Do you need an IHT400? Free check

Two minutes, no account. For deaths from 1 January 2022 the short IHT205 form no longer exists: an estate is either an excepted estate, reported in the probate application, or needs the full IHT400.

Date of death

For a death on or before 5 April 2025: were they domiciled in the UK? For a later death: were they a long-term UK resident (resident for at least 10 of the 20 tax years before the tax year they died in)?

Yes No or not sure

Value of everything they owned, including their share of joint assets

Before taking off debts. Include the home, savings, investments, belongings, pension death benefits paid to the estate and any life insurance paid to the estate.

Debts and funeral costs

Value going to their husband, wife or civil partner

Is the husband, wife or civil partner also UK domiciled (or, for deaths from 6 April 2025, a long-term UK resident)?

Yes, or no spouse No or not sure

Value going to UK charities

Gifts to people in the 7 years before death

Leave out wedding gifts within the limits, small gifts of £250 or less to one person in a year, the first £3,000 of gifts each tax year, and regular gifts out of income up to £3,000 a year. Include anything else, such as larger regular gifts.

Were any of those gifts something other than cash, listed shares, a house or land with its contents, or household goods?

Yes No

For example a business, a farm or shares in a private company.

Gifts to their husband, wife, civil partner or a charity in the 7 years before death

These are free of tax but count towards the limits for an excepted estate.

Did they make a gift into a trust in those 7 years?

Yes No

Did they give something away but keep using it, such as a home?

Yes No

Value of trusts they could benefit from

Could they benefit from more than one trust?

Yes No

Value of assets outside the UK

Had a husband, wife or civil partner died before them, leaving some of their tax-free allowance unused?

Yes No

Then the £325,000 threshold goes up by the share they didn't use, up to twice it.

If so: what share of their nil rate band was unused?

100% if everything went to the person who has now died, or to charity. Otherwise HMRC's form IHT402 works it out. Leave empty if you don't know: we then use £325,000.

If so: did that earlier estate use Business or Agricultural Relief, include a trust or a gift kept in use, have more than £100,000 abroad, or include taxable gifts, or were they not UK domiciled?

Yes No

Any of these means the doubled limit can't be used for an excepted estate.

Is their home, or a share of it, going to their children or grandchildren?

Yes No

A guide, not advice. Based on the excepted estates rules for deaths from 1 January 2022 (IHT400 Notes, "Excepted estates").

Which Inheritance Tax form do you need?