estate as a whole, and the allowances belong to the beneficiary. That side has its own page.
This one is about the law: which country's rules decide the succession, what Italy guarantees to close family whatever your will says, how an estate held in common is divided, and how a business passes to the next generation.
Under the European Succession Regulation, the law governing your estate is that of the country where you were habitually resident at the time of death, unless you elected the law of your nationality, in a declaration meeting the formal requirements of a disposition upon death.
That election is the single most valuable instrument in cross-border succession planning, and it costs nothing. Someone whose national law permits testamentary freedom can choose it and keep it. Someone who makes no choice and dies habitually resident in Italy gets Italian succession law, whether or not that was ever the intention, and whether or not the will says something different.
Where Italian succession law applies, a portion of the estate is reserved to close family: the spouse, the children and, where there are no children, the parents. These shares cannot be defeated by a will.
A will that ignores them is not void. It stands until someone challenges it: the person whose reserved share was cut can bring an action for reduction and recover what was due. In practice, an estate can be administered on the terms of the will and then unwound years later by a claim from a child or a spouse who was left out.
For clients from common-law jurisdictions, where testamentary freedom is close to absolute, this is the most disorienting feature of the Italian system. Whether a will that disinherits an adult child, or leaves everything to a second spouse, can be made to work is usually a question of the election described above, made in time.
Families with assets in several countries commonly hold several wills, drafted at different times by advisers who did not speak to one another. Left unreviewed, they conflict more often than not: a later general will revoking an earlier local one without anybody intending it, two documents disposing of the same asset, or a foreign will that Italian law will not give effect to in the form it takes.
Reviewing them together, and deciding deliberately whether to hold one instrument or several, is unglamorous work that prevents a substantial share of the disputes we later see.
Where the estate includes Italian property, the practical difficulty tends to exceed the fiscal one by a wide margin.
The estate must be declared within twelve months of the death, electronically. Where the heirs are abroad, that requires an Italian tax code for each of them, translated and apostilled documents evidencing the death and the relationships, and usually a power of attorney so that one person can act for the rest. Until the declaration is filed and the taxes paid, the property cannot be sold.
And then it is owned in common by all the heirs, without divided shares: none of them can sell it, mortgage it or meaningfully change it alone. That state can last for decades, and often does, until one of them wants out.
Ending the co-ownership is a division, and there are two ways to reach it.
The lesson is about timing rather than law. A division agreed while the family is still speaking costs a fraction of one imposed by a court after they have stopped.
Where the estate contains a business or a controlling shareholding, two instruments do most of the work, and both require decisions to be taken while everyone is alive and able to sign.
A holding company frequently sits underneath both, because it turns a scattered collection of assets into shares that can be divided, gifted or transferred in a way the underlying assets cannot.
Both are used in succession planning, particularly where a beneficiary cannot manage assets themselves, or where a holding needs to survive a death without fragmenting. Their design and their treatment are subjects in their own right.
Very little of it happens after a death. The decisions that change outcomes are taken years earlier, and there are not many of them.
And underneath all of it, where you will be habitually resident, because that decides which law applies at all. It is a question to settle in time, before the move.
We are Italian lawyers and we act on the file itself, the succession declaration, the deed of division, the family pact, the action to protect or resist a reserved share, rather than advising on it from a distance. We work with heirs who are not in Italy, which in our practice is the ordinary case, and we coordinate with advisers in the other jurisdiction. And we treat the succession and the tax as two questions, because they are decided by different rules and the gap between them is where the surprises come from.
Not freely, if Italian succession law applies. Reserved shares are guaranteed to the spouse, to children and, where there are no children, to parents, and a person whose share is cut can bring an action to recover it. Electing the law of your nationality may avoid this, if that law permits it.
That of the country where you were habitually resident at death, unless you elected the law of your nationality in a valid declaration. The election is the most valuable instrument available here, and it has to be made in the right form.
No. The European regulation governs who inherits, not what they pay. The tax follows the Italian rules regardless of which law governs the succession.
You own it in common, and none of you can sell or mortgage it alone. Ending that requires a division: by agreement if you can reach one, or by court order if you cannot, which is slow, expensive and often ends in a forced sale.
Twelve months from the death, filed electronically. Heirs abroad will need Italian tax codes, translated and apostilled documents, and usually a power of attorney so that one of them can act for the rest.
Yes, and often it is better to. A transfer of a business or of a controlling shareholding to a spouse or descendants is exempt, provided the recipient carries it on or keeps control for five years and says so in the deed. A family pact can also place the transfer beyond later claims between heirs.
Avv. Marco Mesina
Founder, Move to Dolce Vita · Avvocato, Milan Bar (Ordine degli Avvocati di Milano)
Marco is an Italian tax lawyer who advises individuals and families relocating to Italy on tax regimes, residency, citizenship, real estate and succession planning. Before founding Move to Dolce Vita he worked at Watson Farley & Williams, Withers and Deloitte in Milan.