A residence permit in France is called a carte de séjour. To obtain one, you must apply to your local préfecture, the French administrative region responsible for local administration of policing laws and regulations. (For example, this is also where driving licences are processed.)
The service that delivers residence permits is called le service des étrangers. In the provinces, the préfecture will be situated in the administrative capital of your département. If you live in a rural area, you can often process your application to the préfecture through the local town hall, mairie.
In Paris, you must apply to the préfecture de police de Paris.
EU Nationals and citizens of the EEA and Switzerland
Residence permits are no longer a legal requirement for nationals from the 14 states which, with France, made up the European Union prior to May 1, 2004; nor for member states Cyprus and Malta. Also exempt are nationals from Switzerland and the European Economic Area (EEA) member states.
While citizens from these countries are free to live and work in France without holding a carte de séjour, it is still a requirement for nationals of eight other 10 new EU member states. These are: the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
France has introduced what it calls a 'progressive relaxation' of working restrictions and has published a list of 62 activities in which it deems workers to be in short supply.
Nationals of the eight countries must still obtain work permits, but these can no longer be refused on the grounds of the national employment situation. These sectors concerned are: construction, hospitality, agriculture, retail, machine-operating and hygiene.
Anyone working in one of these industries who wishes to apply for a permit must get a prospective employer to file the request on their behalf if they are not in France, or may do so in person at the appropriate préfecture if they are already in France.
For up-to-date information on particular employment sectors, the government advises applicants to contact their local préfecture or sub-préfecture or call the Europe Direct information line: Tel: 00 800 67 89 10 11
Even after it was no longer required, British residents were originally still allowed to apply for cartes de séjour for use as a form of photo identification. This is no longer the case. If you currently have a carte de séjour, you will not be allowed to renew it when it expires.
This means you must have your passport on you at all times as you are still required to carry photo identification, both for the police if you are stopped, and for writing checks as many stores no longer accept driver's licenses for this purpose.
Nationals from outside the EU
The process here is more complicated and may depend upon particular agreements between France and the country concerned.
Generally speaking, however, a non-EU national who wishes to stay in France for more than three months to work, study or reside without employment, must already have acquired a long-stay visa (visa de long séjour) before arriving in France. If you don't obtain such a visa before you get here, it won't be possible to later apply for a residence permit.
You must submit your application in person. Start by asking at your préfecture or country's embassy for precise details of the documents you must produce, but in most cases you will need the following:
• A valid identity card or passport.
• Three passport-size photos, photos d'identité.
• A recent document providing proof of where you live (this can be a utilities or rent receipt), justificatif de domicile.
• Proof of adequate resources or in the case of a student, proof of enrolment in an educational establishment recognised by the French Ministry of Education.
• A medical certificate issued by a French doctor; check with your prefecture for a reference to a doctor or a clinic authorised to provide such certificates or, likewise, contact the French consulate in your country to find an approved doctor.
• A full translation (from an registered translator, traducteur assermenté) of medical insurance.
The new immigration law passed in 2006 will require all residence-permit seekers from non-EU countries to sign a contract with the Republic, contrat d'accueil et l'intégration (CAI).
Signees will receive free civic lessons and language training if necessary; they will be required to demonstrate a basic level of competence in French, although the bar has not been set very high.
How do I provide adequate resources?
In all applications for a residence permit, to justify personal financial resources employees must have a certificate of employment from their employer, contrat de travail, and your three most recent salary slips, fiches de paie or bulletins de paie.
A self-employed person must provide evidence of their status, such as membership of a recognised professional body or inclusion on a trade register, a VAT number and/or work payment receipts.
If you are retired or unemployed, you must provide proof that you have adequate financial resources to live with and that you have comprehensive health insurance for treatment in France.
It is worth noting that, under the new immigration law intended to attract immigrants with special skills or education, the procedure has recently been simplified for certain categories including:
• executives working for multinationals with gross monthly earnings of at least EUR 5,000
• scientists
• those working in the entertainment industry
• seasonal workers
• those deemed to belong to regulated professions (healthcare professionals, architects, lawyers, teachers, etcetera)
The récipissé
After the application is approved, you will receive a récipissé de carte de séjour, or a kind of receipt that will proove your legal residency while you're waiting for the real thing; you will be notified to appear in person at the préfecture when the real card is printed and asked to exchange the récipissé for your permanent card.
Once you have the récipissé and then the permanent card, note that you're supposed to always carry it in public just as a French person always carries the carte d'identité; the police have the right to stop you at any time and ask for your identity papers.
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France has different rules regarding residence permits depending on your nationality. For some European nationals, there is now no legal requirement to apply for one. Updated 2011.
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