The Dichiarazione di Successione is the Italian inheritance declaration that heirs must file electronically with the Agenzia delle Entrate within 12 months of the deceased’s death, listing every asset and liability so inheritance tax can be assessed and ownership records updated. Since January 1, 2025, heirs also calculate and pay the tax themselves rather than waiting for a bill from the agency, which makes getting the filing right the first time more important than it used to be.
Who Has to File and by When
The obligation falls on anyone called to inherit, whether under a will or by law: heirs, recipients of specific bequests, and any executor named in a will. When several people share the duty, one filing covers everyone.1Agenzia delle Entrate. How to Submit the Declaration
The clock runs from the date of death, the moment Italian law treats the succession as “opening.” Filing up to 30 days late brings fines of 60% to 120% of the tax due. Past 30 days, or with no filing at all, penalties can reach 240%. Even when no tax is owed, a fixed penalty of €250 to €1,000 still applies.
A narrow carve-out exists for small estates. Spouses and direct-line relatives (children, grandchildren, parents) don’t have to file if two conditions hold together: the estate is worth less than €100,000, and it contains no real estate or real property rights. Any parcel of land, apartment, or partial ownership interest pulls the estate back into the filing requirement, no matter its value.
Documents and Identifiers You’ll Need
Every person named in the filing, including the deceased and each heir, needs a Codice Fiscale, the Italian tax identification code. Foreign heirs without one can apply through an Italian consulate abroad or send a representative to any Agenzia delle Entrate office in Italy.2Consolato Generale d’Italia a New York. Codice Fiscale (Italian Tax Code)
Core paperwork includes the death certificate and a certificate of family status showing the legal relationships between the deceased and the survivors, both issued by the Anagrafe in the municipality where the deceased lived. If there’s a will, an Italian notary must formally publish it before it can be used in the declaration.
For bank and postal accounts, get a statement from each institution showing balances and accrued interest as of the date of death. For real estate, pull cadastral records (visure catastali) identifying each property by sheet, parcel, and subordinate number; these drive the fiscal value and the ownership transfer.
Debts reduce the taxable base. Documented medical expenses from the deceased’s final period, outstanding funeral costs, and other provable liabilities all belong in the filing. Collect them early. Twelve months feels like plenty of time until it isn’t.
How the Filing Is Submitted
Filing is electronic, through the Agenzia delle Entrate’s online portal. The agency offers a partially pre-filled version, the Dichiarazione di Successione Precompilata, populated with data the agency already holds.3Agenzia delle Entrate. Dichiarazione di Successione Precompilata (Web)
Access requires one of Italy’s recognized digital credentials: SPID, a Carta d’Identità Elettronica (CIE), or a Carta Nazionale dei Servizi (CNS).4Agenzia delle Entrate. Come Accedere ai Servizi Online Many heirs delegate the technical submission to an accountant or a Centro di Assistenza Fiscale (CAF), since qualified intermediaries can upload files and apply the digital signatures required.
After submission, the system produces a receipt. That receipt is what banks need to release frozen accounts to the heirs. The filing also includes an option to trigger the automatic cadastral transfer (voltura catastale), which updates land registry ownership without a separate application.5Agenzia delle Entrate. Voltura Catastale Web Skip the automatic service and you’ll need to send a separate title-change request to the provincial office within 30 days of the declaration being registered.1Agenzia delle Entrate. How to Submit the Declaration
What Tax You’ll Owe
Italian inheritance tax turns on the relationship between the deceased and each heir. Closer relatives pay less and get tax-free thresholds:
- Spouses and children (or other direct descendants): 4% on the portion above €1,000,000 per heir.
- Siblings: 6% on the portion above €100,000 per heir.
- Other relatives up to the fourth degree: 6% on the full amount, no threshold.
- Everyone else: 8% on the full amount, no threshold.
An heir with a recognized severe disability gets an increased threshold of €1,500,000, regardless of relationship.
Rates apply to the net estate after documented liabilities are subtracted. Some assets are fully exempt: Italian government bonds, debt securities issued by EU and European Economic Area countries, and life insurance proceeds. So are recognized cultural assets and transfers of a family business or controlling stake to a spouse or descendants, provided the recipients keep the business running for at least five years.6International Bar Association. International Estate Planning Guide – Italy
When real estate is in the estate, two additional taxes apply on top of inheritance tax: mortgage tax (imposta ipotecaria) at 2% of the cadastral value, and cadastral tax (imposta catastale) at 1%. These are owed regardless of the heir’s relationship to the deceased. If the property qualifies as the heir’s primary residence, both drop to a fixed €200 each. The heir has to meet specific residency requirements, and the criteria are checked case by case.
Self-Calculation and Payment Since 2025
The reform that took effect on January 1, 2025, moved responsibility for calculating inheritance tax from the Agenzia delle Entrate to the taxpayer. Heirs now compute what’s owed and pay within 90 days of the filing deadline.
Payment runs through direct debit from an Italian bank account linked to the filing. If the tax exceeds €1,000, you can pay in installments: at least 20% upfront, the rest across up to eight quarterly payments. Estates owing more than €20,000 can stretch to 12 quarterly installments. The system calculates stamp duties and other fixed charges during the filing itself. Make sure the linked account has funds available. An insufficient balance can cause the whole filing to be rejected.
Accept, Limit, or Renounce Before You File
The tax filing is separate from the civil-law question of whether you accept the inheritance at all. That distinction matters most when the deceased had debts, because accepting an inheritance in Italy makes you personally liable for those debts, potentially beyond what you inherit.
Acceptance With Benefit of Inventory
If you don’t know whether the debts exceed the assets, the safer path is “acceptance with benefit of inventory” (accettazione con beneficio d’inventario). Your own assets stay legally separate from the deceased’s, and your liability is capped at the value of what you actually inherit.7Tribunale di Milano. Accettazione dell’Eredità con Beneficio di Inventario
The declaration is made before a notary or the clerk of the court where the succession opened. If you’re already in possession of inherited assets, you have three months from the date of death (or from learning you’ve become an heir) to file the declaration and complete the inventory. If you’re not in possession of any assets, the deadline stretches to 10 years. For minors and legally incapacitated heirs, a guardianship judge must authorize the acceptance first.7Tribunale di Milano. Accettazione dell’Eredità con Beneficio di Inventario
Renouncing Entirely
If the debts clearly outweigh the assets, renunciation lets you walk away. A formal renunciation is signed before the court registry where the succession opened, an Italian notary, or (for heirs abroad) an Italian consulate. The deadline is 10 years from the date of death, and the declaration must then be registered with the court of voluntary jurisdiction where the succession opened.8Consolato Generale d’Italia Johannesburg. Acceptance/Renunciation of Inheritance
Watch the calendar. The 12-month tax filing deadline can arrive before you’ve decided. When one heir renounces, the filing duty shifts to the others. If everyone renounces, the filing obligation falls away, but each renunciation has to be formally documented.
Reserved Shares That Constrain the Filing
Italian law does not let a person freely disinherit close family. The Civil Code reserves fixed portions of the estate for certain relatives, and a will that ignores those shares can be challenged and partially overturned. The reserved share depends on which relatives survive: a surviving spouse alone is reserved half the estate; a spouse and one child each get a third; a spouse with two or more children takes a quarter while the children share a half; a single child without a surviving spouse is reserved half; two or more children without a spouse share two-thirds; parents alone are reserved a third; a spouse together with parents (no children) takes half, with a quarter reserved for the parents.
A will can only distribute what remains after these reserved shares are covered. This matters at the filing stage because the inheritance shares reported in the declaration have to reflect the actual legal entitlements, not just what the will purports to give.
Filing From Outside Italy
Non-resident heirs face extra steps. SPID, CIE, and CNS credentials are built for residents, and foreign heirs who cannot obtain them may file the declaration on paper as an exception to the electronic requirement. The paper form goes by registered mail to the relevant Agenzia delle Entrate office.1Agenzia delle Entrate. How to Submit the Declaration
Which office depends on where the deceased last lived. If the deceased resided abroad but previously lived in Italy, file with the office covering the last Italian address. If the last Italian residence is unknown, the competent office is Rome Provincial Directorate II, Ufficio Territoriale Roma 6, Via Canton 20, 00144 Rome.1Agenzia delle Entrate. How to Submit the Declaration
Foreign documents such as death certificates need an apostille under the Hague Convention of 1961 before Italian authorities will accept them. For U.S.-issued documents, the apostille comes from the Secretary of State in the issuing state (for state documents) or the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Authentications (for federal documents).9Ambasciata d’Italia a Washington. Legalization of Documents Between Italy and the USA: The Apostille A sworn Italian translation is typically required too. For most heirs abroad, the practical answer is to hire an Italian accountant or CAF; a qualified intermediary can file electronically even when the heir cannot.1Agenzia delle Entrate. How to Submit the Declaration
Separate U.S. Reporting for American Heirs
American citizens and residents inheriting from an Italian estate have a separate IRS filing that’s easy to overlook. If inheritances and gifts received from a foreign person or estate total more than $100,000 in a tax year, you report the amounts on Part IV of Form 3520, and each individual bequest over $5,000 has to be separately identified.10Internal Revenue Service. Gifts From Foreign Person
Form 3520 is due April 15 following the end of the tax year for calendar-year filers and can be extended with your regular return. No U.S. tax is owed on the inheritance itself. But the failure-to-file penalty is the greater of $10,000 or 35% of the gross reportable amount, with additional $10,000 charges for every 30 days of continued non-compliance after IRS notice.11Internal Revenue Service. Failure to File Form 3520/3520-A Penalties A reasonable-cause exception exists, but the IRS applies it narrowly. Once the $100,000 threshold is crossed, treat Form 3520 as non-negotiable.