Inheriting Israeli Property as a French Resident

A family in Lyon instructs the family notaire the week after their mother's death, as French families always do, and the notaire opens the succession, draws up the acte de notoriété, and begins valuing the estate. Among the assets is an apartment in Netanya their mother bought decades ago. The notaire, scrupulous and experienced in French succession, has no authority over Israeli land and says so. The family is left holding a French file that the Israeli Land Registry will not act on.

This is the structural surprise for French heirs. France runs a notaire-led succession that handles almost everything an heir owns, and it feels comprehensive because at home it is. Israeli property sits outside it. A separate Israeli process has to run before anyone can register, sell or rent the inherited apartment, and the real tax weight, unusually, lands back in France rather than in Israel.

The act of inheriting carries no Israeli tax at all. The complications are procedural on the Israeli side and fiscal on the French side. This guide walks a French resident through both.

Why the French Notaire Stops at the Border

Israeli law contains an explicit conflict-of-laws rule. Under Section 137 of the Succession Law 1965, succession is generally governed by the law of the deceased's domicile, but immovable property in Israel is governed by Israeli law regardless of where the deceased lived. Land does not travel. An apartment in Netanya is governed by Israeli succession law even if its owner spent forty years in Paris.

This sits alongside the European framework the French side runs on. For deaths since August 2015, the EU Succession Regulation No. 650/2012 generally points French notaires to the law of the deceased's last habitual residence for the succession as a whole. But the Regulation does not bind Israel, which is not an EU member and applies its own lex situs rule to land within its borders. The result is two parallel tracks: the notaire settles the French and movable estate, and an Israeli proceeding settles the Israeli apartment.

The practical consequence is that the Tabu (טאבו), Israel's Land Registry, will only change a property's registered owner on the strength of an Israeli order, either a succession order (צו ירושה) where there was no will or a probate order (צו קיום צוואה) confirming one. Both are issued by the Inheritance Registrar (Rasham HaYerushot) at the Ministry of Justice for uncontested estates, or by the Family Court where there is a dispute. The French acte de notoriété is useful supporting evidence, not a substitute.

Getting the Israeli Succession or Probate Order

The application is filed with the Inheritance Registrar in the district where the property sits or where the deceased had connections. For a French family the file is built largely from documents that have to cross a border, and that is where the time goes.

A French heir typically needs to supply:

• The death certificate (acte de décès), apostilled and translated into Hebrew
• Proof of identity for every heir, apostilled where issued in France
• Civil-status records proving kinship, actes de naissance and actes de mariage, apostilled and translated
• The will, if there was one, and the acte de notoriété if the notaire has already opened the succession
• Where the deceased was habitually resident in France, an expert opinion on French succession law may be requested, addressing how the estate devolves

Every French public document in that list passes through the same channel, and the French end of it changed recently. Since 1 May 2025 the apostille is issued by the notariat rather than the Cour d'appel, after which an Israeli notary confirms the Hebrew translation. Our guide to using French documents in Israel sets out that current route in detail, because working from a pre-2025 checklist now sends documents to an office that will hand them back.

In Practice: Because Section 137 of the Succession Law 1965 governs Israeli land by Israeli law, a French heir must obtain an Israeli succession order from the Inheritance Registrar (Rasham HaYerushot) before the Tabu will register them. The Registrar's application fee is currently about NIS 514, plus a publication fee of roughly NIS 130, and the Registrar publishes notice and allows a statutory objection period before granting the order. For an uncontested estate where the heirs live in France, expect 3 to 6 months from filing to grant, with most of that time spent gathering and apostilling French documents rather than on the Registrar's own processing.

The wider mechanics of the Israeli proceeding, including how a foreign will is examined, are covered in the complete guide to Israeli probate.

Registering the Property at the Tabu

Once the Israeli order is granted, your attorney prepares the Land Registry file. The change of ownership is registered under the Land Law 1969, which requires the transfer to be recorded to be effective against third parties. Until it is, the flat legally still belongs to a deceased person, and no buyer's lawyer will touch it.

The registration file includes the succession or probate order, a Land Registry inheritance form, identity documents for the heirs being registered, and a clearance from the Israel Tax Authority. That clearance confirms what most French heirs are relieved to hear: inheriting is not a purchase, so no purchase tax (mas rechisha) is due on the inheritance transfer itself. The registration fee is modest, generally in the NIS 500 to NIS 1,500 range for a standard residential property. The cost is not the obstacle; the sequencing is, because each clearance and each apostilled document has to be in hand before the Tabu will act.

The Tax That Actually Bites: French Droits de Succession

Here is the part that catches French families off guard. The inheritance tax exposure is not Israeli. It is French, and it is heavier than many expect.

Israel has levied no inheritance or estate tax since 2004, so the transfer of the apartment into your name produces no Israeli tax bill. France, however, taxes inheritance, and it taxes its residents broadly. Under Article 750 ter of the Code général des impôts, an heir who is resident in France is liable to droits de succession on everything they inherit worldwide, the Israeli apartment included, once they have been French-resident for at least six of the previous ten years.

Normally a country that taxes a foreign asset gives credit for the tax the asset's own country charged on death. France does exactly that, under Article 784 A of the CGI. The difficulty is that the credit is limited to death duties actually paid abroad, and Israel imposes none. So there is nothing to credit. The French heir pays the full droits de succession on the Israeli flat, after the ordinary allowances, with no Israeli offset and no treaty to soften it, because the France-Israel double tax treaty covers income and capital gains, not inheritance.

In direct line, the figures are real money. Each child benefits from a €100,000 abatement on their share from each parent, and the rate above that climbs on a progressive scale to 45% for the largest direct-line shares. A French-resident child inheriting a half-share of an Israeli apartment worth €600,000 is taxed in France on €300,000, less the €100,000 abatement, with the balance running up the scale, and the absence of any Israeli death duty means none of it is recovered. This is the single most important number for a French heir to model early, ideally while a parent who owns Israeli property is still alive and planning is still possible.

Capital Gains When You Sell

The other tax moment arrives if and when you sell, and here both countries tax, but a treaty steps in.

Israel charges land appreciation tax, mas shevach (מס שבח), on the real gain, at 25% for an individual. The gain is measured from the deceased's original purchase price, because Israel does not reset the cost to the date of death. There is a valuable residential exemption under Section 49b(5) of the Real Estate Taxation Law 1963 for an apartment inherited from a parent or spouse, but it requires the heir to own no residential home of their own. A French heir who owns their résidence principale in France will usually fail that test and pay the full mas shevach.

In Practice: When a French heir later sells the inherited apartment, the Israel Tax Authority assesses mas shevach at 25% on the gain from the deceased's original cost, self-reported within 30 days of the sale under the Real Estate Taxation Law 1963, and the Authority issues the withholding clearance (ishur mas shevach) the Tabu needs to register the buyer. On a gain of NIS 1,000,000 the tax is around NIS 250,000 unless the Section 49b(5) inherited-home exemption applies, which it generally will not for a French heir who owns a home in France. Expect 4 to 8 weeks to obtain the clearance from a complete filing.

France taxes the disposal too, because a French resident is charged on worldwide gains. For French plus-value immobilière the acquisition value is normally the value declared in the succession, so France taxes only the growth since death. The France-Israel tax treaty then prevents the same gain being taxed twice, generally by crediting the Israeli tax against the French liability. The interaction is technical, and the relief has to be claimed correctly, so the order of sale and the valuations agreed at death both matter.

Where French Heirs Go Wrong

Common Mistake: Treating the French notaire's settlement of the estate as the end of the matter and discovering the Israeli apartment cannot be dealt with months later. The Tabu will not register a transfer without an Israeli succession or probate order, and starting that Israeli process only after the French succession closes can add 4 to 6 months while documents are apostilled through the notariat and translated. Worse, French heirs sometimes overlook the droits de succession on the Israeli asset entirely until the French declaration is due within six months of death, then face a charge with no Israeli credit and no cash from a still-unsold flat to pay it. Run the Israeli registration and the French tax position in parallel, from the start.

A second recurring error is assuming the Section 49b(5) exemption will spare the mas shevach because the flat was inherited, then selling and learning that owning a home in France disqualified them. If a sale is likely, model the Israeli capital gains position before listing.

Practical Checklist

• Open the Israeli succession process in parallel with the French notaire, not after the French succession closes
• Do not rely on the acte de notoriété for the Israeli flat; an Israeli succession or probate order is required
• Apostille French documents through the notariat under the post-2025 route, then have an Israeli notary confirm the Hebrew translation
• Obtain the Israel Tax Authority confirmation that no purchase tax is due on the inheritance transfer
• Model the French droits de succession on the Israeli asset early, remembering there is no Israeli death duty to credit
• Before selling, model both Israeli mas shevach and French plus-value, and confirm how the treaty credit applies
• Sign an apostilled power of attorney so the entire Israeli process runs without you travelling

Speak With an Israeli Attorney

Inheriting Israeli property as a French resident means running an Israeli succession process the notaire cannot replace, while the heavier tax exposure sits in France, where the droits de succession apply with no Israeli credit to soften them. An Israeli inheritance lawyer can obtain the succession order, complete the Land Registry transfer from abroad, and coordinate with your notaire and French tax adviser so both the Israeli registration and the French liabilities are handled correctly.

Contact us for a confidential initial consultation.