Ireland Wills and Probate: Probate, Inheritance Tax and Care Planning

When someone dies in Ireland, two separate processes decide what happens next, and they run on different rules. The first is probate: proving a valid will, or working out who inherits under the intestacy rules if there is none, and getting the legal authority to deal with the estate. The second is Revenue's capital acquisitions tax (CAT), which taxes what each beneficiary receives, on top of and separate from whatever the will or the intestacy rules say.

The Succession Act 1965 is the anchor statute for the first process. It fixes who inherits when there is no will, and it protects a spouse or civil partner with a legal right share that a will cannot remove without their consent. Revenue's CAT group thresholds anchor the second process: they decide how much of a gift or inheritance is taxed at 33 percent once a beneficiary's lifetime threshold for their group is used up.

Two more decisions sit alongside these. An enduring power of attorney lets you choose in advance who will manage your property, money and welfare if you lose capacity, and how that is made and registered changed substantially in 2023. Paying for a nursing home is handled through a third system again, the HSE's Fair Deal scheme, which assesses your income and assets rather than simply billing your estate.

Information last verified on 21 July 2026. This page presents general legal information, not legal advice.

Jurisdiction scope: This hub covers wills, probate, inheritance and gift tax, enduring powers of attorney and long term care funding law in Ireland (the Republic of Ireland), including the Probate Office, Revenue, the Decision Support Service and the HSE. It does not cover Northern Ireland or the rest of the United Kingdom, which run separate probate and inheritance tax systems. It is general information, not advice for your situation.

Probate: proving the will, or applying under intestacy

Probate is the court process that gives someone legal authority to collect a deceased person's assets, pay their debts, and distribute what is left. Before any application goes in, Revenue's Form SA.2 Statement of Affairs (Probate) has to be completed online, and the Notice of Acknowledgement it produces is filed with the Probate Office.

Which grant you need depends on whether there is a valid will and an executor able to act. A Grant of Probate issues where both conditions are met. Letters of Administration issue instead where there is no will, or no executor willing or able to act. Fees scale with the size of the estate, from €200 for a personal applicant on an estate up to €100,000, rising to €1,300 or more above €1 million, and as of July 2026 the Dublin Probate Office was running about 12 weeks behind on solicitor applications, with a 10 to 12 week wait for a personal application appointment.

If there is no will, the Succession Act 1965 fixes who inherits: a surviving spouse with children takes two thirds of the estate and the children share the remaining third, while a spouse with no children takes everything. Where there is a will, a spouse still has a legal right share the will cannot remove without their consent: one half of the estate if there are no children, or one third if there are children. A child who feels they were not properly provided for has 6 months from the date of the grant to bring a section 117 claim against the estate. The full mechanics, including the fee scale and current waiting times, are covered in our guide to the probate process in Ireland.

How Ireland taxes inheritances and gifts: capital acquisitions tax

Getting a grant of probate settles who is entitled to what. It does not settle what Revenue takes. Capital acquisitions tax applies to gifts and inheritances taken by each individual beneficiary, and it runs on its own set of rules regardless of what the will says.

CAT is charged at 33 percent, but only on the portion of a gift or inheritance above the beneficiary's tax free threshold, not on the whole amount. Which threshold applies depends on the relationship between the beneficiary and the person who died or gave the gift: €400,000 for a child inheriting from a parent (Group A), €40,000 for other close relatives such as siblings, nieces and nephews or grandchildren (Group B), or €20,000 for everyone else, including unrelated beneficiaries (Group C). These figures apply to benefits taken on or after 2 October 2024, and Budget 2026 left them unchanged.

These thresholds are lifetime limits, not per gift. All taxable benefits a beneficiary receives within the same group are added together going back to 5 December 1991, so earlier gifts reduce how much of the threshold is left. Gifts and inheritances between spouses and civil partners are completely exempt from CAT, and a small gift exemption lets anyone receive up to €3,000 a year from each individual giver tax free, with those small gifts never counting toward the lifetime threshold. Once a beneficiary's aggregated benefits pass 80 percent of their group threshold, they must file an IT38 return, with pay and file deadline of 31 October. Our guide to inheritance tax (CAT) in Ireland works through the group rules, exemptions and reliefs with worked examples.

Planning ahead: enduring power of attorney

An enduring power of attorney (EPA) lets you name someone, in advance, to make decisions about your property, money and personal welfare if you later lose the capacity to make them yourself. It never covers medical treatment decisions, which belong in a separate advance healthcare directive.

The regime changed substantially on 26 April 2023. Since that date, every new EPA is made and registered through the Decision Support Service (DSS) under the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015, rather than through the courts. You must register your EPA with the DSS within 3 months of making it, for a €30 fee. The EPA only takes effect once you lose capacity: at that point your attorney notifies the DSS, supported by statements from 2 doctors or healthcare professionals, pays a €90 fee, and a 5 week objection window runs before the notification can be accepted. The same 2015 Act replaced the wards of court system for new cases with three tiers of decision support, running from simple decision making assistance agreements up to court appointed decision making representatives for people with the most significant needs.

An EPA validly made under the older Powers of Attorney Act 1996, before 26 April 2023, remains valid. On incapacity, though, it is still registered the old way, through the Registrar of Wards of Court and the High Court, not the DSS. Our guide to enduring power of attorney in Ireland sets out both routes and the fees at each step.

Paying for nursing home care: the Fair Deal scheme

The Fair Deal scheme (formally the Nursing Homes Support Scheme) is how the state and the individual share the cost of long term residential care, and it sits alongside estate planning because it determines how much of an estate is left by the time probate and CAT come into play.

Under Fair Deal, you contribute 80 percent of your assessable income and 7.5 percent of the value of your assets each year, and the HSE pays the balance of the cost. The first €36,000 of your assets is disregarded from the assessment (€72,000 for a couple), and your family home is only assessed for 3 years, capping its contribution at 22.5 percent of its value, or 11.25 percent where one member of a couple is in care. Family farms and businesses can qualify for the same 3 year cap if a family successor commits to running them for at least 6 years. Since 1 February 2024 you can apply to keep 100 percent of the rental income from your own home while you are in care, replacing the previous rule that assessed 40 percent of that rent.

If you would rather not sell or use other assets to fund the property based contribution, the optional nursing home loan, formally Ancillary State Support, lets you defer it. Nothing is collected during your lifetime; the deferred amount is repaid to Revenue after death, from the estate, which is why Fair Deal often has to be settled before an estate can fully close. The full contribution formula, a worked example and the application steps are in our guide to the Fair Deal scheme in Ireland.

Guides in this cluster

• Probate in Ireland: process, fees and waiting times
• Inheritance tax in Ireland: CAT thresholds, rates and exemptions
• Enduring power of attorney in Ireland: how the DSS process works
• The Fair Deal scheme in Ireland: costs, the 3 year cap and the nursing home loan

This cluster is part of our broader Ireland law coverage.

Disclaimer

This hub presents general legal information about wills, probate, inheritance tax, enduring powers of attorney and long term care funding in Ireland, verified on 21 July 2026. It is not legal advice and does not create a solicitor client relationship. Probate fees, CAT thresholds, DSS procedures and Fair Deal figures change over time and how they apply depends on your specific circumstances. For advice on your situation, consult a solicitor, or contact the Probate Office, Revenue, the Decision Support Service or the HSE directly.