German tax reaching your Indian inheritance

By Parish Rao · 5 September 2026 · 6 minute read

Indian families in Germany are often surprised that an Indian house, which never leaves India, can matter to a German tax filing. The reason is that German inheritance rules follow people, not only property.

Why Germany is interested at all

Germany taxes worldwide transfers on inheritance and gifts where either the person who died or the person receiving is a German tax resident. The location of the asset is not the deciding factor. The residence of the people is.

So a house in Delhi passing to a son in Munich can be relevant to a German filing, even though nothing physically moved and no money crossed a border.

What that filing needs

A value at the date of the transfer, which for an inheritance is normally the date of death. Not today's value, and not what the family paid decades ago.

That is a past date valuation of an Indian property, prepared to a standard a German adviser can rely on. It is ordinary work for us and it is the main reason clients in Germany call.

India is looking at a completely different date

This is the part worth slowing down for.

India gives no step up on inheritance. For the Indian side, the cost stays with the previous owner, or becomes the 1 April 2001 market value for property held since before then. The date of death is simply not the relevant date in India.

So the same house can need a date of death value for Germany and a 1 April 2001 value for India. Different dates, different purposes, both defensible, and both producible from one inspection. The full explanation is in one inherited property, two valuations.

The treaty

India and Germany have had a double taxation agreement since 1991. Where the same transaction is taxable on both sides, relief is claimed through that framework rather than granted automatically.

Your Steuerberater in Germany and your chartered accountant in India decide between them what applies. Our contribution is making sure both are working from property numbers that can be evidenced.

Practical notes for families in Germany

• Do it early. Reconstructing a value for a date that is already years in the past gets harder as records age and family memory fades.
• Keep the Indian documents. Old deeds, tax receipts and municipal records are the raw material for the reconstruction.
• One person in India is enough. Somebody has to let our engineer in. That is the only physical requirement.
• Reports are issued in English. Generally accepted, and we describe every Indian document so an unfamiliar reader can follow. If your adviser needs a certified German translation, arrange it locally and we will say so honestly rather than overselling.

If the family later sells

Then the Indian tax computation begins, and with it the deduction at source problem that catches every overseas seller. That is covered in the NRI TDS post.

See our Germany page, or read about inherited property valuation.