Inheriting in Ukraine when you live abroad

Of everything on this site, this is the one with a clock on it.

When someone dies in Ukraine, an heir who was not living with them has six months to file an application accepting the inheritance. The clock starts at the death, not at the moment the news reaches you, and not at the moment you feel able to deal with it. File nothing inside those six months and you are treated as having declined.

That is a brutal rule to meet while grieving in another country, and it is the single most common way people abroad lose something they were entitled to.

This guide explains the shape of the process. It is not legal advice — a Ukrainian notary or lawyer is the right person for your actual case, and inheritance is a subject where the details decide everything.

What has to happen inside six months

One thing: an application accepting the inheritance reaches a Ukrainian notary.

That is a lower bar than it sounds. You do not have to have valued the estate, agreed anything with other heirs, gathered the deceased’s documents, or decided what you want to do with a flat. Those all come afterwards and have no deadline attached. The six months belong to the application alone.

People lose inheritances because they wait until they have everything in order. Do not. File first.

Work out your own date and put it in a calendar: when the inheritance deadline falls.

What the law says, article by article

This is worth having in the actual words, because the notary will be applying them:

• Six months, from the opening of the inheritance — which is the day of death (Civil Code, art. 1270). If your right arises only because other heirs did not accept or refused, you get three months from that moment instead.
• Who has to file at all. An heir who was living permanently with the deceased at the time is treated as having accepted unless they refuse (art. 1268). Everyone else — which means every heir abroad — must submit an application to a notary (art. 1269), or in a village to the authorised official of the local council.
• Which notary. The case is opened at the place of opening of the inheritance: the deceased’s last place of residence (art. 1221), or, if unknown, where the real estate is. Any notary working in that district can open the case; one notary then handles it. Your application has to reach that notary, not any notary.
• After the term (art. 1272): you are treated as not having accepted — unless (a) all heirs who did accept agree in writing that you may file late, or (b) a court grants an additional term because the reason for missing it was a good one. Living abroad is not automatically a good reason.

On the wartime question people ask: early in 2022 the Cabinet did suspend the six-month term under martial law. That suspension is no longer in the text of the wartime notary rules (Cabinet resolution No. 164 as it stands on the date this page carries) — so treat the six months as running, and do not let a 2022 forum post tell you otherwise.

Filing from another country

There are two routes, and the difference between them is weeks of paperwork.

• Through a Ukrainian consulate. The application is drawn up in Ukrainian and certified there, and it needs no further legalisation. This is the simpler route, and the one worth trying first — though consular appointments are the bottleneck, so start early. Some missions also take this kind of document at consular outreach visits.
• Through a local notary where you live. Also valid, but the document is then a foreign one: expect to need an apostille or consular legalisation depending on the country, plus a translation into Ukrainian whose accuracy is itself notarially certified. More steps, more time, more cost.

Either way the application then has to reach the notary in Ukraine handling the estate.

Finding out which notary that is, and what they will want from you, is one letter: the enquiry letter tool writes it in Ukrainian, asking everything at once so that a single reply settles it.

Then, and only then, the power of attorney

Once you have accepted, someone in Ukraine can act for you — collect the certificate of the right to inheritance, deal with the registry, handle the property — on a notarially certified power of attorney.

The order matters. The power of attorney is how the rest of it gets done; it is not what stops the clock. If you only have time for one thing inside the six months, it is the acceptance.

Our guide on signing a power of attorney from abroad covers how to make one that a Ukrainian notary will accept.

If the six months have already passed

Not necessarily over. There are two ways back:

• Consent of the other heirs. If everyone who did accept the inheritance agrees in writing that you may join them, that can be enough — no court involved. Where a family is on good terms, this is much the faster road.
• Court. A court can grant an additional term where the delay had a good reason. Living abroad is not automatically enough on its own; what counts is your specific circumstances, and it is decided case by case.

Both are slower, more expensive, and less certain than filing on time. Neither is a plan.

The tax — and the trap for people who live abroad

Ukraine taxes inheritance as income of the heir (Tax Code, art. 174), and the rate turns on two things: how you are related, and whether you and the deceased are tax residents of Ukraine.

• 0% — heirs of the first and second degree of kinship: parents, spouse, children (including adopted); siblings, grandparents, grandchildren (art. 14.1.263).
• 5% — any other heir (a niece, a partner, a friend named in a will).
• 18% — any object inherited by a non-resident heir, or from a non-resident deceased — regardless of kinship. On top of the income tax, taxable inheritance also carries the military levy, 5% since 1 December 2024.

That third line is the one for this audience. “Non-resident” here is tax residency, not citizenship — decided by where your permanent home and centre of vital interests are, and by the 183-day count (art. 14.1.213; see tax in two countries). A Ukrainian citizen who has settled abroad can be a non-resident, and then a flat inherited from a parent — 0% for a sibling still in Ukraine — is taxed at 18% + 5% for them. And the timing is unforgiving: a non-resident heir must pay the tax before the notary issues the certificate of the right to inheritance (art. 174.3). Budget for it, and ask the notary early which status they will apply to you.

Two more registry facts worth knowing. The notary checks the Inheritance Register (the unified register of wills and inheritance cases, run through the Ministry of Justice’s registers) for a will and for a case already opened — you cannot search it yourself, but any notary can tell you whether a case exists. And once the certificate is issued, real estate still has to be registered in your name in the State Register of Property Rights before you can sell, let or give it away — see the flat in Ukraine. A small consolation for later: when you do sell inherited property, the usual three-year holding rule for a tax-free first sale does not apply to inherited property (art. 172.1).

Which rate applies to you is three questions in the inheritance tax tool.

The practical version

If you have just heard that someone in Ukraine has died and you may be an heir, the useful order is:

1. Find out the date of death — that is when your clock started, and it may already be running.
2. Book the earliest consular appointment you can get, before assembling anything else.
3. File the acceptance.
4. Then deal with documents, the power of attorney, valuations, and what anyone actually wants to do with what was left.

Where to check

The Ministry of Justice and a Ukrainian notary are the authorities here, and free legal aid can help if your case is not a standard one — there is a hotline and an online service on the where to look page. If a page here is out of date, tell us.