Your home-country will does not cover everything you own abroad.
Most expats assume estate planning is handled. It is not. Assets in multiple countries, US-domiciled investments, and forced heirship rules in your country of residence can override your intentions entirely.
Three countries, three legal systems, one estate plan that covers none of them properly.
A British national living in Singapore with a property in France and an investment account in the UK is not an unusual client profile. Their estate, on death, is simultaneously subject to French succession law (which imposes forced heirship on the French property), UK law (for the UK account and potentially for their worldwide estate if they are UK domiciled), and Singaporean law (for locally held assets). These three systems do not agree with each other, and a will drafted under English law will not govern the French property.
The central issue is domicile. In English law, domicile is not the same as residency. You can live in Malaysia for 20 years, hold a Malaysia My Second Home visa, pay taxes there, and still be legally domiciled in the UK if you have not taken formal steps to change your domicile of origin. UK domicile means HMRC treats your worldwide estate as subject to UK inheritance tax at 40% above the nil-rate band.
Most expats have not taken those steps. Their estate plan assumes they have.
The situation is further complicated by conflicting succession rules. France, Spain, Italy, and Germany all have forced heirship provisions that mandate specific portions of an estate pass to direct descendants, regardless of what a will says. Malaysia and Thailand have their own succession frameworks. An expat who assumes their English will controls what happens to their French apartment is wrong, and the correction usually falls to their family to make after death, at considerable legal cost.
UK inheritance tax rate on worldwide estates above the nil-rate band (currently £325,000), for those who remain UK domiciled.
Residence Nil Rate Band may apply for property passing to direct descendants. Conditions apply. UK domicile status determines whether worldwide or UK-only assets are in scope.
Domicile of origin
Your domicile of origin is the country of your father at the time of your birth. It is not where you live now. You can acquire a domicile of choice by settling permanently in a new country and intending to remain. This requires deliberate legal action in most cases, not mere residence.
Forced heirship rules
France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Romania, and most civil law countries reserve a portion of the estate (the "reserved share") for direct descendants. This applies regardless of what your will says and regardless of where you live. It applies to assets located in that country.
Multiple wills vs one will
A single will is rarely sufficient for a multi-jurisdiction estate. Coordinated jurisdiction-specific wills are more effective, but they must be drafted so they do not inadvertently revoke each other. The sequencing and language matter significantly.
Holding SPY or QQQ as a non-US person means your family inherits a tax problem.
This is the most common structural error we find in expat investment portfolios, and one of the easiest to fix once you know about it.
US-domiciled ETFs, including some of the world's largest and most widely recommended funds, SPY, QQQ, VTI, VT, are domiciled in the United States. For US citizens, this is irrelevant: they are subject to US estate tax regardless. For non-US persons, it creates a specific exposure that most people are never told about.
Under US law, non-US persons are subject to US federal estate tax on US-sited assets held at death. US-domiciled ETFs count as US-sited assets. The non-resident exemption is just $60,000 (compared to over $13.99 million for US citizens). Above that, the estate tax rate rises to 40%. A non-US person holding $200,000 in SPY at death owes approximately $56,000 in US estate tax on that position alone, payable to the IRS by their estate before the funds can be distributed.
Treaty protection is limited. The US has estate tax treaties with 17 countries, including the UK, France, and Germany. The UK treaty is the most valuable: it provides a proportional exemption calculated against worldwide assets, which can significantly reduce the US tax owed. The French and German treaties reassign some taxing rights but offer less direct relief. For Dutch, Spanish, Romanian, and most other European nationals, there is no treaty at all. The exposure is direct and unhedged.
Any non-US person holding US-domiciled ETFs or US-listed stocks. Nationality does not matter. Country of residence does not matter. What matters is that you are not a US citizen or green card holder, and you hold assets classified as US-sited at death.
The fix is to replace US-domiciled funds with their Irish-domiciled UCITS equivalents. An Irish-domiciled accumulating UCITS fund tracking the same index, say CSPX (iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF, domiciled in Ireland) versus SPY (SPDR S&P 500 ETF, domiciled in the US), will deliver nearly identical index returns. The performance difference is negligible. The estate tax exposure difference is material.
Non-resident exemption from US federal estate tax. Holdings above this threshold are taxed at up to 40% for non-US persons at death.
Most Europeans holding US-domiciled ETFs exceed this threshold. US citizens get $13.99M (2025). The UK, France, and Germany have estate tax treaties with the US; most other European nationalities do not.
US-domiciled ETFs
- SPY, QQQ, VTI, VT
- US-listed stocks
- US money market funds
- TIPS held directly on US exchanges
- 40% estate tax above $60K for non-US persons
Irish UCITS equivalents
- CSPX (iShares S&P 500 UCITS)
- VWRL (Vanguard FTSE All-World)
- IWDA (iShares MSCI World)
- EMIM (iShares Emerging Markets)
- No US estate tax. No withholding friction.
Irish-domiciled UCITS: the right vehicle for globally mobile clients.
The structural argument for Irish-domiciled accumulating UCITS funds is not a recent preference or a marketing position. It follows from a straightforward analysis of what a non-US person, who may change tax residency multiple times, needs from an investment vehicle.
The US estate tax exposure, eliminated
As described above, Irish-domiciled funds are not US-sited assets. A non-US person holding CSPX, IWDA, or VWRL at death has no US federal estate tax exposure on those positions. The UCITS framework removes the problem entirely, at no cost to the expected return.
The dividend withholding advantage
Ireland has a tax treaty with the United States that reduces the withholding tax on US dividends from 30% to 15% at the fund level. US investors already receive this rate, but non-US investors holding US funds directly are typically subject to the full 30% withholding. Irish UCITS funds pass the 15% treaty rate through to their investors, reducing drag on dividend income.
Accumulating share class: deferred tax efficiency
Most Irish UCITS funds are available in accumulating share classes, where dividends are reinvested within the fund rather than distributed. In most jurisdictions, this defers any tax liability to the point of sale. For a mobile expat who may spend time in multiple tax jurisdictions over a 20-year investment horizon, deferring the tax event has material value.
UCITS: the regulatory framework
Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities. A European fund regulation that governs fund structure, liquidity, and investor protection. UCITS funds can be marketed across the EU and are recognised in many Asian jurisdictions, making them portable when you move countries.
Why Ireland specifically
Ireland dominates UCITS fund domicile due to its US tax treaty (the 15% withholding rate), English common law system, and EU membership. Most major fund managers, BlackRock (iShares), Vanguard, and Invesco, domicile their European products in Ireland or Luxembourg. Ireland has the larger share of the market.
Accumulating vs distributing
Accumulating funds reinvest dividends internally. Distributing funds pay them out. For most expats with long horizons and no immediate income need, accumulating is more efficient. It removes the cash-flow management step and avoids the tax event at distribution.
Switching from US to UCITS
Moving from US-domiciled ETFs to Irish UCITS equivalents typically involves selling the US positions and buying UCITS replacements. This crystallises any embedded gain. The timing and sequencing depends on your current tax residency. It should be planned, not rushed.
What "my home-country will covers everything" actually means
A French national, 48, living in Malaysia with his family. He has a will drafted in France, a life insurance policy taken out in France, and an investment account in Singapore holding US-domiciled ETFs worth $420,000. He also has a property in France in his name.
On his death, the French will does not govern the Singapore account: Singapore applies its own succession rules to locally held assets, and French will formalities may not be recognised. The French property passes under forced heirship rules, with a mandatory portion to his children regardless of any contrary wish in the will. The US-domiciled ETFs in the Singapore account attract US federal estate tax of up to 40% on the value above $60,000, approximately $144,000 owed to the IRS before the account can be distributed.
His family in France believed the will covered everything. It did not cover the Singapore account at all.
This scenario is not extreme. It is representative. The specifics change by nationality, country of residence, and asset type, but the pattern is consistent: an estate plan drafted in one country, for assets in that country, fails to cover the financial life that has since grown across three or four jurisdictions.
The error is not that people failed to get legal advice. Most have some form of will. The error is that the will was drafted before the financial picture became cross-border, and it was never updated as the complexity grew.
The investment structure side is, in most cases, easier to fix than the legal documentation. Replacing US-domiciled ETFs with UCITS equivalents can be done in a matter of weeks and eliminates the US estate tax exposure entirely. The will and domicile questions require solicitors in the relevant jurisdictions and take longer, but they are not opaque: they are known problems with known solutions.
What they require is a starting point: someone who can look at the full picture and tell you where the gaps actually are.
Find out what your estate plan actually covers
A 30-minute session looks at your investment structure, domicile position, and whether your will is fit for the life you are actually living. We tell you clearly where the gaps are.
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