Adopted Out: Can a Child Still Inherit from the Biological Parents in China?

The short answer

• Once an adoption relationship is lawfully established, the rights and obligations between the adopted child and the biological parents are extinguished. In the biological parents’ estate the child is no longer a statutory heir; without a will, there is no share under intestate succession.
• If the biological parents want to give, the way is a will. But the child’s status is then not heir but testamentary donee: acceptance must be indicated within 60 days of learning of the gift, and failure to indicate by the deadline is deemed renunciation.
• With no will, and not named in one, one route remains: if the child, as an adult, provided substantially more care to the biological parents, the child may ask to be given an appropriate share of the estate. That is a discretionary award by the court, not succession as of right.
• The real dividing line is registration. For a child given away after the Adoption Law took effect on 1 April 1992, where no adoption was registered with the civil affairs department, no adoption relationship exists in law — the child remains a statutory heir of the biological parents, but obtains no inheritance right on the adoptive parents’ side.
• Where the adoption is later dissolved: for a minor adopted child, the rights and obligations with the biological parents revive automatically; for one already of age, whether they revive is decided by agreement between the parties.

1. After a lawful adoption, the line to the biological parents is cut

Article 1111(2) of the Civil Code of the PRC is blunt: “The rights and obligations between an adopted child and the biological parents and other close relatives are extinguished by the establishment of the adoption relationship.” (text of the statute)

What “extinguished” means for succession follows from Article 1127: the first order of statutory succession is spouse, children and parents, and “children referred to in this Part include legitimate children, non-marital children, adopted children and stepchildren with whom a supportive relationship has been formed” (text of the statute, quoted in part). “Adopted children” here means the relationship with the adoptive parents. The child is no longer a “child” of the biological parents, and so is not among their first-order heirs.

So the old saying is accurate: after adoption, only the adoptive parents count, not the biological parents. In how the biological parents’ flat and savings are divided, the child has no statutory share; conversely, the child no longer owes them a duty of support — rights and obligations are one package, and one cannot take the benefit while refusing the burden.

2. If the biological parents want to provide, a will is the only route — and the child must speak up within 60 days

Article 1133(3) of the Civil Code: “A natural person may make a will to give personal property to the State, a collective, or an organisation or individual other than a statutory heir.” (text of the statute)

Note the wording: leaving property to a statutory heir is testamentary succession; leaving it to someone outside the statutory heirs is a testamentary gift (bequest to a non-heir). A child given away falls in the latter category. The difference between the two is not whether the child can take, but whether the child must speak up.

Article 1124(2): “A testamentary donee shall, within 60 days of learning of the testamentary gift, indicate acceptance or renunciation; where no indication is made by the deadline, the gift is deemed renounced.” (text of the statute)

In practice this provision bites hard. After the elderly person dies and the will is read, many donees merely say “I know” or “no objection”, never indicate acceptance in writing to the other heirs, and never complete any formality; when they assert the gift after 60 days, courts usually treat it as renounced. So a will alone is not enough — someone has to remind the donee to speak up, and leave a trail: WeChat messages, text messages, email, written notice and notarisation all count.

3. No will — can the child still take a share? It depends on having provided substantially more care

Article 1131 of the Civil Code: “An appropriate share of the estate may be given to a person outside the heirs who depended on the deceased for support, or to a person outside the heirs who provided substantially more care to the deceased.” (text of the statute)

This is the opening left for people who are not heirs but who genuinely did the work. A child given away who comes back as an adult to look after the biological parents — paying medical bills, staying at the bedside, arranging the funeral — can claim on this basis. But three things should be clear:

• It is “may be given an appropriate share”, not “shall inherit in shares”; the share is at the court’s discretion and is usually clearly lower than the equal shares taken by statutory heirs.
• The burden of proof is on the claimant. Bank transfer records, hospital caregiver records, certificates from the village or residents’ committee, funeral expense receipts, neighbours’ testimony — produce as many of them as you can.
• This route does not conflict with a will: where there is a will, follow the will; for the part the will does not cover, a discretionary share may still be claimed.

4. Where it most often goes wrong: the child was given away with no registration at all

This is the most practical part of the article. A great deal of private giving away happens between relatives: the two sides agree orally, the child is taken away, the household registration sits under someone’s name — but no one ever goes to the civil affairs bureau. How does the law see this?

Article 1105(1) of the Civil Code: “An adoption shall be registered with the civil affairs department of the people’s government at or above the county level. The adoption relationship is established from the date of registration.” (text of the statute)

In other words, for adoptions occurring after the Adoption Law took effect on 1 April 1992, where there is no registration, the adoption relationship is not established. The consequences run both ways: the rights and obligations between the child and the biological parents are not extinguished, so the child remains their statutory heir; and at the same time there is no legal parent–child relationship between the child and the adoptive parents, so the child has no statutory right to inherit the adoptive parents’ estate — unless the adoptive parents made a will, or the child counts as a person who provided substantially more care.

Older de facto adoptions formed before 1 April 1992 are recognised by law. The conditions set out in the Ministry of Justice’s Notice on Notarisation of De Facto Adoption Relationships Established Before the Adoption Law Took Effect are: the two parties lived together for many years, addressed each other as parent and child, established a de facto parent–child relationship, and the rights and obligations between the adopted person and the biological parents were in fact extinguished. All three conditions must be met.

The Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People’s Court, civil appellate judgment (2023) Jing 03 Min Zhong No. 14794, is a ready-made counter-example: the party moved in 1968, at the age of 11, to live in her uncle’s household, and as an adult consistently claimed to be his adopted daughter, seeking to inherit the flat under his will. The court ultimately did not so find — she could produce no evidence that they had addressed each other as parent and child at the time, or that her rights and obligations with her biological parents had been extinguished; her personnel file at her work unit contained no record of her; and she had earlier sued as plaintiff to inherit from her biological parents. The conclusion: she was not an adopted daughter and not a statutory heir; even if the will in her hands was valid, she was only a testamentary donee, and because she had not indicated acceptance within two months she was deemed to have renounced it; the court also noted that if she considered she had provided substantially more care to the deceased, she could bring a separate action for an appropriate share of the estate.

The case shows one thing: a de facto adoption is not established merely because “everyone knew”. It rests on the records, the forms of address, the household registration and the facts of upbringing of the time. Coming back to look for evidence when the estate is being divided is usually too late.

5. If the adoption is dissolved, can the relationship be restored?

Article 1117 of the Civil Code: “After an adoption relationship is dissolved, the rights and obligations between the adopted child and the adoptive parents and other close relatives are extinguished, and those between the adopted child and the biological parents and other close relatives revive of themselves. However, whether the rights and obligations between an adopted child who has come of age and the biological parents and other close relatives revive may be determined by agreement.” (text of the statute)

Two situations: if the child was still a minor when the adoption was dissolved, the relationship with the biological parents revives automatically, and inheritance rights come back with it; if the child was already of age, revival depends on agreement, and where there is no agreement and no actual resumption of dealings, the usual treatment is that it does not revive, so there is no statutory right to inherit from the biological parents.

6. The reverse question: what about the child’s rights in the adoptive parents’ estate?

The child has inheritance rights, and in the same order as children born in wedlock. The basis is again Article 1127: children include adopted children, and parents include adoptive parents. Once the adoption is registered and established, the child’s position in the adoptive family is no different from that of a child born in wedlock, including subrogation in succession — where an adopted child dies before the adoptive parents, that child’s direct descendants of a younger generation may take by subrogation (Article 1128).

7. If you are facing this now, these are the steps to take

• Check the records first: was there an adoption registration certificate at the time, was the household registration moved in, and how is the parent column filled in the personnel file. This is the starting point that decides which route applies.
• For de facto adoptions formed before 1 April 1992, ask a notary office about notarisation of the de facto adoption; where there is genuinely no household registration for historical reasons, the matter can be handled under the General Office of the State Council’s 2015 opinions on registering household registration for persons without one.
• If one of the biological parents wants to leave property to the child who was given away: make a will in a legally valid form, state the name, ID number and relationship to the testator, and make clear that this is a testamentary gift; and tell the child what it says, rather than leaving it in a drawer.
• For the child’s side: once you learn of the gift, indicate acceptance in writing to the other heirs as soon as possible, keep proof of delivery, and do not let the 60 days run out.
• To claim that you provided substantially more care: start preserving evidence now, rather than thinking about witnesses only just before the hearing.

A final reminder

This article is based on the provisions of the Civil Code currently in force and on publicly available judgments, and deals with the rules themselves. In an actual case, whether an adoption relationship was established, whether a de facto adoption can be recognised, whether the form of the will is defective, and from which day the 60 days run, all depend on the specific materials. In this kind of case, eight-tenths of the outcome turns on evidence and two-tenths on the statute.

This is an English edition of Wang Xin’s original Chinese article, 孩子送人收养后，还能继承亲生父母的遗产吗？有没有办登记，结果完全相反. It explains the law of the People’s Republic of China in general terms and is not legal advice for any particular case; outcomes depend on the specific facts and on how local authorities apply the rules.