Time flies in France, even on a long stay visitor visa.
Here’s how to stay longer.
Many of our clients arrive in France on a 12-month long stay visa, and the allocated year stretches gloriously ahead. Unfortunately, time really does fly when you’re having fun – and that’s when you realise you want to stay longer.
Don’t worry, there is a solution.
At French Connections HCB, we’ve helped thousands of people move to France and settle here. And the first step in achieving that is to apply for a residency permit.
The good news is that people who are here on a long-stay visa are able to apply for residency (in the form of a Carte de Séjour) without leaving the country. However, there is a pre-requisite: you must start the residency application process two months before your visa is due to expire.
Applying for residency is quite a long process, but it is almost always successful as long as you meet the necessary criteria and produce the correct documents.
That’s where we come in.
We offer a Residency Application service that takes care of the entire process from start to finish. And as long as you contact us with two months of your visa left, we can process it quickly and efficiently.
This is how it works.
First, we will invite you to talk to our friendly relocation specialist, Diana. She will discuss your current status with you to make sure that all the requirements are met before you start your application.
We then ask you to provide the documents required by the French administration for Residency. Some documents have to be the original, so it is always a good idea to make a copy before handing them over. Your originals will be returned to you by the French administration at the moment of your
interview, which is the last step in the process and much less scary than it sounds!
Typically, you will need to provide:
- Your passport
- Proof of French residency, such as a recent utility bill that is less than three months old
- A copy of your Private Health Insurance / Social Security Number / S1
- Proof that you have sufficient funds to support yourself
Once we have everything we need, we will complete the online application form on your behalf, upload the documents and track your application as it makes its way through the administrative system. We’ll keep you informed of progress every step of the way.
When your dossier has been accepted, you will be invited to an appointment at your local Prefecture. Here you’ll be asked to provide your fingerprints electronically, plus 3 passport-style I.D photos and any additional information they need.
After that, there is nothing more to do but be patient. You will either receive your residency permit in the post some weeks later or be invited to collect it in person from the prefecture at a specific time and date.
From start to finish, the residency application process can take several months, but there is no need to worry if it drags on. Once your dossier has been accepted, you are legally entitled to be here even after your one-year visa has finally expired.
If you are currently here on a short stay 6-month visa, you are not allowed to apply for a Carte de Sèjour or to extend your visa. You will need to return home and apply to your French Consulate for a 12-month long stay visa in order to come back to France (we can help with that). Once here, as we described above, you will be eligible to apply for residency ten months later.
If you’d like to find out more about residency or visas, simply book a FREE initial 15-minute consultation by clicking here to see how we can help.
Meanwhile, we are excited to announce that we have just launched a new Subscription Service, created at the request of our clients specifically to take care of all the everyday fiddly bits of French administration, such as connecting water, opening gas or electricity accounts, getting a mobile phone contract, signing up to a local doctor or dentist and so much more.
A subscription of 89 euros a month (or 129 for a family) gives you unlimited access to our resources. It’s like having a personal assistant! Whatever you need, we’ll do it, and you can opt out at any time. Simply click here to learn more.
If you would like a FREE copy of our new brochure to keep handy for whenever you might need our services, simply reply to this email with your address and we’ll pop one in the post. Or you can read it online here.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
French Connections HCB Team
frenchconnectionshcb.com
