They gave me a piece of paper detailing the appointment and a highlighted list of everything expected of as proof. We have been living together for 5 years in Australia. You could go to the student prefecture and ask for a récépissé, which is essentially an extension of your visa, which will keep you legal and able to work until your appointment. Do you have any mail that came to you at that address during each one of those months? Great article! I’m wondering if it would be a good idea to apply sin e I have the requirements but I don’t know how “severe ” they are…. Does she have to live and come back every 3 months? Diese Foren sind nicht mehr aktiv. 1) We do not have proofs of papers in both of our names. You will need to buy timbres fiscaux (fiscal stamps) from a tabac for this amount and bring them with you to collect it. Your French partner would need to contact whoever at their company handles mutuelles, but you’ll need to be PACSed first so you have a legal basis to be making the request. After these renewals (I had a work visa previously so I’ve been through the renewal process), they usually send you an SMS after several weeks, telling you your card is ready and to come and pick it up. Yes, unfortunately the year together doesn’t count because your visa expired and you left. I don’t understand how can it be easier after 1 year pacs. They will ask for them in this order so it’s best to organize them like this ahead of time. I hope everything was ok. Quick question, did u provide or did they ask French language certificate ? Finally i have taken a student visa and after 3 days, we have an appointment. or do you have to have a valid carte de sejour? Anyway, i have an appointment on Friday ! Do you have a link by any chance that backs what you said ? I always return to this site for all of my french visa related questions so Thank you again SO much for this paltform Emily! This isn’t even counting my friends who are on this visa status, whose stories are all so different from each others’ (though they’ve all had to go in more than once to deal with it) which isn’t helpful when trying to figure out how to prepare. – My partner and I had proof of vie en commune dating back to October (4 months before our PACS) giving us about 10 months of proof. The fact that I already had three year’s worth of visas, and was a member of two societies were in my favor. Can you help me? I first met Gracie over coffee at the end of 2018. Hi Ji-Soo, thanks so much for sharing your story! Attestaion from families, friends, Joint accounts, travel tickets, photos, insuarance etc etc. I’m planning to change my status from student to vie privee/familiale since my school course will end next year April, and I also want to look for a full time job here. Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. I currently live in Germany but I will be moving to France in 2 months to join my French partner (PACS). an attestation from our doorman? Otherwise I think you need copies dated within the last 6 months. 2016 – France WHV How long was your VPF visa valid for?! Additionally, you should prepare any other papers proving that you have both lived at the same address for at least a year. You will have the right to work in France at any job with this CDS. Laura. It was at this point and this point only that I began to relax a little bit. Additional papers: personal photos, plane tickets together. Murugesh. Maybe I miss some informations… All this PACS and visa it’s chicken and eggs. stay great ! Changement de statut étudiant à vie privé et familial. I’ve pinned it and I’m so glad you finally got the visa xo. All of the requirements for each visa should be listed on your embassy/consulate website under the LONG STAY VISA tab. We went back on the specified day of our rendez-vous with a thicker folder 15 minutes in advance of the specified time, took a number, and … waited for our number for 3 hours. I naively thought they were unimportant only to have my birth certificate rejected when submitting the paperwork for my PACS. My birth certificate and translation/apostille HI SAM Hi Kam! Side note: I refer to this as a visa, as most do, but it’s actually called a carte de séjour. But I was being quizzed and this was the final question, so I nodded politely and kept my hypothetical romances to myself. i can find nothing specific for clarity. No official announcements have been made, however, so I’ll do my best to keep this post updated with the latest information about this.”. If you don’t, you can stay since you have the renewal appointment, but you won’t be able to travel out of France without risking not being able to get back in. In our case, this meant that we provided the following papers: the contract of the joint bank account we opened together; the electricity bill in both names; the internet bill in both names; an attestation that we are both on his company’s health insurance plan (mutuelle). I have one question! Im also in the same situation as you . p.s. B’s Tip: Even if you don’t have a lot of papers together, just gather as many papers as you can with the mutual address on them. Visa vie privée et familiale. Where did you apply/call to make your appointment? Hi James! However, they have to be the last year- if you’ve left France already, you’ll need to come back for another year to be eligible. Now that you know what you need, that way in a year you’ll have an airtight dossier that you won’t have to stress about them accepting! Your blog is so instructive, it’s wonderful! 10 Jul 2005, 03:35 Anonymous. Wait times were abnormally high due to the back-up caused by confinement of March – May 2020. (Long stay visa is late because i had an 3 years Schengen and i was working in Thailand). You just need something for each month with your name and an address in common to prove that you lived together. Hi Emily – thanks so much for this! We plan on getting PACs later this year. Thanks in advance. I then went to rue truffaut in the 17th , with my convocation (proof of appointment), passport and photos & was given a recipesse that allows me to continue at least working student hours and allows me to travel without issues while awaiting my apppointment next year. As long as it’s just a few weeks for work or something and your official residence remains in France, you should be fine (granted, I’m not an immigration professional so take this with a grain of salt). I’m not exaggerating when I say this took hours, and I’m grateful I gave myself time to do it. (in Angers) or does he do it before leaving ? Since a working holiday visa normally isn’t allowed to change status, I wouldn’t risk giving them more reasons to say no by trying to apply early. But I have my monthly bank statement where it’s written “chez” his name and his address. We are gathering the papers once again like last year but it’s not clear on their website whether we need only the last 3 months worth of statements (for example for our bank statements, edf, phone etc..) or like last time if we need about 12 months worth of statements. good luck! I think they are just looking for 2 per month, but I wanted to be sure. Thank you for this really helpful article! Hoping this won’t be an issue for them! I don’t believe they look- they didn’t look at the stamps in my passport when I was at the prefecture. Les deux statuts vous permettent d’exercer un travail, mais lorsque vous ne pouvez plus renouveller votre titre de séjour vie privée et familiale, il est nécessaire de changer de statut. I lived in Paris with my partner for 2 years. She wants to work in france also. They gave me a 6-mth recipisse which gives me the right to work (done at the Paris prefecture). Learn how your comment data is processed. Depending on your visa category, you’ll have different requirements with l’Office Français de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration (OFII). The PACS is nothing more than a tax status, so everyone would be getting it if you could live together in another country beforehand. We have time to think about it but I don’t see any solution so far, so I would need your help please ! We are so lost and so frustrated… I tried the business visa but after 3 months of waiting, they just rejected me with no explanation… I really hope I can get some helps here. This is why it’s very important to make an appointment as early as possible unless you’re in a position where you are comfortable not working for the period between the expiration of your visa and the renewal appointment. So my question is that how can i wait until my appointment if my visa expires in less than 3 months now ? We got a lot of sass for having the audacity to staple documents together… Good luck! Once we were called up, the same man looked over the documentation, talked with me a bit about what was in the folder (a sort of informal interview, maybe? Étudiants étrangers : vous êtes titulaire d'un VLS (visa D), d'un VLS-TS ou d'un titre de séjour ; Nouvelle procédure pour les demandes de naturalisation relevant de l'arrondissement de Saint-Denis; Liste des pièces à fournir (Renouvellement titre de séjour - Pôle "vie privée et familiale") Mise à jour le 27/11/2020 . If you are on another visa that is handled by the prefecture de police at Cité, you should be registered with the CRE and won’t have this issue, though it’s still good to deal with a visa renewal in a timely fashion. did they write something on the letter they sent you originally saying it wasnt your real appointment? Also we bought an apartment under both name. in fact, my wife is an engineer and she was working in india. // Chicken or egg? A couple weeks later we received an attestation in the mail, along with our cards that have our mutuelle information on them. Whenever possible, the original documents must be submitted to the translator and stamped along with the translation. I would like to make an appointment and apply for my carte de séjour, but wonder if you know if I HAVE to have a long stay visa in my passport in order to apply. The visitor visa will not allow you to work and you have to take classes on the student visa, but it will get you here for the length of time you need. . Do you think this will be an issue? I’m sorry you didn’t have this information sooner to be able to do it when you were on the working holiday visa! IT was actually all pretty chill and easy. She took the personal papers, the joint papers, and both sets of our payslips, put them together in a white piece of paper acting as a folder and attached a number to it with a paper clip. Lastly, we have not yet filed taxes together as I was a student last year and then applying for work and not earning an income. That doesn’t seem right…. Though if you’re reading this article, you already know that’s not true, it’s just further proof of the need for transparency around this process. Only option they have was MARRIED… i have photocopies of these two things but will that suffice for the appointment in october? I’ll be bookmarking it! ), but we aren’t sure that we can get a PACS and any long stay visa after the PACS with this kind of “visa”(because it’s not really a visa but just a travelling). Hi Caitlynne, I’m honestly not sure how to approach this since this situation sounds so tricky. I got mine about a week before my récépissé expired, two months after they said I could get it, because I couldn’t afford to pay the fee to pick it up before then. 3) I went to america for 3 months to do my internship during this one year, but my bills are still under his address? But for my wife: You can’t get PACSed with her if you’re not living in France and you can’t apply for any kind of visa once already in France, so you’ll need to apply for something in your home country. I did this without problems. I’m a US citizen, came to France on a student visa (au pair) in September 2016. My question is, would we have to show proof of living together in France for atleast one year, or can that proof be from living together in South Africa? I hope sharing my and my friends’ experiences with the visa vie privée et familiale will help you be better prepared for this process! It’s been an amazing resource. Mise à jour le 19/09/2019 Vous n’êtes pas algérien, vous ne souhaitez pas changer de statut et êtes en possession d’un titre de séjour portant la mention « vie privée et familiale ». Got PACSed February 2017. Here is a second question… I think the situation that I’m in might be similar to the Australian friend you mention in your post.. Hi Ipman, it was initially for one year and then the renewal was two years. Good luck!! In your case how long did it take since the moment you deposited the ‘dossier’ ? Would I be able to obtain this “visa” staying outside of france? I guess that means I don’t have to worry… thanks! – The first meeting at the préfecture is just to get the appointment. I am a New Zealand citizen and pacsed my French boyfriend in September 2017. It’s one of the few cases when you can just follow the list of documents they gave you to renew hope that helps! I couldnt apply carte de sejour for pacs before leaving France. I’ve taken everything I’ve learned on my immigration journey and bottled that knowledge into two courses. well they said its not problem if its 12 months passed or not, but just a proof that we live together. You can do either, but I just did regular French classes to get my level up to a place where I could start applying for jobs once I got the VPF. I’m so glad you found the post helpful bonne chance à vous deux !! It depends on a lot of things including the préfecture, who reviews the documentation, etc. La carte de séjour portant la mention “vie privée et familiale” est le titre de séjour le plus courant. Okay, so to apply for this type of carte de sejour you need to already be in France on a valid long stay visa, and to be PACSed with your girlfriend. Gathering the paperwork the french admistration asks of us is like climbing Mt.Everest in flipflops but it has to be done! He took my finger prints, had me sign the printed récépisée, stamped it, and that was it . Pin this image to share it and save it for later! NB: elle vit maritalement avec le père de ses enfants qui est africain aussi. Croissants and baguette on us if we ever get to meet you. Elle peut être annuelle ou pluriannuelle (2 à 4 ans) en renouvellement d’un précédent titre. Thank you! however, in the event that i’m not accepted i am hoping to do tapif and therefore have a travailleur temporaire visa. i am currently filing for pacs with my french boyfriend and we have been living together for almost a year (will be a year in august). I really don’t know what to do. we share a common situation here and we will apply for Carte de Sejour after 3 days , i wouldnt play with going our of the border because the recepisse is only valid in France. thank you very much! He would need to apply for the long stay visa before he comes to France, otherwise he will have to go back home to apply for it. When I called to make the appointment in September, there was nothing available until January. We will be visiting France this July (so I’m hoping to get a long stay visa again this time. Hi Erica, no, you can use the certificate that they gave you when you got PACSed as long as it is still valid. Hi Alexandra, yes it is, you’ll just have to live with your French partner for a year in France first I have also been unfortunately told that if you are not from the US or Australia, it can be harder, so make sure you have all your documents in order! My boyfriend dragged his heels on doing a lot of the paperwork stuff too- I had to really get after him to do it, but in the end I’m glad I spent that much time nagging because I needed almost all of it for our dossier. Because i found this job in paris when i was in india. IM TRYING TO GET AN APPOINTMENT FOR MY GIRLFRIEND WHO HAS A WORKING HOLIDAY VISA. Hey guys, since this blog post helped me along my visa/pacs journey, I thought I would share my experience here, in case it can help some of you out. 2017 – Germany WHV Hi Mustafa, you can get PACSed on the 3 month visa exemption but you can’t get the associated residence permit unless you’ve already been living here on a legal visa/residence permit for at least a year. Le titre de séjour « vie privée et familiale » est délivrée GÉNÉRALEMENT de plein droit. Si vous êtes déjà titulaire d’un visa long séjour valant titre de séjour (VLS-TS) d’une durée d’un an, vous pouvez faire une demande de carte de séjour vie privée et familiale pour rester un an supplémentaire en France. The 12 months of living together need to be consecutive- they won’t accept them if you moved abroad for any significant period of time and your name wasn’t on the bills/you didn’t have a valid visa during that time period. Laura, will u able to get the carte de sejour with short stay visa? Then 2018 I moved to Berlin and applied for my French long-term visitor visa for 2018 from Germany. As everyone else here has already mentioned, thank you so much for your post! This blog post is the best, thanks so much for the useful info and the hope it gives us ! We organized our papers in the following order: personal documents (passport photocopies of both partners, foreign partner’s old visa card, birth certificate and translation, PACS or marriage certificate [needs to be dated within 3 months, information for how to order here], 3 official-sized photos, housing justification); joint documents (joint bank account, mutuelle, electricity, internet); and separate documents with the same address (payslips, rent receipts, mobile phone bills, separate bank statements). I have one coming up soon and for some reason the list of paperwork needed for the appointment is not so straightforward…. I’ve included the experiences of 3 others at the bottom of this article as well, so you can see how the process differs for different people. The appointment time isn’t even a real appointment- I picked up my card 2 months after my appointment date (oops). Yes, you should get a French bank account, No, I don’t have a French Driver’s License (and probably never shall), The bike explosion happening during the Velib transition, Profession Liberale, Part 5: I get a 4-year card, The Airbnb Wars in Paris: for now, a truce, Profession Liberale, Part 4: VAT (or TVA), A side hustle that becomes part of your business, Profession Liberale, Part 3: Delays, no taxes, but money back, “Does anyone know any locksmiths who are not crooks?”, Getting my Carte Vitale and going to the doctor…finally, Troubleshooting: Internet, Leaks, and Hot Water Heaters. Hi Ankur! Do you have any experience or knowledge about this? Hi Bomi! If anyone else can help answer this question that would be great! Do you think I should apply right now for this long stay visa “d” and then after a year apply for the carte de sejour? Hi emily – or others who might have answers! we also have an appointment in june but now im worried it will be an inqueiry appointment. what i figured we would do is the same thing we are doing for pacs and what i did for the bank, is get an attestation d’hebergement from the family i work for and hoped that would be enough. Hi Emily! The official visa website for France. So, if you're going to join your spouse, who is already living in France, what they want is proof that s/he is legal in France (i.e. Thank you for the helps ! Google's free service instantly translates words, phrases, and web pages between English and over 100 other languages. Am I right to apply for a long-stay visitor visa (from Germany) to enter? The list of documents the prefecture sends after you book your appointment is more arcane, while the government site simply asks for the following documents: You’ll need to add both your names to the EDF bill, lease statement, internet bill, as well as possibly open a joint bank account. Got rejected because they insisted we needed a joint bank account (never did this, turned out not to be an issue in Paris). She had some minor questions about visa issues but seemed supremely in command of what she needed to do. Thanks so much for this article ! A little cheeriness goes a long way in fighting the stress of the appointment for you and the long workday for the agents. or I can apply as soon as I arrived as we were living together since the beginning (chez her parents and not pacsed yet) You’ll tell them you want to switch to a visa vie privée et familiale and they’ll ask how long you’ve lived with your partner and whether you’re married or PACSed. I understand that he will need a student visa but as his wife (married 18 years) i am assuming that i can accompany him – but – what kind of visa do i have to apply for? Like I noted in my post, I’m not an immigration professional, and it will depend on the person you get at the prefecture. No official announcements have been made, however, so I’ll do my best to keep this post updated with the latest information about this. I provided 1 or 2 invoices from the beginning of the time I was on these as well as the most recent 1 or 2 invoices. Note: Your spouse/partner must come to the appointment as well, so make sure it works with both your schedules. Because I see on the service-public.fr website that for a “titre de sejour de validite superieure d’un an, il faut declarer un changement d’adresse” …my visa is valid Nov 30, 2017 to nov 30, 2018, which is technically one year, not “plus de un an”….So i wonder if technically i do not need to declare an address change and if I can just go to the paris prefecture directly? I’m not sure… I’m fairly certain you can switch to VPF from most statuses, but I’m no professional so you might want to consult someone else on that. Do you think it is possible? i am an au-pair and the family i work for graciously lets him live in my flat because he was living with his grandparents in the suburbs. Basically you have to have a valid residency in France to get PACSed, and have to be able to prove a year of vie commune (communal living) in order to ask for the carte de séjour vie privée et familiale. We brought as much of the documentation as we could at this first meeting. My takeaways were: This can be done via email (pacs.scec@diplomatie.gouv.fr): read more here. Hello ! My Question is, I may be out of the country when the SMS arrives, is it possible to nominate someone to collect it on my behalf? Applied in Nanterre (read: hell on earth) for the VPF in May 2017. I arrived here in France September 2016 to do my Master’s degree and I lived with my French boyfriend ever since, so basically we have more than a year now of living together. What was your experience like for the renewal? We’ve been living together since she arrived in France and we got pacsed on june. At that moment I declared that we were pacs, but since i was asking for a student renewal, the agent told me it was not relevant. Unfortunately I don’t- the prefecture is notorious for not actually giving people information, so it’s mainly stuff I’ve learned either via my own experiences or those of my friends/acquaintances. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Also: open to suggestions on how to improve and adapt conversationally in French. I’m sure it’ll be fine if you just go to get it when you’re back in France! My situation for a cds vie privee is a bit funny. should I just come back on a turist visa to apply for it here? We tried to ask for carte de sejour but didn’t have proof of living together for 1 year yet. I just wanted to add that I tried to call to make my appointment but was asked to bring all of my prepared documents to le centre de reception estranger just to make the appointment. Une étudiante africaine entrée en France en 1996 et ayant eu 3 enfants peut elle demander un titre de sejour vie privée et familiale? i started on a student visa instead and hope to transition this summer. If what I read is correct, she will have to go back to her country for at least 90 days before being able to come back here and she will also have to hold a “long stay visa” before being able to apply for the “vie privée vie familiale”. my last absence took 6 month before my final arrival in France because i had to wait for my semester in France (a language course) to begin. Bonjour, Avec ma compagne de nationalité étrangère, nous avons fait une demande de titre de séjour vie Privée et Familiale. Finally i got the visa ” vie privee and fam” but nothing mentioned about the “authorization to work” in her visa. ” had to have lived together for a year before you can ask for the card, so you wouldn’t be able to apply until May 2018″ — in that case, if his current resident card expired at May 2018, how to deal with the time gap between old and new card? He also explained that, as an American, I would not be judged as harshly. // how can we live together if she doesn’t have a visa to live together with me in France? Carte de séjour vie privée et familiale : vous avez un enfant français. You would have needed to have documents (bills, bank statements, etc) together during that year- they don’t take photos or train tickets as proof (we brought some and they laughed at us). Thanks so much for all of your help, it has gotten me through! They didn’t seem to care that I had spent about 4 months in the US so we hadn’t technically been living together in France for 12 consecutive months. Be sure that the email contains your full name and mailing address- the last time I sent it I also attached a photocopy of my carte de séjour. Thank you for your detailed reply! Whenever you know you’ll be keeping the original document (i.e. You can definitely apply for new visas from within France- I hope you haven’t been going back to your home country if you’ve needed to renew! Here I share my favorite discoveries, expat and visitor advice, and photo diaries from my travels. I’m from the states, and am recently pacsed, and will have my appointment in October for the VIE PRIVÉE ET familial “visa.” This blog has been a huge source of comfort for me especially because like you said everybody’s process can be extremely different! She gave me the récépissé, which is essentially a receipt that says that your application was accepted by the prefecture and gives you all the rights of your visa until you come back to pick up the physical card (meaning that I now had the right to work). Met French guy, became au pair in Paris, pacsed with same French guy, got shipped back to the us because my student visa expired, now fighting the good fight with French administration to come back. - Tout dossier incomplet le jour du rendez-vous sera refusé. I called the SDAE number 3430 I believe, but it seems like they’ve recently changed it so you can apply for a modification d’état civil on their website https://www.ppoletrangers.interieur.gouv.fr/?motif=modifsej (this is all assuming you live in Paris- if you don’t, you’ll have to search on the website of your local prefecture de police). — EDF and Bouygues (internet) invoices from as far back as my name was on the invoice. Photo used with permission of the author. So don’t fret like I did, just be well prepared, I’m sure you will be fine! for example, I’m applying to master’s programs for the fall (granting me a student visa) and will get pacsed while I am a student then change to vie privee after my studies (like you did). A) thinking about th, Just a sunset over one of my favorite streets in t, En attendant le retour des beaux jours et les bala, A final carousel of the snow photos from last week, On va rester un peu plus longtemps dans Paris enne, Un petit arc-en-ciel pour égayer même ce jour en, Comme un gamin à chaque fois que je vois de la ne, vertically on the right hand side of your carte de séjour, https://lannuaire.service-public.fr/centres-contact/R22520, https://www.ppoletrangers.interieur.gouv.fr/?motif=modifsej, The Best English Speaking Hair Salon in Paris, How to Get PACSed in France (As a Foreigner), Top Questions & Misconceptions About Visas for France, How I Got a Visa Vie Privée et Familiale With a PACS, 7 of the Best Bakeries in Paris (And What to Order at Each).