Moving to France

A full welfare state with a serious long-stay visa system — and a language requirement you cannot route around.

France is one of the few large European countries that turned its long-stay visa into the residence permit itself. The VLS-TS is a visa in the passport that, once validated online in the first three months, functions as a residence card for up to a year. That single administrative decision removes the appointment queue that dominates the first year in Portugal, Spain, or Italy.

Behind the visa sits the reason people actually move: residence-based healthcare, near-free public universities, heavily subsidised childcare and schooling, and a labour code that protects permanent employees to a degree that has no Anglophone equivalent. The categories are also unusually explicit — there is a named route for salaried employees, one for the self-employed, a multi-year passeport talent for qualified and well-paid arrivals, and a visiteur category for people living on income earned elsewhere.

What France does not do is let you skip French. Naturalisation requires a tested level of the language, an interview, and a signed statement of republican values. Renewals, tax filings, and the social security system are conducted in French, and the administrative culture rewards patience and complete paper files. Older guides that describe France as a place where English is enough for professional life describe a country that does not exist.

Region	Western Europe
Capital	Paris
Population	about 68 million
Foreign-born residents	roughly 10-11% of residents
Official language(s)	French
Currency	Euro (EUR)

Why people move to France

• The long-stay visa doubles as a residence permit once validated online, so the first year involves no prefecture appointment for most categories.
• Public university tuition is set nationally and remains low compared with the English-speaking world, including for many non-EU students.
• Healthcare cover is residence-based rather than employment-based: after a qualifying period of stable residence, legal residents can register regardless of who employs them.
• The passeport talent family gives qualified employees, founders, researchers, and investors a multi-year card that covers the spouse at the same time.
• There is a defined category for people who do not intend to work at all, which most of northern Europe does not offer.
• Dual nationality is permitted, and naturalisation is possible after five years of residence, or two for graduates of French higher education.

What to know before you commit

• The visiteur route forbids work of any kind in France, and prefectures read that restriction strictly.
• French language ability is not optional at the citizenship stage: a tested spoken and written level, commonly B1 or above, applies.
• Employer social contributions are among the highest in Europe, which makes companies cautious about hiring and slows recruitment.
• Paris housing is scarce as well as expensive; landlords commonly demand a French guarantor with several times the rent in income.
• Regulated professions — medicine, law, accountancy, architecture, teaching — require recognition of qualifications that can take years.
• Property owned in France is exposed to an annual wealth tax on real estate above a published threshold, which surprises arrivals who assume the old general wealth tax simply disappeared.

The eight guides

Official sources

• France-Visas, the official visa portal
• Service-Public.fr, the official administrative portal
• Ministry of the Interior, foreign nationals in France

Checked against these pages in September 2026. Fees and processing times change without notice — confirm before you act.