Who inherits without a will in Belgium?

The spouse receives the usufruct, the right to use and take the income from, the whole estate. The children receive the bare ownership in equal shares. Spouse and children can ask to convert the usufruct into capital in some cases.

If there are no parents, siblings or other relatives up to the fourth degree, the spouse is the sole heir. If there are such relatives, the spouse generally takes the usufruct and they take the ownership. Under a joint property regime the spouse also holds the joint property in full.

Children share equally. With no children, the parents and the siblings (or their descendants) inherit; each parent takes a quarter and the siblings the rest. Failing those, the estate is split between the mother's and father's relatives.

A cohabiting partner who registered the cohabitation has a right to use the family home and its furniture. This can be removed by a will. A partner who did not register has no automatic right and inherits only if there is a will.

Children have a protected share, and the spouse always keeps at least the usufruct of the family home and its furniture, or of half the estate if that is more.

In this EU country the Succession Regulation applies to people who die after 16 August 2015: the whole estate is generally governed by the law of the country where the person had their habitual residence at death, unless they chose the law of their nationality in a will. A foreigner living here, or a citizen living abroad, can therefore be governed by a different law than the one described on this page.

• The rules changed with a major reform in 2018, so older explanations may be out of date.

Belgium belongs to the Civil law family. Succession law grows out of the legal tradition, so it helps to know how the system works.

Read the Belgium legal-system profile in the Legal Families Atlas →
Who owns what in a marriage in Belgium? →

• European e-Justice Portal: succession in Belgium