Settled OverseasSomeday Doesn’t Have to Become Never.
France
France, researched country-first: who can actually live here, and how. An employee on a French contract or an EU Blue Card; a founder or independent professional running a real French activity; a student; a family joining a resident or married to a French citizen; a long-stayer living on a pension, savings or foreign income without working in France; and — one stop among several, not the headline — a retiree on that same visitor door. Each life runs on a different legal door, and this page keeps the doors separate: what each costs in means, what work it allows, what it does toward the five-year long-term clock, and where the official paper runs out and the gap is printed instead. Six places are compared on dated asking-rent samples. Two facts frame everything below: France has no retirement visa and no digital-nomad visa, and French administration runs in French — this page says both plainly and never markets around them.
The public update log shows every country's check dates — and what changed.
France, before the dream
France is a unitary semi-presidential republic, a founding member of the European Union and of the Schengen area, using the euro. Residence for third-country nationals runs through the ANEF portal (administration-etrangers-en-france.interieur.gouv.fr) and the prefecture of your department; health affiliation runs through your local CPAM and the Ameli portal; tax runs through impots.gouv.fr. The safety frame is dated: the U.S. State Department rates France Level 2 — Exercise Increased Caution, citing terrorism and civil unrest (the embassy also issues short-lived demonstration alerts — an alert is not the advisory, and this page never prints one as the other). One practical limit belongs up front rather than in a footnote: French is the sole official language of administration. The ANEF portal, prefecture counters and CPAM correspondence run in French in practice; Ameli’s telephone English coverage is limited; and the language ladder that now gates the long-term cards is taken in French. A mover who arrives without French needs paid or volunteer help for the dossier steps, and basic French becomes mandatory rather than optional for anyone staying past the first card. This dossier covers mainland (metropolitan) France; the overseas departments are constitutionally part of France but play by some different rules, and they are outside this page.
Start with who can stay, because France sorts movers by how they will live, not by a single “visa.” People arriving for a French job use the classic salarié door or the Talent and Blue Card tracks. People who will run something use the business-creation or entrepreneur doors. Students use the student door; families use reunification or the spouse-of-a-French-citizen door. People who will not work at all — on a pension, savings, or foreign-source income — use the long-stay visitor visa (VLS-TS visiteur), which is residence-without-work and is the retiree-shaped door on this page, printed as one card among the routes. Remote workers sit in the honest gap described in their own card below: France has no nomad permit.
A short history, kept neutral
France grew from the Frankish kingdoms of the early Middle Ages into one of Europe’s central states; the Revolution of 1789 and the Napoleonic period reshaped its law and administration, and its current constitution (the Fifth Republic) dates from 1958. France was a founding member of the European Communities in the 1950s; Paris is its capital and largest city. Neutral orientation, printed because it explains the country better than any slogan.
The places compared below grew up in different worlds: Paris as the capital on the Seine; Lyon at the meeting of the Rhône and the Saône; Bordeaux as the Garonne wine port; Montpellier as the Languedoc university city; Nice on the Baie des Anges; and Nantes on the Loire. That spread explains the prices that follow.
Ways in, separated by life
Checked 8 October 2026 against Service Public, Légifrance, Urssaf and IRS publications. The order is by life situation, not by age: work first, then business, then study and family, then not working, then the long statuses. Fees are stated as their step — the visa filing, the online validation tax, and the card delivered at the prefecture are three different payments, and this page never blends them.
Find your route by life situation
Tap the closest fit. Matching route cards light up; the others stay on the page, only quieter.
Choose a situation to light up the route cards that fit it.
A pointer, not advice — the card text rules.
Check your income against the printed tests
Type your monthly income. Annual tests compare it × 12; deposit and savings tests stay separate below.
Indicative only — the office that decides is theirs, not ours. Figures as printed above, checked 8 October 2026.
Long stays start with a residence basis
Short stay is 90 days in any 180-day period across Schengen — no work rights. Anything longer runs on a residence basis applied for before you move: the long-stay visa from a French consulate, validated online on the ANEF portal within three months of arrival, and renewed through ANEF between four months and two months before expiry — calendar the filing window, not the expiry date, because administrative silence on the stated clock is an implicit refusal. Cards are delivered at the prefecture against fiscal stamps (timbres fiscaux, bought online or at a bureau de tabac). From 1 May 2026 the fee reform on Service Public sets the standard taxonomy: €350 for a first card, €250 on renewal (reduced rates €150/€100 where they apply), and a €300 VLS-TS validation tax (€100 reduced, students among them). Every card below states which steps apply to it.
Talent — salarié qualifié, entreprise innovante, salarié en mission
For skilled employees whose profile clears the salary test (all figures first-hand from Service Public F16922, checked October 2026). Salarié qualifié: a French master-level diploma (or Conférence des grandes écoles level-1) and a contract over three months at ≥ €39,582 gross/year. Entreprise innovante: hired by a young innovative company (JEI) or a ministry-recognised innovative company, in functions tied to its R&D project, at the same ≥ €39,582. Salarié en mission: intra-group mobility with three months’ group seniority and a French contract at ≥ €39,582. The mechanics are the point: the employer files no work-authorisation request and pays no foreign-worker tax; the card is multi-year, matched to the contract up to four years, at €350 on first delivery; and the family comes under the simplified famille accompagnante procedure — your spouse and minor children receive a « talent-famille » multi-year card without a separate reunification file. Two narrower Talent tracks print for completeness: medical and pharmacy professions (authorisation to practise, ≥ €41,386.48 gross/year) and researchers (hosting agreement with an approved body, ≥ €2,200 gross/month).
Business — création d’entreprise, innovative project, direct investment
For founders and investors (Service Public F16922 and F35795, checked October 2026). Création d’entreprise: a master-level diploma or five years of comparable experience; a real and serious creation project with a prior favourable opinion from the Economy Ministry; at least €30,000 of project financing (your own or borrowed); and personal resources at least at the full-time gross SMIC (€22,404.20/year as stated on F16922). Projet économique innovant: an innovative project recognised by the Economy Ministry, with SMIC-level resources. Investissement économique direct: at least €300,000 invested in fixed assets in France, personally or through a company you direct or hold at least 30% of, with a commitment to create or safeguard employment within four years. Cards run up to four years; €350 on first delivery; famille accompagnante applies. The independent door sits beside these: the entrepreneur / profession libérale card (F35795) is for people who will actually run a small business or independent practice in France — a viable activity, the registrations the activity requires (URSSAF; regulated professions need their order’s authorisation), and proof the activity can generate income of at least €1,867.02/month, at €350 first card / €250 renewal, with the OFII medical certificate listed among the delivery documents. One honesty line is mandatory: the visitor status cannot be swapped into an auto-entrepreneur registration — the signed non-work attestation bars it. If you want to work independently, you enter on this route, not as a visitor who registers later.
Family — reunification, and the spouse of a French citizen
Two different doors, kept separate. Regroupement familial (Service Public F11166): the sponsor must have resided legally in France for at least 18 months and hold a card valid for at least a year; resources are averaged over the twelve months before the request and scaled by household — €1,867.02/month for two to three people, €2,053.72 for four to five, €2,240.42 for six or more (average monthly gross); the housing must meet decency and surface norms, and the mayor of your commune gives an opinion on resources and housing. Beneficiaries are your spouse (18 or over) and minor children; the arriving family signs the contrat d’intégration républicaine (CIR) and passes through the OFII reception and medical process. Conjoint de Français (F1764; CESEDA L.423-1/L.423-2): the foreign spouse of a French citizen obtains a VLS-TS « vie privée et familiale » from the consulate on three cumulative conditions — the shared life (communauté de vie) has not ceased since the marriage; the French spouse retains French nationality; and a marriage celebrated abroad has been transcribed into the French civil registers. The following card authorises work; after three years of marriage with continued shared life the spouse can reach the ten-year carte de résident, and a citizenship-by-declaration channel opens from four years of marriage. The card can be withdrawn if the shared life ends during its validity.
Remote work — the honest gap
France has no digital-nomad visa and no remote-work residence category — no long-stay visa in the CESEDA names remote work. The visitor status above is the door people actually use for a foreign-income life in France, and its legal text promises no work of any kind: the attestation you sign bars work in France in every listed form, French-source clients would put you in breach of it, and remote work for a foreign employer or foreign clients performed from French soil is simply not codified anywhere. Many long-stayers live that way on the visitor status with entirely foreign-source income — that is a description of practice, not a right this page can promise, and consular practice at the visa interview varies. French tax residence can also attach whatever the visa label says (the tax section below runs on four tests, any one of which suffices). The honest print: get French counsel before building a life on the gap between the paper and the practice. Working for the French market, in any form, means the salarié, Talent or entrepreneur doors — before you arrive.
Work — the classic salarié door
For people hired by a French employer who does not fit a Talent category. The employer, not you, obtains the autorisation de travail (work authorisation) before entry; the consulate then issues the long-stay visa, and the salarié card follows in France. The card is a one-year carte de séjour « salarié » (open-ended contract) or « travailleur temporaire » (fixed-term), renewable; full-time pay cannot sit below the statutory minimum wage (the SMIC — €22,404.20/year gross full-time as stated on Service Public’s Talent text, checked October 2026). Fees: €350 first card, €250 renewal. The employer also pays an employer-side tax for hiring a foreign worker; its current rate table was not captured for this edition and does not print unverified — your employer’s HR holds it. The OFII medical visit applies to this door (health-paperwork section below).
EU Blue Card — the highly qualified track
For degree-holding professionals at the top salary band (Service Public F16922). Conditions: a diploma representing at least three years of higher education, or five years of comparable professional experience (three years within the last seven for professions listed by ministerial order); a work contract of at least six months; and gross annual pay of at least 1.5 times the average reference gross salary — €59,373 for 2026, on the reference salary set by the ministerial order of 29 August 2025. That is a 2025-arrêté figure: re-confirm the current reference salary before you file, because the threshold moves when the order does. The card runs matched to the contract, up to four years, at €350 on first delivery. EU mobility is the structural benefit: after twelve months holding a Blue Card in another member state (six months on a second move), you can enter France on that card and apply within one month.
Student — the study door
For people enrolling in French higher education or higher professional training (Service Public F2231, checked October 2026). Conditions: enrolment (or pre-enrolment) in a public or private institution, and resources of at least €877.50/month. A caution prints with it: the monthly test was re-based by the decree of 22 June 2026, so any source still quoting the older, lower amount is out of date. The card runs one year, renewable; after a year, a multi-year student card can run to the end of the study cycle. Fees: €100 at first issue, €150 at renewal, and a €180 regularisation fee for late renewal — applications are online only, in the same four-to-two-month window, and 90 days of silence is an implicit refusal. Part-time work alongside studies is permitted within a statutory cap; check the current cap on Service Public before relying on it. Students are also the health-system exception on this page: the student file carries no OFII medical certificate (see the health-paperwork section).
Not working — the VLS-TS visiteur, and the retiree card among the routes
For people living on a U.S. pension, savings, rental income or other resources they do not earn in France — retirees are the typical reader of this card, but the category covers any non-working long-stayer, and it is presented here as one card among the routes, not the page’s headline (Service Public F302, checked 8 October 2026). The VLS-TS visiteur is a long-stay visa that acts as your residence permit for the first year and leads to a carte de séjour « visiteur » on renewal. The conditions are four, and they are hard conditions: your own or family resources reach at least €1,477.93 net per month for one person (€17,735.19/year) — a SMIC-linked threshold as stated on F302, so it moves when the SMIC does; re-read the live figure before you file. You sign an attestation of non-work: no employment, no commerçant or artisan activity, no auto-entrepreneur registration, no profession libérale — Service Public lists all four as barred, and there is no small-side-activity exception. You hold health insurance covering the whole of your stay (the health-paperwork section states exactly what is and is not officially fixed about its amount). And at the first card’s delivery the prefecture file includes the OFII medical certificate — this route has a medical step, and this page never says otherwise. The official fees for a retiree-shaped file, stated by step: €99 visa fee at filing, €300 validation tax when you validate the VLS-TS online after arrival, €350 when the first carte « visiteur » is delivered — €749 in year one on our arithmetic over the official figures — and €250 at each renewal. Renewal re-tests resources and insurance through ANEF. The route never leads to a work right; earning anything in France means a different door, applied for before you move.
The long ladder — ten-year cards, EU long-term residence, citizenship
Every route feeds the same long statuses, and from 1 January 2026 they carry a language ladder (Law of 26 January 2024; Décret n° 2025-647 of 15 July 2025, effective 1 January 2026; the civic-exam order of 10 October 2025). The multi-year card (two to four years) requires French at A2 plus the examen civique — a 40-question multiple-choice test with an 80% pass mark, in a level-matched version per status (the official preparation portal is formationcivique.interieur.gouv.fr; an over-65 exemption is stated on the Service Public text for the first multi-year card). The ten-year carte de résident requires five years of residence under the route’s conditions, resources at the SMIC level, French at B1, and the civic exam. The carte de résident longue durée-UE (Service Public F17359) requires five years of legal, uninterrupted residence — absences of no more than six consecutive months and ten months in total, with EU Blue Card periods in another member state able to count — resources at the SMIC on average over the five years (social benefits excluded), health insurance, B1 and the civic exam; it runs ten years at €350 on first delivery (€250 where you already hold a card), and the status lapses after six consecutive years outside France. These conditions bite at first access to each status, not at ordinary renewals of a status you already hold. Naturalisation runs on five years of habitual residence, French at B2 (raised from B1 for 2026 applicants), the civic-exam attestation, and professional integration with stable resources — and it is a discretionary grant after a prefecture-processed application, never automatic at five years. Any source describing the multi-year card as test-free, or naturalisation as B1, is describing the pre-2026 law.
Work rights, route by route: salarié — the job the authorisation was granted for; Talent and Blue Card — the qualifying employment; business cards — the activity they were granted for; student — part-time within the statutory cap; family-reunification and spouse cards — work authorised as the card states; visiteur — none, in any form. The 2026 language ladder (A2 / B1 / B2, with the 40-question civic exam at 80%) applies at first access to each long status on every route.
Health paperwork: entering vs staying
The paperwork facts, kept apart from medical advice. Checked 8 October 2026.
To enter (short stay)
- Vaccines & certificates: France imposes no vaccination condition on U.S. arrivals for metropolitan France as of October 2026 — re-check the France-Visas page when you plan. (The yellow-fever certificate regime you will see in French sources concerns arrivals from risk countries and French Guiana, an overseas department outside this page’s scope — it is not a condition of a U.S.→mainland arrival.)
- Visa-stage insurance (documentary): every long-stay visa file on this page requires private health insurance covering the whole of your stay. What is officially fixed is the requirement, not a euro amount: no official euro minimum for the visitor visa is published in the sources we could open. €30,000 of medical cover plus repatriation is the common consular-practice benchmark — the standard Schengen floor consulates work to — not a settled French figure for long-stay visiteur. Confirm your policy meets your consulate’s checklist before you apply.
- Pets: the official route is USDA APHIS for the EU — ISO microchip before rabies vaccination, a 21-day wait after a primary vaccination, an EU Animal Health Certificate issued within 10 days of entry by a USDA-accredited veterinarian and USDA-endorsed, no rabies titre test required from the U.S. as a listed third country, and a maximum of five pets on the non-commercial route. Detail sits in the pet contact card below.
To stay (long stay)
- The OFII medical visit reaches the visitor route — it is never “no medical step.” When a VLS-TS is validated online, the holder can be convoked to an OFII medical visit (visite médicale), and the carte de séjour « visiteur » issuance checklist itself lists the « certificat médical délivré par l’OFII » among the documents to present at card delivery (Service Public F302: “à remettre au moment de la remise du titre”; at renewal, unless you have already produced it). The same medical certificate is a delivery document on the salarié, family (« vie privée et familiale », including spouses of French citizens and reunification arrivals) and entrepreneur/profession libérale files. Students are the exception on this page: the student card’s own checklist (F2231) contains no OFII medical certificate. What the visit is: a preventive-medicine screening appointment (questionnaire and examination, vaccination-status review with catch-up orientation, chest imaging where indicated). No official “OFII vaccine list” was captured, so none prints.
- Children — the 11-vaccine school rule (Code de la santé publique, art. R.3111-8, captured verbatim on Légifrance). For children born on or after 1 January 2018, eleven vaccines are mandatory: diphtheria, tetanus, poliomyelitis, pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae type b, hepatitis B, pneumococcus, meningococcus C, measles, mumps and rubella (Law n° 2017-1836; Décret n° 2018-42). Admission of a minor — to crèche services, schools and school establishments, registered childminders and other children’s collectivities — is conditional on presenting the health booklet or an equivalent document proving vaccination status; where mandatory vaccinations are missing, the child is provisionally admitted, and staying is conditional on completing the missing vaccinations within three months of provisional admission, following the official calendar. Children born before 2018: three vaccines (DTP) on the same terms. No derogation applies to residential stays such as holiday camps. Foreign records are assessed against the French calendar, and the catch-up runs through your médecin traitant or the PMI (Protection maternelle et infantile) service.
Healthcare reality, briefly. The public system runs on residence, not on the visa stamp.
Getting in — PUMA. Live in France stably and legally for three months with no other coverage, and you affiliate to the general regime (PUMA, protection universelle maladie) through your local CPAM. The S1106 form (« Demande d’ouverture des droits à l’assurance maladie ») is the front door. Workers affiliate immediately on taking up employment. A retiree on the visitor route plans on the three-month wait — and in practice longer for the file to clear.
What you hold. Affiliation produces a numéro de sécurité sociale and an attestation de droits. The plastic carte Vitale follows once the number is definitive — we print the sequence, never a promised number of weeks.
The mutuelle. The public system reimburses only part of convention-rate care (roughly 70% of the Sécurité sociale tariff base for most outpatient care). A mutuelle top-up is the normal second product once PUMA attaches — a different product from the visa-stage cover above, and this page never merges them.
The CSM (« taxe PUMA »). Assessed by Urssaf on the previous year’s tax data. It is due only when all three are true:
- activity income is below 20% of the annual Social Security ceiling (PASS — €48,060 for 2026),
- capital income exceeds 50% of PASS,
- no retirement or invalidity pension and no unemployment benefit was received during the year.
The test is applied at household level for married/PACS couples, so one spouse’s pension takes the household out. If you receive a pension, the CSM does not apply to you. Where it does apply, it takes 6.5% of capital income above half the PASS, tapering to zero at the low end. A worked formula, not a bill: read the detailed Urssaf leaflet before you model a year.
A watch item, never a current fee. The LFSS for 2026 (Law n° 2025-1403 of 30 December 2025) inserts article L.160-1-1 into the Code de la sécurité sociale: a new annual participation financière for stable residents who do not work and do not pay French health contributions under a treaty — a group that includes most Americans on the visitor route. Non-payment can suspend coverage after notice.
How much it is has not been set. An implementing decree was still awaited when we checked (October 2026), and Service Public’s PUMA page says the same. Budget for an unknown extra cost of living on French healthcare, and re-check before you apply. (The separate one-year-residence condition for family benefits and housing aid belongs to the PLFSS 2027 examination — it is not law and never prints as law.)
S1 — not applicable to Americans: there is no U.S. form S1; that is an EU/EEA/Swiss coordination route, the U.S. has no reciprocal coverage-transfer arrangement with France, and U.S. Medicare pays nothing in France. A U.S. retiree’s path into French public coverage is PUMA affiliation on residence (or employer affiliation), with private cover bridging the visa stage and the three-month wait. Depth, named: Paris — the AP-HP network (Pitié-Salpêtrière, Cochin, Hôpital Européen Georges-Pompidou), full university-hospital depth in every specialty; Lyon — Hospices Civils de Lyon (Édouard-Herriot, Croix-Rousse); Bordeaux — CHU de Bordeaux (Pellegrin, Haut-Lévêque, Saint-André); Montpellier — CHU de Montpellier (Arnaud de Villeneuve, Lapeyronie); Nice — CHU de Nice (Pasteur, Archet), with a thick private-clinic sector along the coast; Nantes — CHU de Nantes (Hôtel-Dieu). Named anchors and classification only — bed and specialty metrics were not captured to this standard and print as a GAP.
Living in France, travelling in Europe
France is a founding EU member, in the Schengen area, on the euro, and the benefit is real: a French residence card makes short trips across the Schengen area easy — border-light travel on the long-standing 90-days-in-180 pattern, without a separate short-stay visa for each country. The limit travels with it in the same breath: the card gives short-stay travel only. It does not grant a right to live or work in another member state; long-term mobility runs through its own doors (the carte de résident longue durée-UE after the five-year status, Blue Card mobility after twelve months). Two neighbour notes, one line each: the United Kingdom and Ireland are not in Schengen, and a French card confers no UK or Irish entry right; Andorra, between France and Spain, is neither EU nor Schengen and is entered under French/Spanish rules. Benefit and limit, printed together, every time.
Government, briefly
Unitary state under the Fifth Republic constitution of 1958. The President is head of state and appoints the Prime Minister, who heads the government and is responsible to the National Assembly.
Elected in 2017 and re-elected in 2022; the second five-year term runs to 2027. Stated as a fact of office, without commentary.
Head of the Lecornu II government since 10 October 2025. Stated as a fact of office, without commentary.
France is a founding member of the European Union, in Schengen, and on the euro. The practical change for a resident: from 1 January 2026 the long statuses carry the A2/B1/B2 language ladder and the civic examination — verify status conditions at filing, not from memory.
Taxes: four tests, a treaty with the pension answer, and a 2026 watch item
French tax residence (Service Public F62; CGI art. 4B) attaches if any one of four tests holds: your foyer — your habitual home or family seat — is in France; France is your principal place of stay (183 days or more in the year); you exercise your main professional activity in France; or France is the centre of your economic interests. Print the tests disjunctively, because a visitor-route mover can become French tax-resident by the foyer test well inside 183 days — the visa label does not decide this.
The U.S.–France treaty, and the pension answer this page is careful about. The Convention of 31 August 1994, as amended by the Protocols of 8 December 2004 and 13 January 2009, entered into force on 30 December 1996 (IRS France treaty page). As amended by the 2009 Protocol, Article 18(1) gives the source state exclusive taxation of both social-security payments and pension distributions — including lump sums — from pension arrangements established in that state. The consequence for this page’s typical reader: U.S. Social Security benefits and U.S. 401(k)/IRA distributions paid to a French tax resident are taxable only in the United States; French-source pensions follow the mirror rule and are taxed in France. The opposite shorthand for U.S.-source pensions circulates widely and is wrong. The treaty also allocates taxing rights on U.S.-source dividends and interest with foreign tax credits; beyond the Article 18 outcome, this page prints the frame and routes the arithmetic to a U.S. expat tax adviser. The often-repeated online claim that U.S. investment income is zero-tax in France is marketing-tier and unverified against the official French texts — it appears here only as an adviser-verify question, never as a fact. Investment income in France is broadly under the 30% flat levy (prélèvement forfaitaire unique) absent an election for the progressive scale — market frame, adviser-confirmed. IFI (the real-estate wealth tax): French tax residents with worldwide net real estate above €1.3 million are in the tax’s scope, and U.S. real estate counts. Printed gap: the rate scale, the main-home allowance and the filing mechanics are adviser-confirm items in this edition — our impots.gouv.fr IFI capture is still owed, so treat any precise figure quoted online as unverified until your adviser confirms it against the official page. A U.S.–France totalisation agreement (in force 1988) prevents double social-security coverage for detached workers and lets credits be combined for benefit eligibility; it transfers no pension money and is not a healthcare-cover transfer.
The U.S. side never switches off. Citizenship-based filing continues wherever you live: FBAR (FinCEN 114) on aggregate foreign accounts over $10,000 at any point in the year, Form 8938 at the applicable thresholds, and your federal return filed on time, with French bank accounts reportable. The health charges have tax-shaped edges, and they print where they belong: the CSM formula and its pensioner exemption sit in the health section (a pensioner does not pay it; a capital-income household may), and the PLFSS participation financière (Code de la sécurité sociale art. L.160-1-1) is law with its amount still décret-pending — a budget watch item, never a printed fee. This page prints frames, thresholds and treaties; it does not compute anyone’s tax.
Places to compare in France
Paris — the capitalThe expensive capital prints its prices on receipt and nobody drops it for costing more: a 36 m² studio in the 20th at €1,050/month charges included (listing dated October 2026), and a 58 m² two-room in the 11th at €2,500/month beside it.
LyonThe two-rivers second city: a 46 m² two-room in the 1st arrondissement at €750/month charges included — an older dated sample (captured March 2026; re-verify live), printed with its age showing.
BordeauxThe Garonne wine port: a 27.4 m² furnished studio at La Bastide at €570/month excluding charges (captured July 2026) — flagged on its page as student-residence stock, not a general-market promise.
MontpellierThe Languedoc university city: a 45 m² two-room at Celleneuve at €707/month charges included in a rent-controlled zone (captured April 2026; re-verify live) — the lower-cost southern door in this set.
Nice / Côte d’AzurThe premium shore prints its spread honestly: dated samples from €639/month at Le Port to €1,250/month for 54 m² (captured April–May 2026; re-verify live) — premium prices, kept on the page.
NantesThe Loire city with the freshest file in this set: four samples captured 8 October 2026 — €860, €800, €765.52 and €606 — the western value door, priced on receipt.
Rents above are dated individual asking samples — never a median and never a couple budget. The six areas cover the capital, both premium markets (Paris and the Côte d’Azur), three mid-size university-hospital cities (Lyon, Bordeaux, Nantes) and the lower-cost southern door (Montpellier); no seventh place is included in this edition because no dated asking-rent samples for one were captured. Where a sample is months old, its capture month prints beside it and the city page says to re-verify the live listing — a dated old sample, honestly labelled, is worth more than a fresh invention. Premium cities are priced honestly and never dropped for costing more.
Can I check the people before I pay anyone?
We distinguish sourced verification from source-only listing. Every booking and fee is confirmed in writing directly with the firm, and the official registers and association directories win over anything on this page. This shortlist is PARTIAL: France’s administration runs in French, so the valuable contacts are the ones that sell navigation as much as regulation — and where the honest offer is a printed gap (senior health premiums at 70 and 75, a France-based pet agent, a France-side tax boutique), the gap prints instead of a filled name.
Immigration — embassy-listed avocats first
Verified — identity and specialisation confirmed against the U.S. Embassy Paris list of English-speaking attorneys (fr.usembassy.gov, crawled 8 October 2026; the Embassy publishes the list as a courtesy service, explicitly not an endorsement, and states each lawyer’s bar and fields). Sophie Matamoros — Gide (Paris): Paris Bar; fields include immigration and visas, business law, foreign investments. Paul Nicolay — Puteaux: Hauts-de-Seine Bar; fields are immigration, visas, French nationality cases, professional mobility, residence permits and litigation concerning them — the closest single-lawyer match to this page’s whole route set. Jean-Jacques Michallon — J2M Law Firm (Paris): listed as tax attorney, business attorney and immigration lawyer, with professional immigration law and French visa applications — the entry whose fields span this page’s tax and visa chapters jointly. Listed — not vetted (real firms; Barreau directory row and fee posture not captured): Karl Waheed Avocats (dedicated Paris business-immigration boutique); LexCase (Paris/Lyon/Marseille, published immigration practice); Fragomen (Paris office of the global immigration firm; enterprise-facing).
Fee reality: no Paris immigration avocat captured for this edition publishes a consumer fee schedule; fees run under a written convention d’honoraires agreed before work, and state-fee disbursements (timbres, taxes) are borne by the client at the routes-section figures. Do not print an hourly figure that was not captured — if you want one, ask a verified name for an engagement letter. Any provider advertising a French “golden visa” is advertising a product that does not exist and is disqualified on that alone.
Sources: fr.usembassy.gov English-speaking attorneys list (Paris). Accessed 8 October 2026.
Rentals — platforms verified, the dossier is the difficulty
Verified as market platforms (listings sampled for this edition): SeLoger — France’s dominant listings portal, from which every rent sample in this dossier was captured; Bien’ici — the second national portal (agents and notaires); PAP (Particulier à Particulier) for direct-landlord listings. Listed — not vetted: Lodgis (Paris furnished-apartment agency).
The dossier locataire, printed as the real difficulty: French landlords customarily ask for ID, three recent payslips or tax notices, an employment contract (a CDI carries the weight), and often a garant (guarantor). A foreign pensioner or visa holder walks in without French payslips. The tenant-side routes that work in practice: furnished one-year bail meublé stock, where the dossier culture is softer; paid private guarantor services (listed, not vetted — the public Visale scheme is effectively out of reach for a newly arrived foreign retiree); and relocation finders (next card) who pre-negotiate the file. No coupon-clipping optimism prints here: budget time and documentation for the housing file exactly as you budget for the visa file.
Sources: seloger.com; bienici.com; pap.fr; lodgis.com. Listing samples accessed 8 October 2026.
Health insurance — two products, and a printed gap at 65/70/75
Route (verified as a route): the visa file requires private cover for the whole stay, and the market sells exactly that as Schengen/long-stay visa-compliant policies — medical cover built around the €30,000 benchmark plus repatriation (the benchmark’s status is stated in the health section: consular practice, not a settled euro law). April International packages visa-compliant Schengen long-stay cover; ACS-AMI sells budget visa-file formulas (formule E around €40/month profile pricing on insurer comparisons, F around €70/month — comparison-capture figures for the visa stage only). Fab French Insurance, a France-based expat broker repeatedly referenced by U.S.-to-France movers for visa-stage placement, is Listed — not vetted; its value is that it sells the navigation with the policy. After PUMA affiliation, the product changes: a mutuelle top-up covers the ticket modérateur the public system leaves. Dated senior-market evidence (GoodAssur, data updated 20 April 2026): April Santé Zen for a 65-year-old profile runs €83.03/month at level 1 to €288.94/month at level 6, and the same source’s editorial market figures put a single retiree’s mutuelle around €160/month and a 60+ couple’s around €283/month — market evidence with a date on it, not a tariff.
Printed GAP: no France-specific first-euro premium evidence at ages 65, 70 and 75 was captured for this edition. International carriers sell into France quote-only, age loading after 70 is steep, and published ceilings exist in market plans; mean international-plan premiums in market synthesis (secondary, October 2026) run around €8,295/year at 60–69 and €10,734/year at 70+ — attributed market context, never a carrier price. Obtain dated quotes at your real age before relying on any number. One marker, printed in its box: the CFE (Caisse des Français de l’Étranger) age bands (65–69: €780/quarter; 70+: €819/quarter from 1 April 2025) serve French nationals abroad — a French-system price marker, never a price a U.S. mover pays for care in France.
Sources: GoodAssur April pages (data 20 April 2026); assurancesvoyage.fr insurer comparisons; Expat.com forum captures (broker references). Accessed 8 October 2026.
Navigation, tax and the move — listed help, one verified mover
Health/administration navigation (Listed — not vetted): there is no official English-language CPAM help desk to point to — Ameli’s public service is French-language, and that absence is itself the fact that prices this market. French Connections HCB (Richard Hammond’s team) runs a relocation and health-navigation practice serving U.S. citizens settling in France; Paris Relocation Service and Your Friend in Paris cover Paris settling-in (housing, administration, integration); Azur-Plus Relocation & Events (Valbonne) covers the Côte d’Azur side. All listed, none vetted; any service promising préfecture outcomes for a fee is excluded by design.
Tax (Listed — not vetted): Monceau CPA (Paris) — a France-based team qualified in both France and the U.S., the natural first call for the foyer/centre-of-interests question and the CSM interplay; fees not captured. Carried from prior country editions on the same terms: TFX — Taxes for Expats, Greenback Expat Tax Services and 1040 Abroad publish fee schedules for U.S. returns filed from abroad (1040 Abroad’s schedule carries an on-page contradiction in our capture, so neither figure is quoted here — confirm scope and the final price in writing). Printed gap: no standalone French-side tax boutique was vetted this edition; for the French return itself, an expert-comptable or fiscaliste is needed, and Michallon (first card) is the verified-shape candidate spanning both chapters.
Moving your belongings — Verified: SOFDI, the AGS group’s French affiliate at Gennevilliers (Paris) — the FIDI directory row was opened for this edition and shows FIDI-FAIM PLUS and FIDI-DSP certification, with FAIM certification current to 2028. France’s serious operators hold FIDI/IAM-grade memberships (the U.S. Embassy Paris itself tenders moving work to FIATA/IAM/FIDI-FAIM providers); no second mover prints until one is directory-checked.
Moving with a pet — the APHIS route is the anchor: ISO microchip before rabies vaccination; 21-day wait after a primary vaccination; an EU Animal Health Certificate issued within 10 days before entry by a USDA-accredited veterinarian and USDA-endorsed; no rabies titre test on the U.S. (listed third country) route; maximum five pets non-commercially. Printed gap: no France-based pet agent was verified for this edition — most U.S.→France dog and cat moves clear through the airline’s pet desk, and global shippers stay unnamed here until one with a France-side handling presence is captured.
Sources: fidi.org affiliate directory (SOFDI row opened 8 October 2026); aphis.usda.gov (pet travel, U.S. → EU); taxesforexpats.com; greenbacktaxservices.com; 1040abroad.com; monceaucpa.com; relocation directory captures (October 2026).
French trivia: for the group chat
The Eiffel Tower was supposed to come down
Paris’s tower was built for the 1889 World’s Fair and permitted as a temporary structure; it survived on the strength of its antennas — first for military telegraphy, then radio. (Standard reference fact; the tower in our Paris photograph is here to stay.)
France holds the time-zone record
Counting its overseas territories, France spans twelve time zones — more than any other country on Earth. The mainland dossier you are reading sits in just one of them. (Standard reference fact.)
The Promenade des Anglais was an English idea
Nice’s seafront promenade — the bay in our Nice photograph — was built in the 1820s at the expense of the English holiday colony wintering on the Côte d’Azur, which is why it carries an English name on French soil. (Standard reference fact.)
The world’s largest reflecting pool is in Bordeaux
The Miroir d’eau in front of the Place de la Bourse — the mist in our Bordeaux photograph — covers about 3,450 m² of granite and is described as the largest reflecting pool in the world. (Standard reference fact.)
The baguette is heritage-listed
In 2022 UNESCO inscribed the artisanal know-how and culture of baguette bread-making on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The morning queue at the boulangerie is, formally, culture. (UNESCO listing, 2022.)
The croissant crossed a border first
The croissant’s ancestor is the Viennese kipferl; the laminated, butter-layered version was perfected in Paris bakeries in the 19th century. France’s most famous breakfast is an import it improved. (Standard reference fact.)
Inside the dossier
A short preview of what the full interactive dossier does with France, shown in skeleton.
The question
Which door fits the life you are actually bringing? France answers differently for an employee, a Talent holder, a founder, a student, a family, a remote worker living on foreign income, and a non-working long-stayer — and the dossier never blends the answers, and never calls the visitor status a retirement visa or a nomad permit.
What the sources say
Work runs on the employer-filed salarié authorisation, or the Talent tracks at €39,582 (salarié qualifié) and €59,373 (Blue Card, on the 29 August 2025 arrêté) with no authorisation request at all. Not working runs on the visiteur test — €1,477.93 net/month, a signed no-work attestation, full-stay insurance, and an OFII medical certificate at card delivery — at €99 + €300 + €350 of official fees in year one. Public health cover arrives by PUMA after three months’ stable residence; a pensioner is exempt from the CSM « taxe PUMA », and the new participation financière is law whose price does not exist yet. The 2026 ladder (A2, B1, B2, civic exam) prices the long game in French, because France does.
GAP: first-euro health premiums at 65, 70 and 75, the IFI rate scale against the official text, the employer-side foreign-worker tax table, and the PLFSS participation amount are printed as gaps or watch items inside the dossier, addressed to the insurer, the adviser and the décret before money moves.
City & budget preview
Pick how you would live for a full year and the planner prices it in local terms — dated asking rents from the place cards above, the insurance your route requires, the mutuelle your age actually costs, and the tax frame that will apply to your status. It will not invent a couple budget where no dated couple-sized rents were captured.
The price cross-check, on this page’s own samples
Paris is the ceiling (€2,500 for 58 m² in the 11th, October 2026); Nice follows on the coast (€630–€1,250, February–May 2026 samples); Bordeaux can only quote its student studio (€570, July 2026) until a general-market sample lands; Lyon and Montpellier sit at €750 (March 2026) and €707 (April 2026); and Nantes, the freshest file, enters with four samples captured on 8 October 2026 between €606 and €860. Nothing here is a median or a couple budget — the slider below runs only on the dated samples printed on this page.
Computed only from the dated samples printed on this page. The full dossier computes it from more listings per city.
Work the checklist
Before you pay anything
While you scout
First month after you arrive
What to email
- Your consulate — the current visitor-file checklist, with the insurance wording and the resources phrasing in writing.
- An embassy-listed avocat (Matamoros, Nicolay, Michallon) — route confirmation under a convention d’honoraires before any filing.
- April International / ACS-AMI or your broker — a dated visa-stage quote, then a dated mutuelle quote at ages 65, 70 or 75.
- Your CPAM — the S1106 document list for your status once you have an address.
- SOFDI (FIDI directory) — the France-side moving quote, with the FAIM standing confirmed at booking time.
What to download
- Service Public F302 (visiteur), F16922 (Talent), F2231 (étudiant) or F35795 (entrepreneur) — your route’s text, saved the week you file.
- Code de la santé publique art. R.3111-8 and the French vaccination calendar, if children travel with you.
- The ANEF validation page and the examen civique preparation portal (formationcivique.interieur.gouv.fr).
- The FIDI directory row for SOFDI, and the USDA APHIS pet-travel page for the EU.
What to bring
- Passport, resources proof, full-stay insurance evidence and the signed non-work attestation if you file as a visitor.
- Vaccination records — yours for the OFII visit’s review, your children’s health booklet for the school rule (three-month catch-up clock from provisional admission).
- Pet documents for the APHIS path: microchip-first order, 10-day certificate window, USDA endorsement before departure.
Settled Overseas — the full dossier
Settled Overseas is the country-by-country operating system for an overseas move: verified facts, dated sources, gaps printed as gaps, and contacts you can check before you pay anyone. Every country works the same way — pick your places in the city matcher, build your budget, work the checklist, and keep the rules current as they change.
France — the full dossier
The interactive route answers for your situation — work, Talent, business, student, family or not working — the city matcher across all six places, the budget builder in euros, the printable dossier, free updates when the rules move (the PLFSS decree included, when it lands), and the checklists and scripts this page only started.
$149, one time
14-day promise: if it isn’t what was described, email us and we’ll make it right or refund you in full.
Copyright and terms note
Settled Overseas is independent research drawn from official sources captured on 8 October 2026 and first- and second-party listings dated in the text. It is orientation, not legal, tax, medical or financial advice, and it never grants a permit, an insurance policy or a professional engagement. Verify the current rule with Service Public, France-Visas, your prefecture, your CPAM, Urssaf and the official registers named on this page before acting. All publication decisions, professional engagements and filings remain yours.
Sources
Official texts captured for this dossier: Service Public F302 (carte « visiteur » — resources €1,477.93 net/month, no-work attestation, OFII medical certificate, costs); F16922 (carte talent — €39,582; EU Blue Card €59,373 on the ministerial order of 29 August 2025; medical-professions €41,386.48; researcher €2,200/month; création d’entreprise €30,000 + SMIC resources; direct investment €300,000); F35795 (entrepreneur/profession libérale — €1,867.02/month, €350/€250); F2231 (étudiant — €877.50/month); F11166 (regroupement familial — 18 months, household resources €1,867.02/€2,053.72/€2,240.42); F1764 + CESEDA L.423-1/L.423-2 (conjoint de Français); F17359 (carte de résident longue durée-UE); F62 (tax domicile, CGI art. 4B); Service Public fee-reform note of 1 May 2026 (€350/€250; VLS-TS validation €300/€100); Law of 26 January 2024 and Décret n° 2025-647 of 15 July 2025 (A2/B1/B2 ladder, effective 1 January 2026); arrêté of 10 October 2025 (examen civique — 40 questions, 80%); Code de la santé publique art. R.3111-8 (Légifrance — school vaccination admission and the 3-month provisional window); Law n° 2025-1403 of 30 December 2025 (LFSS 2026; CSS art. L.160-1-1, participation financière, amount décret-pending); Urssaf (PUMA/CSM — 6.5% formula, PASS 2026 €48,060, pensioner exemption); IRS (France treaty page — 1994 Convention, Protocols 2004/2009, Art. 18(1) source-state taxation of pensions and Social Security); U.S. Embassy Paris (English-speaking attorneys list; Level 2 advisory frame). Market evidence: SeLoger listing crawls dated in the text; GoodAssur April data (20 April 2026). Contacts: the Embassy attorneys list; the FIDI directory row for SOFDI. Fact-spine file: france-fact-spine-2026-10-08.md. Contacts: france-contacts-shortlist-2026-10-08.md. Official captures: france-official-captures-2026-10-08.md. Blocker closure: france-blocker-closure-2026-10-08.md. Checked 8 October 2026.
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