Titre de séjour (French residence permit)

Titre de séjour is the umbrella term for French residence documents: cartes de séjour (temporary and multi-year residence cards), cartes de résident (resident cards) and some provisional authorisations. The card you hold decides whether, and for whom, you may work. EU, EEA and Swiss citizens do not need one to work in France.

Most people start with a long-stay visa from the French consulate. For a stay under 12 months the consulate can issue a long-stay visa equivalent to a residence permit (visa de long séjour valant titre de séjour, VLS-TS), which you validate online within three months of arrival. For longer stays you receive a three-month visa and then apply for the card itself within two months of entering France.

• Talent card, medical and pharmacy professions. A multi-year card for doctors, dentists, midwives and pharmacists who hold an authorisation under the public health code, such as an assignment decision or an autorisation d'exercice, with gross pay of at least €41,386.48 a year. It lasts up to four years.
• Salarié or travailleur temporaire card. For permanent (CDI) or fixed-term (CDD) jobs, such as a nurse once qualified to work in France. Your employer first obtains a work authorisation online. The first card lasts one year; a CDI holder still in the job can then move to a four-year multi-year card, subject to integration conditions including French at A2.
• Talent-famille. Spouses and minor children accompanying a talent card holder can receive this card without the standard family reunion procedure.

1. Apply online on the ANEF platform (administration numérique pour les étrangers en France). You receive a filing receipt (attestation de dépôt) immediately, but it has no validity and does not prove lawful stay or let you work.
2. Renew before your current document expires. Service-Public gives a window of four to two months before expiry for most renewals on ANEF; check the page for your card, as the medical talent card states the two months before expiry.
3. If your complete file is in on time, ANEF issues an attestation de prolongation d'instruction. It is valid for up to three months, is renewed until a decision, proves lawful stay and lets you keep working if your card allowed work.
4. When the prefecture confirms the card is ready, pay the tax in tax stamps (timbres fiscaux) and collect it.

Service-Public lists €350 for a first talent card or first salarié card (a €300 tax plus €50 stamp duty), €250 to renew a salarié card (€200 plus €50), and €300 to validate a VLS-TS. Renewing late can add a €180 regularisation fee. Tax stamps can be bought online or at an equipped tobacconist.

• Forgetting to validate the VLS-TS. It must be validated online within three months of arrival.
• Relying on the filing receipt. Only the attestation de prolongation d'instruction protects your status while a renewal is processed.
• Status out of step with your training stage. PADHUE need an authorisation that matches each stage, from EVC post assignment to full authorisation.
• Silence from the prefecture. For the talent card, no answer after four months counts as an implicit refusal, and you then have two months to challenge it.