Making a Will in Spain as a Foreign Resident
If you live in Valencia and die without a will, Spanish law decides who inherits, and Spanish law reserves two thirds of your estate for your children. A short notarial will, with one clause choosing your national law, is how you take that decision back.
Since 17 August 2015 the EU Succession Regulation 650/2012 has governed every estate opened in Spain. Its default is simple and often unwelcome: the law of the country where you were habitually resident at death applies to your whole estate, wherever the assets sit.
For a foreigner settled in Valencia that means Spanish succession law, with its reserved shares, unless you have written otherwise. The same regulation lets you choose the law of your nationality instead, but only in a will or a document that counts as one. Silence is a choice for Spanish law.
This page covers what that choice does, how a will is made in front of a Spanish notary, what it costs, how it is found after a death, and how it meets the Comunitat Valenciana inheritance tax. It is general guidance for 2026; the wording of your own will is a job for a lawyer.
Six questions a will has to answer
Settle these before the notary appointment and the appointment itself takes half an hour.
Which law applies
Habitual residence at death by default (article 21 of the regulation), or the law of your nationality if you say so expressly (article 22). A dual national may pick either nationality.
Which assets it covers
One will can dispose of your worldwide estate. Many foreigners prefer a Spanish will limited to Spanish assets alongside a home-country will, provided neither revokes the other.
Who the forced heirs are
Under the Spanish Civil Code, children take two thirds of the estate and a surviving spouse takes a life interest in one third. Choosing English, Irish or most US state laws removes those shares.
What your partner gets
A spouse has rights on intestacy; an unmarried or unregistered partner has none. If you are a pareja de hecho, the will is the only thing that provides for them.
Where it is recorded
Every notarial will is notified to the Registro General de Actos de Última Voluntad in Madrid, so your heirs can find it with a single certificate.
What tax it triggers
A will does not change the tax, but it decides who pays it. In Valencia, spouses, children and parents get the 99% rebate; a friend or an unregistered partner pays the full scale.
Why Spanish law reaches a foreigner's estate
The regulation applies in Spain to everyone who dies habitually resident here, whatever their passport. It does not matter that Ireland and Denmark stayed out of it, or that the United Kingdom never joined: a Spanish notary settling an Irish or British resident's estate still applies the regulation, and its default sends him to Spanish law.
Spanish succession law is built around la legítima (), the reserved share. With children in the picture, two thirds of the estate is theirs by law under articles 806 to 808 of the Civil Code, one third in equal parts and one third that you may distribute among them as you wish. Only the remaining third is freely yours to leave to anyone.
A surviving spouse does not get a share of the capital while there are children; the Civil Code gives them a life interest in the middle third instead. Valencia has no succession law of its own, so unlike Catalonia or the Balearics the Civil Code applies here without regional variation.
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The choice-of-law clause, and who benefits from it
Article 22 of the regulation lets you choose the law of the state whose nationality you hold at the time of the choice or at death. The choice must be made expressly in a will or shown by its terms; a lawyer will write it as a single sentence naming the law. Once made, it governs the whole succession, both the reserved shares and the order of heirs.
For a British, Irish, Australian or American resident the clause is usually the point of the exercise. England and Wales, Ireland and most US states allow full testamentary freedom, so choosing that law lets you leave the estate to a spouse outright, or to a partner, or unevenly between children. The Spanish notary will apply the foreign law you named.
For a French, Belgian, Dutch or German national the calculation is different, because those countries have reserved shares of their own. Choosing French law replaces one set of forced heirs with another, and France's own tax rules on successions run alongside Spain's. There the clause buys certainty rather than freedom, and it is worth taking advice on which set of rules suits the family better.
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Two wills, one estate
If you keep a will at home for assets there, make sure each will states which assets it covers and that the later one does not revoke the earlier. A general revocation clause in a new English will has silently cancelled many Spanish wills.
The notarial will: process and cost
Almost every will made in Spain is a testamento abierto (), an open will signed before a notary. You tell the notary, or the lawyer who drafts it, what you want; the notary writes it in Spanish (a double-column version in your language is normal for foreigners), reads it back, and you sign. The original stays in the notary's protocol and you leave with an authorised copy.
The cost is fixed by the notarial tariff, which sets the fee for a will at 30.05 EUR per testator, before copies, extra pages and VAT. A lawyer's drafting fee, if you use one for the choice-of-law wording and the coordination with a foreign will, is separate and depends on the firm.
Bring your passport and NIE, and a note of the full names, nationalities and dates of birth of everyone you name. You do not need to list assets or valuations; a Spanish will describes heirs and shares, not property. Anyone over fourteen and of sound mind can make one, and it can be replaced by a later will at any time.
After a death: the certificate, the heirs and Valencia's tax
The notary sends a notice of every will to the Registro General de Actos de Última Voluntad. Once fifteen working days have passed since the death, the family applies for the certificado de últimas voluntades, which names the notary holding the last will. The request goes through the Ministry of Justice online, by post or in person, and the fee is a few euros paid by Modelo 790.
With the certificate and a copy of the will, the heirs sign the acceptance and partition of the estate before a notary and file the inheritance tax within six months of the death. In the Comunitat Valenciana, Ley 6/2023 gives spouses, descendants and ascendants a 99% rebate on the tax due for deaths since 28 May 2023, on top of the 100,000 EUR reduction each of them already has.
The rebate follows kinship, not the will. Leave the flat to a registered pareja de hecho and it is taxed as a spouse's inheritance; leave it to a friend, a stepchild or an unregistered partner and it falls in the top group with no rebate at all. Run the numbers on our inheritance tax calculator before you decide the shares.
Where foreigners' estates go wrong
No will at all
Spanish intestacy rules apply: children first, then parents, then the spouse. An unmarried partner inherits nothing, and a spouse with children gets only the life interest.
A home will that never mentions Spain
It is valid, but without a choice of law it is read under Spanish rules, and it has to be translated, apostilled and proved before a Spanish notary will act on it. Months are lost.
Choosing the wrong law
You can only choose the law of a nationality you hold. A British resident cannot pick Spanish freedom he does not have or a French law he is not entitled to; the clause fails and the default returns.
Forgetting the tax side
Freedom to leave everything to a partner is not freedom from tax. Without a marriage or a Valencian registration, that partner pays Group IV inheritance tax on every euro.
The order to do this in
- 1
Decide the law and the scope
Nationality law or Spanish law; worldwide will or Spanish assets only. If you already have a home-country will, bring it to the meeting so the two can be made to fit.
- 2
Have it drafted
Our legal partner drafts the will in Spanish with your language alongside, including the article 22 clause and a non-revocation clause for any foreign will. A sworn translation is not needed for the Spanish original.
- 3
Sign before the notary
One appointment with passport and NIE. The notary reads the will aloud, you sign, and the notary notifies the central registry. You leave with an authorised copy to keep with your papers.
- 4
Tell the people who will need it
Give your executor or a family member the notary's name and a copy. The certificado de últimas voluntades will find the will anyway, but a family that knows where to look saves weeks.
- 5
Review it when life changes
A marriage, a registered partnership, a child, a divorce or a move out of Spain each change the answer. A new will replaces the old one; if you leave Spain for good, the choice of law is worth re-checking under your new country's rules.
Marriage, partnerships and the estate
Marriage changes the picture twice over. Under Spanish default rules a couple married here without a marriage contract holds property in community, so on a death only half of the joint assets belong to the estate at all. And a spouse has both a life interest by law and the Valencian tax treatment of a Group II heir.
A registered pareja de hecho in the Comunitat Valenciana gets the tax treatment but not the civil rights: the regional law's inheritance article was struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2016, so a registered partner inherits only what the will gives them. An unregistered partner gets neither.
None of this replaces legal advice on your own family and assets. Our legal partner in Valencia handles foreign residents' wills daily, in English and French, and will tell you honestly whether a Spanish will, a foreign will or both is the right answer for you.
Official sources
- Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 on jurisdiction, applicable law and succession (EUR-Lex)
- Código Civil, articles 806 to 834, reserved shares and the spouse's life interest (BOE)
- Notarial tariff in euros, Instrucción de 14 de diciembre de 2001 (BOE)
- Certificado de Actos de Última Voluntad, Ministerio de Justicia
- Ley 6/2023 de la Generalitat, 99% rebate on inheritance and gift tax (BOE)
Resident in Valencia since 2016. Founder of BeTranslated. 25+ years in translation, interpretation and multilingual SEO.
Reviewed 4 September 2026 by Michael Bastin