Inheritance tax calculator: know where you stand.
Estimate the inheritance tax on your estate in under a minute, with the current England & Wales allowances: the nil-rate band, the residence allowance, transferred bands for widowed partners and the 36% charity rate. Free, no signup, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
Property, savings, investments, possessions, life policies that pay into the estate
Mortgage, loans, credit cards, funeral costs
Leave at 0 if you don't own your home
Charitable gifts are tax-free and can cut the rate to 36%
Estimated inheritance tax
£–
- Estate after debts
- £0
- Nil-rate band
- £325,000
- Residence nil-rate band
- £0
- Taxable estate
- £0
- Rate applied
- –
An estimate, not advice. It leaves out gifts made in the last seven years, trusts, business and agricultural relief, pensions and foreign assets. Nothing you type here leaves your browser.
How the sums work
Everyone can leave £325,000 free of inheritance tax: the nil-rate band. Passing your home (or your share of it) to children or grandchildren adds up to £175,000 more, the residence nil-rate band, though estates over £2 million lose £1 of it for every £2 over the line. Whatever a spouse or civil partner does not use passes to the survivor, which is how a couple reaches £1 million tax-free.
Everything above the allowances is normally taxed at 40%. Leave at least 10% of the taxed part of your estate to charity and the rate on the rest falls to 36%, with the charitable gift itself tax-free. The mechanics, the taper and the traps are covered properly in our plain-English guide to the nil-rate band and the guide to charitable gifts.
Questions
Inheritance tax, briefly
How is inheritance tax calculated?
Add up everything owned at death, subtract debts, then subtract the allowances: the £325,000 nil-rate band, plus up to £175,000 of residence nil-rate band where a home passes to children or grandchildren. What remains is usually taxed at 40%, or 36% where at least 10% of the taxed estate goes to charity.
How do married couples get £1 million tax-free?
Allowances a spouse or civil partner does not use transfer to the survivor. A widowed person whose partner left them everything can have a doubled nil-rate band (£650,000) and a doubled residence band (£350,000): £1 million in total where a home worth at least £350,000 passes to direct descendants.
What is the £2 million taper?
Estates over £2 million lose £1 of residence nil-rate band for every £2 over the threshold. A single person’s residence band disappears entirely at £2.35 million; a couple’s combined band at £2.7 million.
Do gifts to charity reduce inheritance tax?
Twice over. Charitable gifts are exempt from inheritance tax themselves, and where they amount to at least 10% of the taxable estate, the rate on everything else falls from 40% to 36%.
Is this calculator accurate?
It uses the 2026/27 figures for England and Wales and covers the allowances that decide the answer for most estates. It deliberately leaves out lifetime gifts within seven years, trusts, business and agricultural relief and foreign assets, so treat the result as an estimate rather than advice.
The allowances only work if your will directs them
The residence band needs your home heading to direct descendants; the 36% rate needs the charitable gift written in; the transferred bands need the paperwork trail a clear will leaves behind. A solicitor-reviewed Willful will puts the directions in place, from £119.
Start your willWorth reading first
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