French healthcare with Carte Vitale
We receive healthcare rights via an E121. Are we exempt from social charges on pensions income?
WITH regard to your comments about social charges exemptions for pension income, for expats who receive their healthcare rights via a European E121 form: in our case, we applied to the French health authorities with an E121 and got a Carte Vitale. We now access healthcare via this rather than the E121. Does the exemption apply? M.H.
Yes. As a UK citizen, you have a right to free healthcare in the UK. The E121 is a certificate which, under EU law, transfers this right from the UK to France and is, ultimately, what makes your belonging to the French healthcare system free to you.
Membership is confirmed through an attestation provided by your regional health insurance office.
The Carte Vitale itself confers no rights and is nothing more than a means of payment by which the government’s element of the cost of medical care and medications can be paid to a health provider directly, not requiring further forms to be completed by them.
Your have access to the French Health system at no cost since this is paid for by the UK under a standardised exchange system which covers the costs to the French government of paying your health providers through the Carte Vitale.
he consequence is that, since your health costs are paid for by the UK, you are not a liability to the French, and it is this that then exempts you from the social charges on your pension income.
