If you inherit from your grandmother or grandfather, you have to pay inheritance tax. Which tax rate and allowance then applies to you.
How much inheritance tax you have to pay on an inheritance does not just depend on the size of the inheritance. It is also important how closely related you are to the deceased. As a grandchild, you are assigned to tax bracket 1. That’s good from a financial point of view – because that’s where the tax rates are lowest.
The exact tax rate depends on the value of your inheritance. And as follows:
- up to 75,000 euros: 7 percent
- up to 300,000 euros: 11 percent
- up to 600,000 euros: 15 percent
- up to 6 million euros: 19 percent
- up to 13 million euros: 23 percent
- up to 26 million euros: 27 percent
- more than 26 million euros: 30 percent
Inheritance tax for grandchildren: This is how high the exempt amount is
However, you do not have to pay taxes on your inheritance from the first euro. First of all, you can exhaust your allowance. For grandchildren it is 200,000 euros. Only when the value of the inheritance exceeds this amount does inheritance tax become due at all. And then only on the part that is above the allowance.
Example: Your grandmother inherits you a house worth 300,000 euros. Then 200,000 euros are tax-free. You pay 11 percent inheritance tax on the remaining 100,000 euros (see above). The tax office therefore receives 11,000 euros from you.
An exception applies if you inherit household effects. As a grandchild, you are exempt from inheritance tax in tax class 1 up to a value of 42,000 euros. This applies to other movable objects such as art and collections, as long as their value does not exceed 12,000 euros. These so-called factual tax exemptions do not reduce your tax allowance either.
