Whose law decides who inherits
Everything else in an international estate follows from one fact: what citizenship the person held when they died. Article 16 of the Civil Code is the hinge.
Article 16. Real property as well as personal property is subject to the law of the country where it is situated.
However, intestate and testamentary successions, both with respect to the order of succession and to the amount of successional rights and to the intrinsic validity of testamentary provisions, shall be regulated by the national law of the person whose succession is under consideration, whatever may be the nature of the property and regardless of the country wherein said property may be found.
Read the second paragraph slowly, because it settles most family arguments before they start. Where the property sits does not answer who inherits it. A Filipino citizen who spent forty years in Toronto still carries Philippine succession law, legitimes included, home to the lot in Nueva Ecija. A foreign citizen who spent forty years in Makati does not. In Bellis v. Bellis (G.R. No. L-23678, June 6, 1967, En Banc) the Supreme Court said it flatly:
It is therefore evident that whatever public policy or good customs may be involved in our System of legitimes, Congress has not intended to extend the same to the succession of foreign nationals. For it has specifically chosen to leave, inter alia, the amount of successional rights, to the decedent's national law.
That cuts both ways. The children of a foreign decedent cannot demand a Philippine legitime as of right; the children of a Filipino decedent cannot be written out of one. And a Philippine court does not simply know the foreign law — it has to be alleged and proved like any other fact. In Ancheta v. Guersey-Dalaygon (G.R. No. 139868, June 8, 2006) the administrator of an American decedent's estate never put the law of Maryland in evidence, the court applied Philippine law by default, and the Supreme Court later held that this amounted to extrinsic fraud, annulling a decree of distribution that had been final for years.
Foreign decedent, Philippine assets
The national law of the deceased governs the order of succession, the amount of successional rights and the intrinsic validity of the will — but only if someone proves what that law says. How the national-law rule works.
Filipino decedent, heirs abroad
Philippine law applies in full, legitimes and all, wherever the family now lives. The problem is logistical, not doctrinal. Coordinating heirs in several countries.
A foreign will does not move Philippine property by itself
Families often arrive holding a will already probated in Honolulu, Sydney or Milan and assume the Philippine title simply follows. It does not. Article 838 of the Civil Code, quoted by the Court in In re Akana, leaves no room:
Art. 838. No will shall pass either real or personal property unless it is proved and allowed in accordance with the Rules of Court.
A will already allowed abroad enters through reprobate under Rule 77, which lets wills proved and allowed in a foreign country be allowed, filed and recorded by the proper court here. That was the route in Cayetano v. Leonidas (G.R. No. L-54919, May 30, 1984), where a Pennsylvania will was reprobated in Manila and the decedent's father lost his claim to a legitime because her national law governed. It is also the route in In re Akana (G.R. No. 269883, May 13, 2024), which corrected a point two lower courts got wrong: a reprobate petition belongs to the Regional Trial Court no matter how modest the Philippine estate. A will never probated anywhere can instead be presented here for original probate. What reprobate demands is proof — of the foreign law, of the foreign court, of due execution. See foreign wills and reprobate.
The practical spine: estate tax, the eCAR, then transfer
Whoever inherits, nothing moves until the estate tax is settled. Section 84 of the Tax Code, as amended by the TRAIN Law, sets one rate for everyone:
Sec. 84. Rate of Estate Tax. - There shall be levied, assessed, collected and paid upon the transfer of the net estate as determined in accordance with Sections 85 and 86 of every decedent, whether resident or nonresident of the Philippines, a tax at the rate of six percent (6%) based on the value of such net estate.
Two things to note. The rate is applied to the net estate, and the deductions are not the same for everyone: a nonresident who was not a Philippine citizen is allowed a standard deduction of ₱500,000 under Section 86(B), against ₱5,000,000 for a citizen or resident, who may also claim the family-home deduction. And for a death that occurred before the TRAIN amendments took effect, the governing rate is the one in force at the time of death rather than today's — worth confirming before anyone computes anything.
The filing ends in an electronic Certificate Authorizing Registration, and in practice the eCAR is the gate every transfer passes through: the Registry of Deeds will not issue new titles, and a bank will not release a deceased depositor's balance, without it. We do not promise a date for it; in our experience the pace depends on the completeness of the valuation documents and on the revenue district office involved. Start with estate tax and the eCAR and releasing bank accounts.
On the settlement itself: where the decedent left no will and no debts and the heirs are all of age or duly represented, Rule 74 allows the heirs to divide the estate among themselves by public instrument instead of going to court. Heirs abroad take part through a Special Power of Attorney, apostilled where they live or executed before the Philippine consulate. Those mechanics are practice, not doctrine, and we label them as such. What is doctrine is the closing clause of Rule 74, Section 1:
but no extrajudicial settlement shall be binding upon any person who has not participated therein or had no notice thereof.
Which is why the cousin nobody has spoken to since 2009 has to be found, not skipped. Cayetano is the warning from the other direction: the sole compulsory heir there adjudicated the entire estate to himself by affidavit under Rule 74, and a foreign will surfaced eleven months later. Where the heirs cannot agree, or a will exists, or debts do, the estate goes the judicial route instead — laid out in judicial versus extrajudicial settlement.
Doing this from another country
Most people who write to us are handling this at a bad time and from a bad distance. A parent has died, the documents sit in a folder in a house nobody lives in now, one sibling is in Milan, one in Dubai, one still in the province carrying it alone. Kayang simulan ito kahit nasa ibang bansa kayo. The work is documentary, and documentary work travels.
What that looks like: we begin from the papers you already have, tell you which route the estate takes, and hand you a written list of what still has to be produced and who has to sign what. Consultations are paid (₱3,500). No promised timeline and no promised outcome — a route, a document list, and someone in Quezon City who can queue on your behalf. Book a consultation when you are ready. And if a foreign divorce sits anywhere in this family's history, read recognition of foreign divorce first: whether a surviving spouse is still a spouse changes who the heirs are.
Start with your situation
Frequently asked questions
My father was a Filipino citizen but lived in California for thirty years. Whose law governs his estate?
Philippine law, if he was still a Filipino citizen when he died. Article 16 of the Civil Code sends the order of succession, the amount of successional rights and the intrinsic validity of testamentary provisions to the national law of the person whose succession is under consideration. Residence abroad does not change that. If he had already lost Philippine citizenship before death, the governing law is his national law at that time, and what that law provides has to be pleaded and proved as a fact in the Philippine case.
My husband was an American citizen with a lot in Cebu. Do our children still get their legitimes?
Not as a matter of Philippine law. In Bellis v. Bellis (G.R. No. L-23678, June 6, 1967, En Banc) the Supreme Court held that Congress did not extend our system of legitimes to the succession of foreign nationals, and left the amount of successional rights to the decedent's national law. Which law that is, and what it actually provides, must be alleged and proved in the Philippine proceeding rather than assumed.
The will was already probated abroad. Does that transfer the Philippine title?
No. A will does not pass Philippine property until it is allowed by a Philippine court. A will already probated abroad comes in through reprobate under Rule 77 of the Rules of Court, and In re Akana (G.R. No. 269883, May 13, 2024) settled that a reprobate petition belongs to the Regional Trial Court regardless of how small the Philippine estate is.
Do all the heirs have to fly to the Philippines?
Usually not. Heirs abroad commonly take part through a Special Power of Attorney executed before a Philippine consulate or apostilled where they live, so an attorney-in-fact can sign and file here. What cannot be skipped is the heir: Rule 74 provides that no extrajudicial settlement binds a person who did not participate in it and had no notice of it.
How long does the BIR side take?
We do not promise a date. Estate tax clearance ends in an electronic Certificate Authorizing Registration, and in our experience the pace depends on how complete the valuation documents are, which revenue district office holds the file, and whether the heirs' identity and civil-status records agree with one another. We would rather give you a realistic range once we have seen the documents.