England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
Inheritance tax calculator
Most estates pay nothing. The ones that do are usually caught by a threshold that has not moved in years and a house that has, and the bill is decided by three separate allowances that interact, one of which is taken away again above £2,000,000.
The bill
Enter an estate value and the breakdown appears here, with the bands underneath.
Where the million for a couple comes from
The figure everybody has heard is real, and it is conditional. It is £325,000 of nil-rate band and £175,000 of residence band, each doubled by a spouse’s unused share, so £1,000,000 between two people, and nothing on an estate of £1,000,000.
It needs all of it: a marriage or civil partnership, a home, and that home passing to children or grandchildren. Take away the home and the same couple’s threshold is £650,000. Take away the marriage and a single person with the same house has £500,000.
None of it is automatic. A transferred band has to be claimed by the executors, using records from a death that may have been decades earlier.
The band that disappears when you need it
The residence band is withdrawn by a pound for every two an estate is worth above £2,000,000. On an estate of £2,350,000 with a home of £500,000 passing to children, the residence band is £0: all £175,000 of it gone.
It is an allowance designed to protect a family home, structured so that it is worth least to the estates holding the most property.
The 40% that becomes 36%
An estate leaving a tenth or more of its baseline amount to charity is taxed at the reduced rate, on everything, not on the gift. It is a step change, so the pounds either side of the line behave very differently.
On an estate of £1,000,000 with no home passing to descendants, a legacy of £67,000 leaves a bill of £243,200. A legacy of £67,500, £500 more, leaves £218,700. The charity receives more, and after paying for the larger legacy the beneficiaries are £24,000 better off as well.
The baseline the tenth is measured against is the estate less the nil-rate band. The residence band is not deducted from it, which is the detail most often got wrong: deducting it would lower the bar and say an estate had qualified when it had not.
The figures underneath
What this rests on
The thresholds above match the calculator line for line, with links to the gov.uk pages we read them from and the dates they are due another check.
The inheritance tax nil-rate band, and the rates above it.
£325,000, then 40%, or 36% where at least 10% of the net estate goes to charity
GOV.UK · 2026 to 2027 tax year · checked again by 2027-03-01
The additional allowance when a home passes to direct descendants.
Up to £175,000
GOV.UK · Unchanged since the 2020 to 2021 tax year · checked again by 2027-03-01
Reduced by £1 for every £2 an estate is worth above the £2 million taper threshold.
Unused inheritance tax threshold passing to a surviving spouse or civil partner.
Any unused threshold is added to the survivor's own
GOV.UK, Inheritance Tax · Current rules · checked again by 2027-03-01
This is the source of the widely quoted £1m for a couple, which requires the residence nil-rate band as well and therefore a home passing to children or grandchildren. It has to be claimed.
The reduced inheritance tax rate for an estate leaving enough to charity.
36% instead of 40%, where 10% or more of the net estate goes to charity
GOV.UK, Inheritance Tax · Current rules · checked again by 2027-03-01
It applies to some assets rather than automatically to the whole estate, and the 10% is of the net value.
Unused pension funds and death benefits entering the estate for inheritance tax.
In scope from 6 April 2027
GOV.UK, Inheritance Tax: unused pension funds and death benefits · From 6 April 2027 · checked again by 2027-03-01
Death in service benefits from a registered scheme, and dependants' scheme pensions from a defined benefit or collective money purchase arrangement, are excluded. Personal representatives rather than scheme administrators become liable for reporting and paying.
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