When someone dies owning a house in Portugal, the property does not simply pass to the family. There is a declaration to file with the tax authority, a deadline that starts running in the month of the death, and a charge that depends entirely on who the heirs are. The Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira sets the whole thing out in its own guidance on the stamp duty declaration on death, published in December 2025, and it is worth knowing before a client asks.
Portugal has no separate inheritance tax, but it does levy stamp duty of 10% on what heirs outside the direct line receive. A spouse, a child or a parent pays nothing. Usually it is not the tax that catches foreign owners out, it is the timing, because the clock starts in the month of the death and the estate needs its own tax number before anything can be filed.
The Estate Declaration Is Due Within Three Months
Called the participação do imposto do selo, the death declaration is mandatory whenever Portuguese property changes hands on death. On the deadline the leaflet is blunt: it has to be in by the end of the third month after the month in which the person died. Those deadlines are not extendable, unless a justified reason is shown, and then the head of the local tax office can allow up to 60 more days.
Filing is the job of the cabeça de casal, the head of the estate. Portuguese law puts that role on the surviving spouse first, provided they are an heir or hold a half-share in the couple’s assets, then on the executor named in a will, then on the closest relatives who are legal heirs, then on the people named in a will. Nothing can be submitted until the estate has its own tax number, the NIF de Herança Indivisa, and only the cabeça de casal can request it, either through the tax portal or at a tax office appointment.
Who Pays the 10% Stamp Duty and Who Is Exempt
That charge sits in the stamp duty code. Verba 1.2 of the general table sets the rate for a transfer of assets on death at 10%, and the leaflet repeats it. Whether anyone pays depends on the relationship between the person who died and the person who receives.
- Exempt: a surviving spouse, ascendants such as parents and grandparents, descendants such as children and grandchildren, and couples who lived together in a de facto union, for transfers after 1 January 2009.
- Exempt: an inheritance between grandparents and grandchildren, under article 6(1)(e) of the Código do Imposto do Selo.
- Taxed at 10%: brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, uncles and aunts, cousins, and anyone else outside the direct line, including a friend who is left a flat.
That rate applies to the value declared for the assets, not to what property prices in the area would suggest. In practice a brother who inherits a flat in Lisbon pays 10% of a declared value, and the estate has to be able to show how that value was arrived at. Declared values that look low against the local market are the sort of thing that gets queried.
What the Estate Owes While It Stays Undivided
Between the death and the partition, the property belongs to an herança indivisa, an undivided estate with its own tax number and its own obligations. IMI, the annual municipal property tax, is the cabeça de casal’s responsibility to pay while the estate is open, and the leaflet says so plainly.
A larger bill can be the AIMI, the surcharge on high-value property. An undivided estate is liable for it when the sum of the taxable values of its urban buildings in Portugal passes 600,000 euros. There is a way out of it: the cabeça de casal can file an electronic declaration between 1 and 31 March naming every heir and their share, and the heirs then confirm those figures between 1 and 30 April. Where the estate files nothing, the surcharge is assessed.
What Is Not Taxed and What Can Be Deducted
Household and personal goods are excluded, which covers the furniture, the crockery and the ordinary contents of the house. Family allowance owed at the date of death is out too, along with life-insurance proceeds, pensions and death benefits paid by social-security schemes, and savings and pension funds.
| What is in the estate | How the tax authority treats it |
|---|---|
| The family home | Stamp duty at 10% unless the heir is a spouse, a child or a parent |
| Household and personal goods | Excluded |
| Life-insurance proceeds | Excluded |
| Savings and pension funds | Excluded |
| Cash in a Portuguese bank | Declared, with the movements of the last 60 days |
| A mortgage or other charge | Deducted from the value of the assets it burdens |
| Property left to a company | Excluded |
Debts work in the estate’s favour. Charges that existed at the date of death, such as a mortgage, and charges created by the transfer itself come off the value of the assets they burden, and so do taxes whose taxable event fell before the death. The estate’s holdings also have to be listed properly: full ownership of urban and rural property goes on one schedule, partial rights such as usufruct, bare ownership or a grave in a cemetery go on another, and money in the bank needs a statement covering the 60 days before the transfer.
What an Agent Should Tell a Foreign Owner
For the British, Dutch or German owner who dies holding a Portuguese house, the sequence matters more than the tax rate. Six steps cover it.
- Collect the death certificate, and the tax numbers of the person who died and of every heir.
- Request the NIF de Herança Indivisa, the estate’s own tax number, from the tax authority. Only the cabeça de casal can ask for it.
- List the assets on the right schedules: full ownership of property, partial rights such as usufruct or bare ownership, bank balances with 60 days of movements, and any debts.
- File the Modelo 1 ISTG declaration, with the will if there is one, by the end of the third month after the month of death.
- Have a notary draw up the habilitação de herdeiros, the deed that establishes who the heirs are, and then the partition, the partilha, that puts the property in their names.
- Finish the registration that puts the property in the heirs’ names, which the Ministry of Justice’s Balcão Heranças e Divórcio com Partilha desk handles together with the notarial deed.
Portuguese notaries handle the habilitação de herdeiros and the partition, and where an estate crosses a border they also issue the European Certificate of Succession, the document that proves who the heirs are to authorities in another member state. The Ministry of Justice’s guidance on herança sets out who inherits when there is no will at all: the spouse, then the relatives, and the State only if there are none.
In practice nobody can promise a completion date before the habilitação de herdeiros is in hand, because that is the document which shows who is entitled to sign. An estate that is still undivided is not a property that can be sold on the strength of a death certificate.
The Cost Falls on the Estate, Not the Buyer
Read together, the Portuguese rules are less punishing than the phrase inheritance tax suggests. A spouse, a child or a parent inherits a Portuguese house free of any death duty. A brother or sister pays 10%, which is close to what a buyer pays in IMT on an ordinary purchase, and the value the charge is calculated on is the declared value rather than the asking price.
The calendar is what catches families out. Three months from the month of death, an estate tax number that has to be requested before anything can be filed, a property schedule for each kind of right, and an AIMI declaration that has to be in by 31 March if the estate is to avoid a surcharge on urban property above 600,000 euros. For estate agents with a client in that position, the useful move is to hand the family the tax authority’s own leaflet and the name of a notary early, rather than to explain the tax themselves.
Questions Owners Ask About Portuguese Estates
A few questions come up most often from owners and their families.
Does Portugal charge an inheritance tax?
No separate inheritance tax exists. It is stamp duty, at 10% of the declared value under verba 1.2 of the general table, and it falls only on heirs outside the direct line.
How long do the heirs have to declare the estate?
Until the end of the third month after the month of the death. A justified reason can buy up to 60 more days, and the deadline is otherwise firm.
Which heirs pay nothing at all?
A surviving spouse, parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, and couples in a de facto union, for transfers after 1 January 2009. Grandchildren inheriting from a grandparent are exempt under article 6(1)(e) of the stamp duty code.
What happens to the house while the estate is undivided?
It stays inside the herança indivisa, an estate with its own tax number. IMI stays with the cabeça de casal, and the estate faces the AIMI surcharge once its urban property passes 600,000 euros in taxable value, unless the March declaration is filed and the heirs confirm it in April.
Do the heirs need a Portuguese will?
Where a will exists, the tax authority asks for it among the documents. Where there is none, the Ministry of Justice’s guidance puts the spouse first, then the relatives, and the State only where there are no relatives at all.
