Digital Assets Inheritance in Europe: What Expats Need to Know

In brief: Cryptocurrency, online investment accounts, domain names, and digital content libraries are real assets — but European succession law was not written with them in mind. This guide explains how digital assets are treated across EU jurisdictions, what your heirs face without a plan, and how to ensure nothing is lost.

The Invisible Estate

Ask most expats what their estate is worth, and they'll think of property, bank accounts, and perhaps a pension. They rarely think of the rest.

A cryptocurrency portfolio worth €40,000. A domain name generating passive income. A Kindle library of 800 books purchased over 15 years. An online brokerage account on a US platform. A monetised YouTube channel. Stored PayPal balance. NFTs.

These are not theoretical examples. They are assets held by millions of European expats — assets with real monetary or personal value, and almost none of them will appear in a standard succession inventory.

The reason is simple: European succession law was codified long before these assets existed, and it has not kept pace.

What Counts as a Digital Asset

For inheritance purposes, digital assets fall into three broad categories:

Assets with direct financial value

Assets with conditional or indirect value

Assets with personal but not financial value

The first category is unambiguously part of your estate. The second depends on platform terms of service and jurisdiction. The third has no monetary value but may be the most irreplaceable.

How EU Law Currently Treats Digital Assets

The general framework

EU Regulation 650/2012 determines which national law governs your estate based on your habitual residence at death. That national law then determines how assets are identified, inventoried, valued, and transferred.

The problem: no EU member state has a comprehensive legal framework specifically for digital asset inheritance. Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands — all apply general succession principles to digital assets by analogy, with varying results.

Cryptocurrency: legally an asset, practically a challenge

In Spain, France, Germany, and most EU jurisdictions, cryptocurrency is treated as a movable asset subject to succession law. Your heirs have a legal right to inherit it.

But legal right and practical access are not the same thing.

Cryptocurrency on an exchange requires: notifying the exchange of your death, providing a certified death certificate, proof of heirship, and completing the exchange's own account recovery process. Each exchange has different procedures. Some have clear death policies (Coinbase, Kraken); many do not.

Self-custodied cryptocurrency — held in a hardware wallet or software wallet — requires the private key or seed phrase. Without it, the funds are permanently inaccessible. No legal ruling, no court order, and no notary can recover them. The blockchain does not know you have died.

Estimated lost cryptocurrency from inaccessible wallets globally runs into the billions of euros. The majority is lost not through fraud, but through inadequate succession planning.

Platform accounts: death policies vary enormously

Each platform operates under its own terms of service, which may or may not allow account transfer on death:

Platform Default on death Advance setup available?
Google / Gmail Account may be deleted after 2 years inactivity Yes — Inactive Account Manager
Apple / iCloud Account locked; content non-transferable by default Yes — Digital Legacy (since iOS 15.2)
Facebook / Instagram Profile locked or memorialised Yes — Legacy Contact
Coinbase Account frozen; recovery process available Partial
Interactive Brokers Account frozen; estate claim required No advance designation
PayPal Balance claimable by estate with documentation No advance designation
Amazon Kindle Library non-transferable (licence, not ownership) No
Spotify / Netflix Account non-transferable; subscription ends No

The distinction between ownership and licence matters here. Most digital content — ebooks, music, films, software — is licensed, not owned. You cannot pass on a Kindle library in the same way you pass on a physical book collection. The licence ends when you do.

Succession tax and digital assets

In Spain, cryptocurrency and other digital assets are included in the base imponible (taxable base) for Impuesto de Sucesiones y Donaciones. Your heirs must declare the value at the date of death. For volatile assets like cryptocurrency, this creates valuation challenges — and potential tax liability on assets the heirs may not yet have been able to access.

In France, digital assets are similarly included in the succession estate (actif successoral) and subject to droits de succession. France has been more active than most EU states in legislating for crypto (the PACTE law, MiCA compliance), but succession-specific rules remain underdeveloped.

In Germany, Erbschaftsteuer applies to digital assets. German courts have ruled (notably the BGH ruling of 2018 regarding Facebook accounts) that digital accounts are inheritable as part of the estate — a significant precedent for the EU.

The Cross-Border Problem for Expats

For expats, the digital asset challenge is compounded by jurisdiction.

A British expat living in Valencia might hold:

When this person dies in Spain, their heirs must navigate: Spanish succession law (as the governing law under EU Regulation 650/2012), plus the individual death policies of four different platforms operating across at least three jurisdictions.

There is no single authority, no central registry, and no automatic notification process. Each platform must be identified, contacted, and processed separately — by heirs who may not know the accounts exist, and who are simultaneously managing Spanish probate from another country.

What Happens Without a Plan

Scenario A — Crypto with no recovery information Your heirs find a hardware wallet among your possessions. They don't know the PIN. They don't have the seed phrase. After three wrong PIN attempts, the device wipes itself. The funds — say, €25,000 in Bitcoin — are permanently inaccessible.

Scenario B — Online brokerage account unknown to heirs You held an Interactive Brokers account worth €60,000 in ETFs. You never mentioned it. Your heirs complete the Spanish succession process without it. The account sits dormant. Eventually it is escheated to the state (after years, depending on jurisdiction). Your heirs receive nothing.

Scenario C — Domain name with revenue You owned a domain name generating €500/month in affiliate income. The registrar auto-renews on a credit card your heirs cancel. The domain expires. Someone else registers it. The asset is gone.

These are not edge cases. They happen routinely, because digital assets are invisible to standard succession processes.

How to Protect Your Digital Estate

Step 1: Inventory everything

List every digital asset with financial value: exchanges, wallets, platforms, domain registrars, monetised accounts. For each: the platform name, the email address used to register, whether 2FA is active, and approximate value.

Do not store private keys or seed phrases in plain text in any document that could be accessed before your death. Use hints, not raw credentials.

Step 2: Enable platform death tools

For each major platform, activate the available death management features:

For financial platforms without formal death tools, ensure your heirs know the account exists — even if they don't know the login details.

Step 3: Solve the crypto access problem

For exchange-held cryptocurrency: ensure your heirs know the exchange name, the registered email, and have access to the associated email account. The exchange can then process an estate claim.

For self-custodied cryptocurrency: the seed phrase (12 or 24 words) is the only recovery mechanism. This must be stored securely and accessibly — not in a plain text document, not in a cloud service, not in your will (which becomes public). A sealed envelope with your notary, or a dedicated secure vault, is appropriate.

Step 4: Document and transmit through a secure channel

The information that unlocks your digital estate — account names, access hints, crypto seed phrase hints, platform instructions — cannot go in a will (public), a text file on your desktop (insecure), or your head (inaccessible).

It needs a secure, structured transmission process: encrypted storage, life verification to distinguish inactivity from death, and a designated person who receives it at the right moment.

How Sucesio Addresses the Digital Asset Gap

Sucesio is not a financial advisor and does not provide crypto custody or investment advice. What Sucesio does is solve the documentation and transmission problem.

With Sucesio, you can:

Sucesio uses monthly life verification check-ins to distinguish inactivity from death. All data is AES-256 encrypted at rest, hosted in Europe (Ireland), and GDPR compliant. Nothing is transmitted until the protocol is triggered — and only to the people you have designated.

Used alongside a Spanish will and professional legal advice, Sucesio ensures your heirs have the map — not just the legal right to the territory.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is cryptocurrency part of my estate in Spain? Yes. Cryptocurrency is treated as a movable asset and forms part of your taxable estate in Spain. Your heirs must declare its value at the date of death and pay succession tax accordingly. The challenge is not legal — it is practical: accessing it requires account credentials or private keys that must be documented in advance.

What happens to my crypto if I die without leaving recovery information? Self-custodied cryptocurrency without a private key or seed phrase is permanently inaccessible. Exchange-held cryptocurrency can potentially be recovered through the exchange's estate claim process, but only if your heirs know the account exists and can provide the required documentation.

Can my heirs inherit my Coinbase or Kraken account? Yes, with the right documentation. Most major exchanges have an estate claim process requiring a death certificate, proof of heirship, and government ID. The timeline varies from weeks to months. Your heirs need to know the account exists and the registered email address to initiate the process.

Are digital assets subject to succession tax in Spain? Yes. Cryptocurrency, online investment accounts, and other digital assets with financial value are included in the succession estate and subject to Impuesto de Sucesiones. Valuation uses the market value at the date of death.

Can I pass on my Amazon Kindle library or Spotify account? Generally no. Digital content platforms sell licences, not ownership. The licence typically ends at death and cannot be transferred. Physical books can be inherited; digital licences cannot, under most platform terms of service.

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This article is provided for informational purposes only. Digital asset law is evolving rapidly and varies by jurisdiction. Always consult a qualified notary, solicitor, or estate lawyer for advice specific to your situation. Sucesio complements — but does not replace — a legally valid will and professional legal advice.