Three Ways to “Live the Dream” in France

Four years ago our family made the leap of a lifetime. We kidnapped our kids from our hectic life in the States and set off for the French countryside.

One of the most common questions that we’ve been asked since is “how did you make this happen?” This is typically preceded by…

“It seems like you guys are living the dream”

….and followed by something akin to…

“We could never do something like that. I can’t even get my whole family to the movie theatre easily, let alone France.”

The short answer is that we made living abroad a top priority for our family.

Albeit inspiring, it didn’t qualify us for living in France. For that, we needed a visa.

Currently, in France, there are a few primary ways for you to obtain a long-stay visa. By “long-stay” I mean more than 90 days, which is the limit on the “Uniform Schengen” short-stay visa, a visa most people unknowingly travel under when they visit France (or any other major EU country).

What is the Uniform Schengen short-stay visa?

“Schengen” is a tiny town in Luxembourg where this visa agreement was first signed in 1985 by France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Today, the agreement has spread throughout Europe and now includes 26 countries including Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

The average American arriving in Europe for business or pleasure operates under the rules of the Uniform Schengen, which means they can stay in Europe up to 90 days out of 180 consecutive days. In other words, your timer begins the first time you enter Europe and over the next six months, you can’t spend more than 90 days on the continent.

The basic requirements of a Uniform Schengen short-stay visa (and every other visa listed below) are as follow:

1. A “valid” passport, which means that it has been issued within the last 10 years and, ideally, is still valid at least six months after you plan on leaving (Example: if you’re flying home on June 1, 2020 then your passport expiration date needs to be after December 1, 2020)
2. Proof that you have a place to stay during your entire time in Europe. Border officials will ask for an address, which rules out sleeping on park benches or on the beach.
3. Enough money to ensure you won’t be begging from the locals. In France, that amount comes to €65 Euros/day if you’ve already booked a hotel or €120 Euros if you’ve not booked a hotel. If you’re being hosted by family, a friend or wealthy young aristocrat looking to branch out and meet new people, your minimum daily requirement drops to €32.50 per day. Personally, I’ve never had to get this deep into things at the border, but I’ve also learned never say never when dealing with border control officers.
4. A return ticket home (or proof of enough money to ensure you can buy the ticket)
5. For working professionals, you need to be able to succinctly provide details as to your profession and the organizations expecting you

Now let’s say, however, that you are looking to stay for more than 90 days in France. Then what? This, my friends, is where you enter the exciting world of French bureaucracy.

I’ll simplify here. There are three easy ways for you to live in France for more than 90 days:

• A student visa
• A long-stay tourist visa
• An entrepreneur visa

Please note, when I claim that these three are the “easy” paths to living in France, I simply mean that getting a visa is entirely feasible. I do not mean, however, that it will be a walk along the promenade. Living in France can be an absolute dream. Working with French bureaucrats, however, is typically a nightmare (and even the French will agree).

To pass through French gatekeepers, you’ll need a mountain of supporting documentation, translated in French, certified, copied, scanned, and possibly tattooed on your back, just in case. The most exciting part is that your list of required docs seems to be variable depending on what your visa authority ate for breakfast that morning.

Here’s a list of the required and strongly recommended documents to bring with you when applying for any three of these visas:

• Your birth certificate (with parent’s names)
• A marriage certificate, if applicable
• The birth certificate of your spouse, if applicable
• The birth certificates of your children, if applicable
• Tax returns for the past two years
• Your 3 most recent pay stubs, if applicable
• Immunization records for each person in your family
• Your most recent bank statement
• Your driver’s license

I dare not promise you that this is a comprehensive list. What I can tell you is to make sure you invest in a thick file organizer, whichever visa adventure you decide to choose:

Option 1: A Student Visa

This is the path our family chose because it seemed the most convenient and was consistent with our life trajectory. I often tell people that I went to business school in France for the visa, and happened to also get an MBA in the end. This is the absolute truth.

Basic requirements of a student visa in France:

• All the required and strongly recommended documents listed above
• You’re over 18 years old
• You’ve chosen your course of studies
• You’ve been accepted by a higher education establishment
• You have proof of lodging for the first 90 days of your stay (note: we made a 90-day booking in order to meet this requirement, then canceled the booking before arriving in France)

Benefits of a student visa in France

• Lower-cost education: The disclaimer on France’s government site is that “fees from higher education establishments vary from a few hundred Euros to over 10,000 Euros per annum for certain private establishments.” The fact that 10,000 Euros per year is considered the socially-accepted ceiling that tells you you’re not in Kansas State University anymore. Note that there are schools, especially up-and-coming business schools that are charging more than 10,000 Euros. If you’re coming for an MBA, expect to pay similar rates to what you’d pay in the States for tuition to a major state-run university. I paid 35,000 Euros for my two-year program at EMLYON, one of the top-ranked programs in France.
• Lodging assistance: Search CAF — Caisse des Allocations Familiales and run the simulator to see if you qualify
• Low-cost health insurance with reimbursements: Again, the official government site warns that health coverage through the student social security system is mandatory for all non-European students under the age of 28. The amount is fixed each year by public decree and in 2016–2017 it was 215 Euros. That’s an annual cost, not a monthly cost mind you. On average, social security reimburses 60% of medical costs. What if you’re over 28, you ask? It costs a bit more, but to give you some perspective, our family of six paid less than 300 Euros a month for similar coverage.
• The ability to work: Unlike other visas that we’ll review, a student visa gives you permission to work 964 hours, which is equivalent to 60% of normal full-time working hours in France.
• Reduced prices: Pay less to get in to museums, restaurants, sporting events, gyms, and most every other place that takes an entrance fee.
• The ability to drive without a French license: This was a big one for our family, especially given that obtaining a French driver’s license can cost you well over a thousand Euros and give you a major inferiority complex.

Student visas are not extendable to partners and children, meaning they cannot automatically receive the same benefits as the student. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not easy to come along for the ride. In the case of our family, I applied for the student visa at the same time as the rest of the family (including my father-in-law) applied for a long-stay tourist visa. Everyone got in just fine.

Option 2: A Long-stay Tourist Visa

Let’s now assume you don’t have the itch to go back to school; that you simply wish to wake up every morning to the sound of church bells chiming and the smell of fresh baguettes baking nearby. The long-stay tourist visa may be just your ticket.

Basic requirements of a long-stay tourist visa:

• All the required and strongly recommended documents listed above
• You want to live in France for longer than 3 months
• You don’t want to work in France
• You have enough money to live without working in France

While there are different types of long-stay tourist visas, I’ll focus on the most common option: the VLS-TS, also known as the “long-stay visa equivalent to residence permit.” It’s important to note that in order to qualify to stay in France long-term, your application process needs to begin before you leave for France.

!! IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not expect to come over on a Uniform Schengen short-stay visa and then simply apply while already in the country. Try it, and you’ll most likely be impolitely told to go home, do not pass Go, and try again !!

The process of obtaining a French long-stay visa can be confusing at times. Like an entry-level admin assistant position, it requires hard work, strong communication skills, and the ability to work well with others, namely French government representatives, without losing your mind.

I won’t attempt to break down the process here, as it would take another 60 pages of your valuable reading time. Instead, I invite you to read the 60+ pages on your own, as expertly written by the Ministry of the Interior.

Option 3: An Entrepreneur Visa

Known as the French Tech Visa, this visa rewards entrepreneurs wanting to start a business in France, join a startup in France, or invest in startups in France. This is the visa that our family has now transitioned to after three years of having a student visa.

Basic requirements of a French Tech Visa:

• All the required and strongly recommended documents listed above
• You want to live the startup life in France
• You have at least €17,981.60 in the bank. This is enough money to live in France in style (minimum-wage style).
• You have an “economically innovative startup project that you plan to develop in France.” To prove this, you need to be selected by one of France’s officially recognized incubators/accelerators which are spread out all over the country. To qualify for the visa, you’ll need an official acceptance letter from one of these groups.
• You have approval from an official French organization known as the Direccte, which sounds like something straight out of The Hunger Games. This is the public organization in France that will attest to your innovative potential and is the golden ticket to your move abroad to France.

Once you have met these requirements, you’ll apply for a long-stay visa marked “Passeport Talent” (Talent Passport) at your nearest French Consulate no earlier than three months before your arrival in France.

Benefits of a French Tech Visa:

• Speed: It’s the fastest track option to getting a multiple-year visa in France. While as a student or tourist you’ll need to make annual trips to the local authorities to renew your visa, a French Tech visa is valid for four years on a renewable basis. If you’ve never dealt with a French visa authority, then just trust me when I say you’ll add years to your life by not having to renew annually.
• Work flexibility: One of the unique benefits with the French Tech visa is that it extends to immediate family members, allowing your spouse to live and work in France. In the case of a student visa, your spouse has to apply for a long-stay tourist visa and promises not to seek employment while in-country.
• Low-cost health insurance with reimbursements: Once you’re accepted by French authorities, you are able to qualify for France’s socialized medical coverage which will cost you a fraction of what you most likely pay in the States, for a whole lot better coverage.

All three of these paths to French living are viable if you’re willing to persevere through French bureaucracy. The trick is approaching the process with the same anticipation and apprehension most people approach a death-defying amusement park ride.

You may not be sure what’s going to happen next, you might get dizzyingly sick at some point along the way, but by the time it's over you’re still glad you did it and are already considering to go at it again.

Interested in learning more about living in France?

I’m in the process of wrapping up my first book, Speedos in the Vending Machine, which highlights some of our favorite lessons learned about living alongside and loving the French.

If you’ve ever dreamed of picking up and moving to Europe, it’s worth following along.

Find out more here.