Understanding Visas: permission to live in France vs. the right to work

One of the areas where we see the most confusion among the Americans who contact us is the difference between having the right to live in France and having the right to work while you are here. Note that I did not say “the right to work in France.” Because in international law, there is a a issue around where you are physically placed when working, regardless of where your clients are. More on that later.

Let’s start with the basics: what is a visa?

The primary role of a visa is to give you permission to stay in a country. This can be for a short period or it can be a longer term with the possibility of indefinite renewals. Some countries can make even this basic permission unnecessarily difficult (I am looking at you, U.S.). And sometimes a visa can be for a whole class of people. That 90 day visa-free permission to travel around Europe? That’s essentially a type of blanket visa for anyone with a U.S. passeport.

When you apply for a visa to enter France, you will be asked a few fundamental questions to determine what visa makes sense and whether you are eligible. Why do you want to be here? How long do you want to be here? Can you afford to support yourself here?

 In this article, I want to focus on the first two questions: the why and how long of your stay. You don’t need to put yourself to any great trouble to explain why you want to come to France if you are applying for a long-stay tourist visa. Whether you want to visit a friend or spend 6 months staring at the Seine, the French mininstry gets that and has no trouble with it. Likewise, many people come after buying a second home in France and just want more time to hang out eating croissants. Totally fair. 

Does it make a difference how long I stay or when in the year I move?

France actually offers three types of visitor/tourist visas. One is duplicative for those of us with U.S., UK, or Canadian passeports (among others). It alllows for stays of up to 3 months, something we can already do by virtue of that 90-day deal with our home countries. The 3-month visa is known officially as the visa de court séjour or in English, a short-stay visa.

 The second visitor/tourist visa allows for a stay of up to 6 months. And the 6 months is not random. There is a general assumption that if you don’t plan to be here for more than half the year, you probably are not changing your primary residence to France. So, you can apply for a 6-month visa without worrying too much about inadvertently becoming a resident for tax and legal purposes. But note that the 6-month standard is not a rule per se. If the authorities concluded that your social, financial and/or domestic life was centered more in France than anywhere else - even though you were only here for 5 months - you could still be a French resident.

What if you do want to become a resident for the year? You can apply for a visitor/tourist visa that gives you up to a year in France. This long-stay visa, known in French as the visa de long séjour, valent titre de séjour will show up as “VLS-TS” on your documents. This version of the long-stay visa operates as a full residency permit. And once here, you can renew it indefinitely as long as you continue to meet the conditions for approval. In choosing this visa, you have decided to become a legal resident of France. That changes how you file your taxes (in France and in your home country), and it also can impact everything from health care to life insurance to investment accounts.

Just to be clear here, the decision to make a primary home in France can be for only one or two years or a lifetime. And it can begin any time in the calendar year. No matter in what month you move or for how long, a residency begins when you enter the country with the intention of setting up that primary home. But being a welcome, fully legal resident does not give you the right to work here.

Alerte!: I will add a special note here about remote or nomadic working. Remember the early warning about “the right to work while in France”? Most international tax treaties, including the one between the U.S. and France, state that the place where work is “being done” is wherever the worker is physically present. That means that an American doing freelance graphic design for a company in California from her laptop in Paris is “working in France”. In practice, a little bit of checking in with the office now and then is permitted if you really are trying to take a long break in France. But be careful of your boundaries or you might end of in violation of your visa and/or owing additional taxes.

How is a work authorization different?

With those basics in mind, let’s talk about work authorizations. It makes sense to think about a work authorization as an extra that is to attached certain types of visas.

In many cases, the work authorization is really the point of the visa. These work authorizations can be limited to certain fields of work and are often requested by the employer, rather than the worker. If your U.S. employer sends you to their French office, you will be given a visa with work permit obtained for you by that employer.

But you can also get a visa without an employer’s application based on work you plan to do in France on your own. This is true of many of the French passeport talent visas, which I explain in my post here. This idea also applies the “young traveller” visa, often known as the “working holiday” visa. France will issue these one-year non-renewable visas with work permits to young people from any of 16 countries who want to learn more about France but need to work during that time. Notably, Australia and Canada are on the list of participating countries, but the U.S. has failed to sign the reciprocal agreement.

Other people can get choose to get a work permit based on their relation to a family member. The talent passeport visas generally benefit from a clause that lets your spouse work, as well.

Working or not working - can you change your mind?

As you can imagine, many Americans over the years have come to France to spend time not working. Often they are fully retired. Sometimes, it’s just a sabbatical from life. And whether you go back after 6 months or just keep renewing the one-year visa indefinitely, that works.

But what if you come for a long break and decide you want to stay and work?

The French visa system generally allows you to apply for a different visa type to adjust to your new plans. In some cases, you will have to return to your home country and apply from there (i.e. the passeport talent- business creator visa). But many other visas allow those who are already in France on a tourist visa or as a family member to apply for a new visa with work authorization. This often happens because you receive a job offer in France, enroll in an educational program, or marry a French citizen. As long as you get your new visa sorted before you old visa runs out (taking into account the 2-month delay in visa renewals these days), you often can make the change without leaving France.

What type of visa are you looking for?

For more information on visas in France, consult this post about passeport talent visas and the French government’s interactive page on how to apply for a visa.