Getting your ducks in a row
Many people moved to France at the end of 2020 in order to beat the deadline of the end of the transition period. If you're one of these, there are a number of ducks that needed to be put in a row before the end of December in order to be covered by the Withdrawal Agreement. If your ducks are not properly lined up you may find yourself inadvertently without residence rights when you come to apply for your permit to live here.
This page forms a kind of checklist, so that when you make your application for a residence status and card you have the best chance of succeeding. This is important because if your application isn't successful, you don't get a second crack at it; you would have to go through the appeal process.
Being legally resident before 31 December 2020
Why is it so important that you can show you were legally resident before 31 December 2020? Simply because this date marked the end of the transition period, and from 1 January 2021 everything changed.
During the transition period, you retained your right to free movement within the EU, and so you had the right - if you met certain conditions (see below) - to move from the UK or to move as a British national from another EU country to France without applying for a visa to do so. From 1 January 2021 it is still possible for a UK national to move to France ... but you must do so as a third country national, under French national immigration rules and under much more onerous conditions. See this page to understand more about this: Moving to France after transition.
If you were legally resident in France on 31 December 2020, you will be covered by the Withdrawal Agreement which will maintain your right of residence in France, your right to work in France along with a number of associated rights, and your social security and health care rights. You will retain all of these rights for your lifetime, as long as you remain resident in France.
If you don't become legally resident in France until 1 January 2021 or later, you will not be covered by the Withdrawal Agreement.
During the transition period, you retained your right to free movement within the EU, and so you had the right - if you met certain conditions (see below) - to move from the UK or to move as a British national from another EU country to France without applying for a visa to do so. From 1 January 2021 it is still possible for a UK national to move to France ... but you must do so as a third country national, under French national immigration rules and under much more onerous conditions. See this page to understand more about this: Moving to France after transition.
If you were legally resident in France on 31 December 2020, you will be covered by the Withdrawal Agreement which will maintain your right of residence in France, your right to work in France along with a number of associated rights, and your social security and health care rights. You will retain all of these rights for your lifetime, as long as you remain resident in France.
If you don't become legally resident in France until 1 January 2021 or later, you will not be covered by the Withdrawal Agreement.
Being legally resident in France
Living in France is more than just having a foot on the soil. Whereas in the pre-Brexit era and because France - unlike other EU27 countries - doesn't currently require EU citizens to register for residence it was relatively easy to 'get away' with things, those times are changing. After the transition period ONLY those living legally in France will be covered by the Withdrawal Agreement, and everyone will have to apply for a new status and new card. In future checks will be made on entry into and exit from the Schengen zone, and those staying more than 90 days without either proof of residence rights or a visa will be easily identified. Nobody will be able to stay 'under the radar'.
Applications for a residence status and card under the Withdrawal Agreement from those arriving in the last few weeks before the end of transition are likely to be scrutinised especially carefully by your préfecture, as they will want to establish that you have genuinely moved your life and your centre of interests to France and are not simply looking, for example, for a way to stay longer in your second home here, while retaining your main residence in the UK.
To give yourself the best chance of making a successful application for residence, you'll need to be prepared to do some background reading and to go through the checklist on this page.
Applications for a residence status and card under the Withdrawal Agreement from those arriving in the last few weeks before the end of transition are likely to be scrutinised especially carefully by your préfecture, as they will want to establish that you have genuinely moved your life and your centre of interests to France and are not simply looking, for example, for a way to stay longer in your second home here, while retaining your main residence in the UK.
To give yourself the best chance of making a successful application for residence, you'll need to be prepared to do some background reading and to go through the checklist on this page.
WORK YOUR WAY THROUGH THIS PAGE TO MAKE SURE YOU WERE
LEGALLY RESIDENT BY 31 DECEMBER 2020
THEN FOLLOW THE LINKS TO FIND MORE DETAILED INFORMATION
LEGALLY RESIDENT BY 31 DECEMBER 2020
THEN FOLLOW THE LINKS TO FIND MORE DETAILED INFORMATION
1. Did you meet the conditions to be legally exercising your free movement rights in France on 31 December 2020?
Under EU rules you have to meet certain conditions during your first 5 years in another EU state in order to be considered legally resident. The Withdrawal Agreement continues these same conditions for those who are covered under it - so you will first of all need to make sure that you fall into one of these groups:
- a worker: you are employed by an individual or a company and have a contract of employment.
- a self employed person: you run a business or small enterprise on any of the fiscal regimes, including as a microentrepreneur.
- a self sufficient person: you live on your own resources, whether pension, investment or rental income or other.
- a student: you're undertaking a recognised course of study or are a stagiaire.
- a family member: spouse, registered or durable partner, or dependent ascendant or descendent of an EU citizen who meets one of the conditions above.
- a jobseeker: if you are a bona fide jobseeker, registered with Pôle Emploi, you will qualify for a limited right to reside.
You will only be regarded as legally resident in France if you spend at least 6 months per year here during your first 5 years. The calendar starts rolling on the day you arrive. There are some exceptions for specific circumstances (see here for more information) but if you don't plan to live in France for at least 183 days a year you should not apply for a residence status under the Withdrawal Agreement.
If you spend less than 6 months a year in France during your first 5 years here, you will break the continuity of your residence. This means that you will lose your right to be protected by the Withdrawal Agreement, and if you wanted to return to France in future you would have to apply as a third country national under French immigration rules.
If you spend less than 6 months a year in France during your first 5 years here, you will break the continuity of your residence. This means that you will lose your right to be protected by the Withdrawal Agreement, and if you wanted to return to France in future you would have to apply as a third country national under French immigration rules.
Now do some homework - click the three links below:
- Read more about legal residence here.
- And there's more here.
- Find out more about each condition and what proof you'll need for each on this page.
2. Do you have somewhere to live in France?
- If you have moved to a house that you already own and have used as a second home, make sure that the address on your utility bills is the address of your French home itself rather than the address of your previous home in the UK. Ensure as well that you have changed your house insurance from second home coverage to primary resident coverage. Check as well that your taxe d'habitation also shows your address as a permanent residence. You can check this by going to the last section on your taxe d'habitation bill '"REGIME": if you find the letter P it means that your house is registered as a main residence; if you find the letter S it's registered as a secondary residence.
- If you are renting a property, you'll need a formal rental agreement or contract. Long-term rental agreements in France must be either for 1 year (furnished rentals) or 3 years (unfurnished rentals). Gîte or other holiday rental owners are legally permitted to offer a maximum rental agreement of 3 months; the Ministry of the Interior has confirmed that this may be accepted for residence purposes if - and only if - it is backed up with other evidence that you have moved with the intention of being permanently resident, but because such an agreement is for holiday rental purposes only and doesn't carry security of tenure we suggest that you use one as a last resort. If you do intend to apply for residence from a short term rental, you'll need to make sure that you have a written rental agreement that doesn't cite your permanent address as your former UK address. (Note that some gîte owners do offer 6 month rental agreements, but these have no back up in French law).
- If you are staying or living with family or friends, they will need to be willing to sign an attestation d'hébergement so that you can prove your address. They will also have to provide a copy of their passport or other identity documents, plus proof of their address if that doesn't appear on their identity document.
- It goes without saying that the address of your bank account(s) and all other official correspondence addresses should match the address of your residence in France.
3. Do you have health cover in France?
To live legally in France means being affiliated to the French health system, or having equivalent private health insurance.
There are currently 3 ways of accessing the French health system:
After registering with the French health system (usually via your local CPAM office, although there are exceptions) you will receive first of all a temporary social security number, and then a permanent social security number. Once you have a permanent number, you can set up an account with Ameli and download an attestation de droits; this will prove that you have health cover. If you have a temporary number you can contact your local CPAM office and request an attestation. You should receive reimbursement of your health care costs from the date that you first registered, although it may take longer for you to receive your Carte Vitale.
1. Health cover through employment or self-employment
Do you need to take out private health insurance on arrival?
2. Health cover via an S1 form if you have a state pension or certain exportable benefits
Do you need to take out private health insurance on arrival?
3. Health care via an S1/E109 if you are habitually resident in France but working in the UK
5. Private health insurance
There are currently 3 ways of accessing the French health system:
- via employment or self employment;
- via a UK issued S1 form if you’re in receipt of a state pension or certain exportable benefits (the S1/E106) or if your spouse works in the UK but is habitually resident under social security legislation in France (the S1/E109) ; or
- via the French universal health coverage system known as PUMa (Protection Universelle Maladie).
After registering with the French health system (usually via your local CPAM office, although there are exceptions) you will receive first of all a temporary social security number, and then a permanent social security number. Once you have a permanent number, you can set up an account with Ameli and download an attestation de droits; this will prove that you have health cover. If you have a temporary number you can contact your local CPAM office and request an attestation. You should receive reimbursement of your health care costs from the date that you first registered, although it may take longer for you to receive your Carte Vitale.
1. Health cover through employment or self-employment
- Your health care is set up automatically as part of your employment or registration as self-employed, including as a microentrepreneur. You are not required to show separate evidence of health care when applying for your residence permit if you are working as proof of your worker status will automatically show that you have health cover.
Do you need to take out private health insurance on arrival?
- If you came to France to work or to immediately become self-employed you shouldn't need to take out private health insurance.
2. Health cover via an S1 form if you have a state pension or certain exportable benefits
- You should have applied for an S1 from the UK before 31 December 2020:
NHS Overseas Healthcare Services
Telephone: +44 (0)191 218 1999
Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm
Saturday, 9am to 3pm
Your S1 will cover you from the date you moved to France. - In France you must register your S1 at your local CPAM office, either in person or by post. You'll find information about how to do this and what documents are needed here.
- It is important to register your S1 as soon as possible so if you've not yet done so, doing this should be a priority. Your health care costs will be reimbursed (usually - there are local variances) from the date of registration. Ask for proof that you have registered your S1 form - a récépissé - as this can be used for your residence application.
- Make sure that you keep a copy of your S1, as it can be very difficult to obtain a duplicate.
- When you apply for your residence status and card, you will have to show proof that you have health cover. The current advice from the Ministry of the Interior and the Embassy is that you can either
- apply for residence before you receive your social security number, in which case you should upload your S1 as proof of health cover and make a note on the 'observations' part of the form of the date you registered it with CPAM (and also upload your récipissé if you have one); or
- wait until you receive your temporary social security number before applying (you have until 30 June 2021 to apply).
Do you need to take out private health insurance on arrival?
- Your S1 form will allow you to join the French health system without waiting time or delay and provided that you register your S1 immediately, you should not, in most circumstances, need to take out private health insurance in the interim as any health care costs that you incur before receiving your social security number will eventually be reimbursed. You should make sure that you obtain a feuille de soins for each treatment or prescription so that you can claim reimbursement.
- However, bear in mind that health care costs - especially emergency or hospitalisation costs - can be very high here in France - and until you receive your social security number you will need to pay in full and then later apply for reimbursement. Your former EHIC card cannot be used in France now that you are a resident (you can apply for a new one - the EHIC-CRA - when your S1 has been registered; this will cover you for medically necessary treatment in other EU countries). For your peace of mind, and especially if you have ongoing health conditions, you may want to consider taking out full private health cover for a temporary period.
3. Health care via an S1/E109 if you are habitually resident in France but working in the UK
- This may apply if you are are or will be habitually resident in France - for example if your family home is here - but you work and pay National Insurance contributions in the UK. Find out more about what habitual residence means in our guide here.
- You can receive an S1 form to cover you in France, and also to cover your family members in France. Each application is considered on its merits.
- You needed to apply before 31 December 2020. You'll find details of how to apply here.
- Anyone who is living permanently in France (and has done for 3 months) who doesn’t qualify for health cover in any other way may apply to join PUMa under the rubrique 'sans activité professionnelle'.
- This will apply to you if you are retired but don't yet qualify for your UK state pension or for an exportable benefit, or if you don't work for any other reason.
- You'll find details (in French of how to apply for PUMa here and more details about the scheme here. You'll need to provide an S1 refusal letter (available on request from NHS Overseas Healthcare Services)
- Yes. You can't apply to join PUMa until you've lived in France for 3 months, and applications to join PUMa can take several months to process, so it can sometimes be up to a year before you'll be admitted to the French health care system. This means that in order to live legally in France, you must have private health insurance to cover you until you become affiliated to the French health system.
5. Private health insurance
- If you have to take out private health insurance, the legislation stipulates that to be accepted for residence purposes, this must cover everything that is covered by the French health system.
- The application form specifies that the reference for this is Articles L.160-8 and L.160-9 of the Code de la Sécurité Sociale, which you can find on this page.
- Your insurer should already be familiar with this, but here is an unofficial (machine) translation of the 2 relevant articles.
4. Have you told the taxman that you're leaving the UK?
- Be aware that with along with legal residency in France comes, almost all instances, fiscal residency. This means that you will be obliged to declare in France your entire income, wherever it is derived from. This applies even if you work remotely for a UK employer. Contrary to popular belief, if you live here full-time, this is not optional and you CANNOT choose where to pay your income tax!
- Once resident you are required to declare on your annual tax return tax all of your worldwide income, and to declare all bank and savings accounts held abroad. This means you are liable for tax on your UK state or private pension.
- A double taxation treaty is in place between France and the UK so you will not be taxed twice on the same income. You may need to pay UK tax even if you’re non-resident, for example if you have income from renting a property in the UK.
- Before you left the UK, you should have filled in form P85 and sent it to HMRC.
How tax works, in a (very small) nutshell:
- You declare your income once a year, in April/May, for the previous calendar year (January to December).
- As you won't, as a new arrival, have a numéro fiscal or log in details for the tax department's website, your first job will be to register. You can do this either by going in person to your local tax office, or via the French government's tax website impots.gouv.fr: go to "Contact", then "Vous êtes particulier", then "Votre demande concerne l'accès à votre espace particulier", then "Je n'ai pas de numéro fiscal". See the last paragraph of this page.
- Tax declarations have only a short window of time to complete (6 weeks maximum) and are now done exclusively online.
- You must declare all your income, whether from the UK or from France and whether or not you pay tax on it in the UK (you’ll receive a tax credit for income which has to be taxed in the UK, for example government, NHS or local government pensions). You’ll probably pay less tax here in France than you do in the UK as allowances are generous, so don’t worry about this.
- Once you have a French tax reference number, download and complete form France Individual, then send the French version to your tax office and the English version to your last tax office in the UK. This registers you as a French taxpayer and will prevent you being taxed twice.
- You must declare all your foreign bank accounts each year as well as your income. There are penalties for failing to do this.
- If you are applying for a residence status and card in your first year as a French resident you won't be expected to provide tax documents, but for any application made later than this you will.
5. Have you started to collect together the documents you'll need?
- If you've already begun to navigate French bureaucracy you'll know that administration here loves nothing more than mountains of paperwork. There's even a somewhat pejorative name for it: la paperasse.
- You will need to compile a dossier if you're applying for your residence status and card, if you're applying to join PUMa as someone who isn't economically active, when you eventually exchange your driving licence for a French version and for any number of other bureaucratic activities.
- It's a good idea to get into the habit of putting together and keeping updated your personal dossier - one per person, even if you live with a spouse or partner. That way you can always put your hand on the various justificatifs you may need for one purpose or another.
A few key things to enclose in your dossier, depending on your circumstances:
- Proof of identity: photocopies of your passport, carte de séjour, driving licence;
- Proof of residence: house purchase attestation, rental contract, EDF attestation (print from website), fuel bills, income tax statements, taxe d'habitation bills;
- Proof of health cover: attestation from your health provider (print from website), photocopy of carte vitale;
- Proof of employment: contract, bulletins de salaire;
- Proof of self employment: registration with RCS or appropriate chambre, evidence of activity (accounts, bills, day books etc), professional insurance and/or lease, proof of affiliation to social security/health, proof of affiliation to professional organisations, contracts for supply or services etc;
- Proof of income for those who are self-sufficient: pension statements, avis d'imposition, investment statements, bank statements etc.
You can find details of the specific documents you'll need to apply for your residence status and card on our specific pages, starting here. If you have very recently arrived in France we strongly suggest that you don't rush to apply, but rather wait until you have a sufficient number of documents to justify your application. You should upload as many documents as you can, and use the 'observations' box at the end of the form to give full details of your circumstances so that your préfecture has a full picture of your situation.