Smartphone version of carte Vitale available

A digital version of France’s health card, the carte Vitale, provided via a smartphone app, became widely available in 2025.

The set-up has been trialled in several regions and follows the growing digitisation of services in France in recent years, including tax declarations, fine payments, and applications for benefits.

It works using a phone app called carte Vitale. However, it has to be operational in your département and, if you use it in a pharmacy or at the doctors, they must have updated their equipment to take it.

So, for the time being, it is recommended you always keep your physical card with you as well. In theory, however, benefits of the system include not having to regularly ‘update’ the card at pharmacies, as people do with physical cards.

Departments where it is operational are listed here under déploiement géographique.

How can I set up a digital carte Vitale?

You can download the app to your phone using the Play Store or Apple Store. To complete installation, participants submit photos of their physical carte Vitale and proof of identity.

They also need to provide an identity photo – they can take this themselves on their phones – and to create a six-digit password code so as to be able to open the application for future use.

How does it work?

Users open the app with their established six-digit password code, tap the Flux button, then place their phone on the digital reader provided by the health professional.

Once connected, the app will allow access to all relevant information about the person’s healthcare reimbursements and will function in the same way as a physical card to permit transfer of information to the Cpam for reimbursement. People will also be able to look at their history of health expenses.

Participants can also give permission for another user to have access to their digital card for 30 days. For example, a parent with a child registered on their carte Vitale could allow another carer access in order for the carer to be able to take the child to a medical appointment.

Where can I use the digital carte Vitale?

When the app is installed and the participant has provided all necessary identifying information, they can use the digital carte Vitale with participating healthcare professionals such as GPs, dentists, and pharmacists.

Who can access data via a digital carte Vitale?

As with data collected through using the physical carte Vitale system, data from the app will be stored by the Caisse nationale d’assurance maladie (Cnam). This includes photos and identity documents used to set up the app.

The Cnam (the national umbrella body for the Cpams) holds this data securely, as it does with the physical cards, to help fight against carte Vitale fraud. Fraudulent use of cartes Vitale is said to be more common with older physical cards which do not feature ID photos (and are still valid until the holder applies to replace them because of loss or theft etc).

The national state health body Assurance Maladie says security is guaranteed also by the need for two authentication factors to sign in, including the personal code. The only data held on the app itself is the name, sex, whether the main card holder or their dependent, and the state health insurance body the person is registered with.

Is this the same as France Identité?

No, France Identité is another app that can at present only be used by French nationals. This app, which as the name suggests can be used to prove identity, is also able to store French driving licence details – and in the course of 2025, it has been stated, it will be possible to also store details of a person’s carte Vitale.

In practice, it will therefore be another form of ‘digital carte Vitale’, although it will not have as many functions as the dedicated app. There are also plans to open up France Identité to non-French nationals by allowing a titre de séjour to be permitted as a required ID option, but no date has been set for this.