Inheritance Law in Monaco: Forced Heirship, Tax Rates and Succession Rules

Overview

Monaco's succession law is governed by the Monegasque Civil Code — a distinct body of law that shares its Napoleonic ancestry with the French Code but has diverged from it, in places decisively. The two features that matter most in practice are the réserve héréditaire, which limits how much of your estate you may give away, and a succession duty scale running from 0% to 16% that is charged on Monaco-situated assets alone.

If you are dealing with a death that has already occurred, the procedural side — the notary, the deadlines, the declaration, the transfers — is set out in settling a succession in Monaco.

Succession duty

The scale

The rate depends entirely on the relationship between the deceased and the beneficiary. There are no allowances and no progressive bands: one rate applies to the whole of the share.

The same scale applies to lifetime gifts, which is why gifting is not in itself a way around the duty.

The 4% partner rate was introduced with the contrat de vie commune by Law no. 1.481 of 17 December 2019, in force since 27 June 2020, and it carries a condition worth knowing before relying on it: if the contract is terminated less than ten years after it was concluded, for a reason other than the partners marrying each other or one of them dying, the 4% is reconsidered and the ordinary rate for unrelated persons applies retroactively.

Territorial scope

This is the point most often misstated about Monaco. The duty applies to property situated in the territory of the Principality, whatever the domicile, residence or nationality of the deceased or the donor.

Two consequences follow, and they cut in opposite directions:

• A Monaco resident's foreign assets — a London flat, a Swiss portfolio, an Italian holiday house — are outside Monegasque succession duty. They are not thereby untaxed: they fall under whatever regime applies where they are.
• A non-resident's Monaco apartment is inside it — and still benefits from the 0% direct-line rate. Residency buys nothing here that a non-resident does not already have.

Anyone with a French connection should read the scale alongside the Franco-Monegasque Convention of 1 April 1950 on succession duties, which applies only to nationals of the two States, does not cover lifetime gifts, and taxes immovable property only in the State where it is situated.

Forced heirship: the réserve héréditaire

What the Code actually says

Monaco does not express the rule as a reserved fraction but as a ceiling on what you may give away — the quotité disponible. Article 780 of the Civil Code, as amended by Law no. 1.278 of 29 December 2003:

Article 781 deals with the case where there are no children but surviving ascendants. If the deceased leaves one or more ascendants in both the paternal and the maternal line, gifts may not exceed one-half of the estate. If ascendants survive in one line only, the ceiling is three-quarters. Ascendants other than the father and mother are entitled to that reserve only where the deceased leaves no brothers or sisters, or descendants of theirs, coming to the succession.

Article 783 completes the picture: where there are neither ascendants nor descendants, gifts may exhaust the entire estate.

The surviving spouse is not a reserved heir

This is the single most consequential divergence from French and Italian law, and estate plans imported from either country routinely get it wrong. In Monaco the réserve protects descendants and, in the circumstances of article 781, ascendants. It does not protect the spouse. A testator with no children and no living ascendants may leave everything away from their husband or wife.

What the spouse has instead is a set of intestacy rights, restated by Law no. 1.278 of 29 December 2003:

• Concurring with descendants: a share equal to a child's, and in no case less than one-quarter of the estate (article 641).
• Concurring with the deceased's father and/or mother: one-quarter to each parent, the remainder to the spouse (article 643).
• Concurring with parents and with siblings or their descendants: one-half to the spouse (article 647).
• Concurring with siblings or their descendants: one-half to the spouse (article 648).
• Concurring with none of descendants, ascendants, or siblings and their descendants: the whole estate (article 649).

There is also a right that applies whatever the division: a surviving spouse actually occupying, as their principal residence, a home belonging to the couple or wholly forming part of the estate has by operation of law one year's free enjoyment of it and of its furniture (article 650, repealed in 1986 and restored on 27 June 2020). Article 651 extends the same one-year right to the surviving partner of a contrat de vie commune or a cohabitation contract.

If a will goes too far

A gift or legacy that encroaches on the réserve is not void; it is reducible. The reserved heirs bring an action en réduction and the disposition is cut back to the disposable portion. Where the gift was of a usufruct or a life annuity worth more than the disposable portion, article 784 gives the reserved heirs a choice: perform the disposition, or hand over outright ownership of the disposable portion instead.

Wills

The three forms

Article 835 admits three forms, and they are not interchangeable in their formalities.

• Olographic will (testament olographe). Article 836: not valid unless written in full, dated and signed in the testator's own hand — and subject to no other formality at all. No witnesses, no notary. Simple to make, easy to lose, and the form most often attacked after death.
• Will by public act (testament par acte public). Article 837: received by two notaries in the presence of two witnesses, or by one notary in the presence of four witnesses. The testator dictates, the notary writes it or has it written, it is read back in the witnesses' presence and that reading must be expressly recorded (article 838). Legatees, their relatives to the third degree inclusive, and the notaries' clerks and household cannot serve as witnesses (article 841).
• Mystical will (testament mystique). Articles 842–843: the document, sealed so that it cannot be read without breaking the seal, is handed to the notary before four witnesses, who record the act of delivery on the packet itself. Rare, and unavailable to anyone who cannot read (article 845).

Two traps

Joint wills are prohibited. Article 834: a will may not be made in the same instrument by two or more people, whether for a third party's benefit or as reciprocal dispositions. Couples from Germany, Austria and several common-law jurisdictions arrive with exactly that document and have to redo it as two.

A will in a drawer is a will nobody finds. Deposit it with a Monaco notary. There are three notary offices in the Principality — see lawyers and notaries in Monaco.

Which law applies to an international estate

Monaco codified its private international law by Law no. 1.448 of 28 June 2017, and the reform changed the answer to this question outright. The old split — movables to the law of the domicile or nationality, immovables to the law of their location — is gone.

• The succession is now governed as a whole by the law of the deceased's domicile at the time of death, understood as their principal establishment.
• The deceased may instead elect the law of a State of which they hold the nationality at the time of the choice — a professio juris, expressed by will, mirroring the mechanism of EU Regulation 650/2012.
• The Code retains a safeguard on forced heirship: a protected heir cannot be deprived of the reserved share granted by the law of the State of which the deceased was a national at death. In other words, choosing a law of complete testamentary freedom does not automatically switch off the réserve.

Monaco is not a party to EU Regulation 650/2012 ("Brussels IV"), and is not an EU or EEA member. EU-national residents should nonetheless expect their home courts to run the Regulation's own analysis, which can point back to Monegasque law — a mismatch that has to be planned around rather than discovered.

Trusts and structures

A trust may be created in Monaco under Law no. 214 of 27 February 1936, but only by residents who are nationals of a State whose law recognises trusts. It is constituted in the form of a will or a donation, requires a conformity certificate from an expert on the Court of Appeal's list, and must be entered in the trust register within one month. Registration duty runs from 1.3% to 1.7% according to the number of beneficiaries, with an optional 0.20% annual tax as an alternative. The mechanics are set out in Monaco trust structures and the planning context in wealth planning.

Practical points

• Check the réserve before you draft. With three children you may freely dispose of a quarter of your estate, and no more — a figure that reshapes most plans built on assumptions from elsewhere.
• Do not assume your spouse is protected. If that is the intention, it has to be done deliberately, by will, matrimonial regime or structure.
• Territoriality cuts both ways. Moving to Monaco does not shelter foreign assets from foreign duty, and staying away does not expose Monaco assets to a higher rate.
• Revisit the plan on every change of family or country. A change of domicile now changes the law governing the entire succession, not just part of it.
• Get both sides advised on a cross-border estate, particularly a French one, where the 1950 Convention sets the frame but leaves plenty unresolved.

Next: settling a succession in Monaco for the procedure, and selling property in Monaco if the estate includes real property.

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Sources: Monegasque Civil Code, arts. 640–651, 780–785, 833–846 — Legimonaco, consolidated text; Law no. 1.278 of 29 December 2003; Law no. 1.481 of 17 December 2019 on civil solidarity contracts; Law no. 1.448 of 28 June 2017 on private international law; Law no. 214 of 27 February 1936 on trusts; Franco-Monegasque Convention of 1 April 1950 on succession duties; Direction des Services Fiscaux, inheritance tax page (monservicepublic.gouv.mc). Last verified: September 2026.