How to value an estate for Inheritance Tax and report its value: Check if you need to send full details of the estate

Before you report the value of the estate, check if you need to send full details of the estate so that you complete the correct forms.

The information you need to provide and how you do this depends on a number of factors, including whether Inheritance Tax is due or not.

If Inheritance Tax is due

You’ll need to give full details of the estate if Inheritance Tax is due.

Find out what you need to do if Inheritance Tax is due.

When to send full details of the estate’s value even if no tax is due

You’ll need to send full details of the estate, even if no tax is due, if the person who died:

• gave away over £250,000 in the 7 years before they died (£150,000 if the person died on or before 31 December 2021)
• gave gifts then continued to benefit from them in the 7 years before they died
• left an estate worth more than £3 million (more than £1 million if they died on or before 31 December 2021)
• died on or before 31 December 2021 and had inherited part of the Inheritance Tax threshold from a previous spouse or civil partner
• was ‘deemed domiciled’ in the UK
• had foreign assets worth more than £100,000
• was living permanently outside the UK when they died but had previously lived in the UK
• had a life insurance policy that paid out to someone other than their spouse or civil partner and also had an annuity
• had increased the value of a lump sum from a personal pension to be paid after their death, while they were terminally ill or in poor health
• had agreed that property they’d given away during their lifetime would be part of their estate rather than pay a pre-owned asset charge

If the estate includes trusts

You’ll need to complete a full account if the deceased:

• gave gifts that were paid into trusts
• held assets worth over £250,000 in trust (£150,000 if the person died on or before 31 December 2021)
• held more than one trust

You’ll also need to complete a full account if the deceased died on or after 1 January 2022 and assets held in trust passed to a surviving spouse, civil partner or charity and the trust was worth:

• £1 million or more
• £250,000 or more after the amount passing to the surviving spouse, civil partner or charity has been deducted

When full details are not needed – ‘excepted estates’

You do not have to give full details of an estate’s value if all of the following are true:

• the estate counts as an ‘excepted estate’
• there’s no Inheritance Tax to pay
• you’ve checked that none of the reasons under ‘when you need to send full details of the estate’s value even if no tax is due’ apply

Most estates are excepted estates.

What counts as an excepted estate depends on whether the person died:

• on or after 1 January 2022
• on or before 31 December 2021

If the person died on or after 1 January 2022

An estate is usually an excepted estate if any of the following apply:

• its value is below the current Inheritance Tax threshold
• the estate is worth £650,000 or less and any unused threshold is being transferred from a spouse or civil partner who died first
• the deceased left everything to a spouse or civil partner living in the UK or to a qualifying charity and the estate is worth less than £3 million (search the charity register for registered UK charities)
• the deceased was living permanently outside the UK (a ‘foreign domiciliary’) when they died and the value of their UK assets is under £150,000

If the person died on or before 31 December 2021

An estate is usually an excepted estate if any of the following apply:

What you need to do next

The process you need to follow depends on whether you’re dealing with: