French Interior Minister reveals ‘big plans’ to reduce residency card delays
Plan involves recruiting 500 temporary staff to speed up processing time and especially for renewals
Interior Minister, Laurent Nuñez, also hopes to extend the validity period of biometric data for residency card holders
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France’s Interior Minister has revealed plans to recruit hundreds of additional staff to speed up processing times for residency cards at prefectures.
Laurent Nuñez said he has presented the prime minister with “big plans” to reinforce staffing levels by hiring 500 temporary staff on a full-time equivalent basis at prefectures.
“This will increase the resources allocated to this task by 20%,” he said during an interview with Ouest France.
The plans particularly focus on reducing delays on residency card renewals (ie. for people who have already had at least one previous residency card and/or VLS-TS), which can currently take several months to process.
Mr Nuñez also hopes to fix technical issues with the online visa portal which has been causing difficulties for some people who risk “losing their jobs when their residence permits are not renewed on time.”
Charly Salkazanov, a specialist in immigration law, recently cited understaffing and issues with online procedures as key reasons for applicants being left without valid cards.
In the past, it was easier, he said – you got an appointment at the prefecture, and made your case. “Now it is just online, so you file your case, and maybe six months, eight months, sometimes more, you get an answer,” he said in an interview with The Connexion.
Another of Mr Nuñez’s proposed measures seeks to extend the validity period of biometric data (fingerprints) from five to ten years, and holders of long-term residence permits may no longer be required to report a change of address.
An increasing number of renewals
In 2025, residency card renewals were up 7.6%, with the rise mostly driven by an increase in cards issued for family-related reasons.
The number of Britons renewing cards increased from 5,230 in 2024 to 7,221 in 2025 (+38%), a figure set to rise substantially this year as around 40,000 five-year Brexit Withdrawal Agreement (WA) residency cards come up for renewal.
Many Connexion readers report smooth experiences renewing these WA cards due to a standardised process for prefectures, though some problems and confusion do remain.
Among areas where readers report difficulties are Indre-et-Loire, where there is no online process, and Oise, where one exists but a reader reported malfunctions.
Americans on the other hand were once again one of the biggest recipients of first residency cards last year, up 14.3% on 2024, and compared to 7,870 first residency cards issued to Britons, which was down 11.6% on 2024.
