CAT Thresholds Ireland 2026: Group A, B, and C Inheritance Tax Limits
How CAT Thresholds Work
Capital Acquisitions Tax applies to gifts and inheritances received above a lifetime threshold. The threshold depends entirely on the relationship between the person giving and the person receiving — not on the size of the estate or the type of asset. Everything above the threshold is taxed at a flat 33%.
There are three threshold groups:
Group A — applies when the beneficiary is a child (including adopted child or stepchild in certain circumstances) of the person giving the gift or inheritance. This is the highest threshold.
Group B — applies when the beneficiary is a parent in the circumstances set by Revenue, sibling, niece, nephew, grandparent, grandchild, or another lineal ancestor or descendant of the disponer. A substantially lower threshold than Group A.
Group C — the catch-all. Everyone else — including cohabiting partners, friends, cousins, and any "stranger in blood" — falls into Group C. This threshold is very low.
The exact threshold amounts are revised periodically in Budget announcements. Revenue publishes the current figures on its website, and they apply to the cumulative total of all gifts and inheritances received within the same group since 5 December 1991 — not per transaction.
Lifetime Aggregation: The Rule That Catches People
The thresholds are not per-inheritance. They are cumulative across your entire life.
Every gift and inheritance you receive from a person in the same group relationship gets aggregated against the same threshold. A child who received a €50,000 house deposit gift from their parent in 2010 and then inherits €300,000 from the same parent in 2026 has a combined total of €350,000 against the Group A threshold. If the threshold is €400,000, the combined amount remains below it and no CAT is due on that amount.
This aggregation rule is where most families get caught. Parents who made large gifts during their lifetimes often do not realise those gifts erode the child's inheritance threshold. The executor records prior gifts within the same group when completing Form SA.2, and the beneficiary declares them on their personal CAT return (Form IT38).
Group C and the Cohabitant Trap
The harshest impact of the threshold system falls on cohabiting partners. Despite qualifying for state bereavement benefits (the Bereaved Partner's Contributory Pension, the Bereaved Parent Grant) since the July 2025 reforms, cohabitants are treated as strangers for tax purposes and fall under Group C.
With a Group C threshold of just €20,000, a cohabiting partner who inherits a shared home valued at €350,000 faces a tax bill of approximately €108,900 — calculated as (€350,000 - €20,000) × 33%. Without advance planning, many surviving partners are forced to sell the family home to pay Revenue.
The main defences against this are:
- Dwelling House Exemption — if the surviving partner lived in the property for three years before the death and has no interest in any other residential property, the inheritance may be entirely exempt from CAT. The qualifying conditions are strict.
- Joint tenancy — if the property was held as joint tenants (not tenants in common), the deceased's share passes automatically by survivorship. This does not avoid CAT on the value, but it avoids probate delays and can be combined with the Dwelling House Exemption.
- Section 72 life insurance — a policy specifically designed to fund the CAT bill, with the payout itself exempt from CAT if used entirely to pay the tax within one year of death.
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Spouses and Civil Partners: No Threshold Applies
It is worth noting that transfers between spouses and civil partners are completely exempt from CAT. There is no threshold, no tax, no filing requirement. This is one of the starkest differences between married and unmarried couples in Irish tax law — and it is the reason estate planning for cohabiting couples requires much more careful structuring.
For a complete breakdown of how CAT thresholds interact with probate, wills, and property transfers, the Ireland End-of-Life Planning Guide covers the tax planning process alongside every other step in the estate administration sequence.
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