Spain.

Spain operates a complex layered system. The Código Civil (1889) provides the default legítima regime (Articles 806–863) reserving two-thirds of the estate for descendants — one-third legítima estricta and one-third tercio de mejora distributable among descendants. Six regions operate foral civil codes that displace the Civil Code: Catalonia (CCCat), Aragón (CDFA), Navarre (Fuero Nuevo), the Basque Country (LDCV), Galicia (LDCG), and the Balearic Islands.

The Impuesto sobre Sucesiones y Donaciones (Law 29/1987) operates at the state level but is largely transferred to the autonomous communities, which have introduced significant bonificaciones — Madrid, Andalusia, Murcia, the Balearic Islands, and several others now apply 99% reductions for direct-line transfers, effectively abolishing the practical burden in those regions. The post-2018 STS 242/2018 jurisprudence extended these regional bonificaciones to non-EU residents — a significant cross-border development for Canadian and US clients.

The memoranda in this series address the recurring fact patterns in Spanish cross-border estate planning — including the legítima regime and its foral variants, regional ISD bonificaciones for non-residents (post-STS 242/2018), the absence of estate-tax treaties with Canada and the United States, EU Succession Regulation 650/2012 application, the vecindad civil determinant of which Spanish substantive law applies, and Spanish real-property succession with the valor de referencia valuation regime.