What is the difference between a visa and a residency card?
Exploring the distinctions and processes for visas and residency cards for staying in the country
People with Brexit residency cards (pictured) need to show them at the French border
Hayk_Shalunts / Shutterstock / Church of England, Diocese of Europe
Reader question: What is the difference between a visa and a residency card?
A visa is an authorisation to come and go from, and to stay on French territory, and it is valid for a stated period, from three months to one year.
The visa is granted by the French consular authorities and is proved with a sticker placed in your passport. It has to be applied for in your home country before you travel to France in order to stay for a settled period.
Many countries (UK, US, Australia…) have a waiver from needing any visa (called une dispense de visa) if they are staying no more than 90 days in any 180-day period in the EU’s Schengen area and have a valid passport.
However, foreign nationals of countries that do not have this need a visa, even to come for a short trip, called un visa de court séjour Schengen. The latter allows for a stay in France and the other Schengen area countries for up to three months’ maximum.
Read more: Cost of short-stay visa to visit Schengen area to rise from June, 2024
How to apply for a visa or residency card
If you have a visa waiver but wish to come for more than three months, you will need to apply for a visa first on the website belonging to the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, which is in charge of the network of foreign consulates.
A residency card is used to prolong a stay in France further once you are in the country, and it is applied for, if appropriate, depending on the card, either via the Direction Générale des étrangers en France website (known as Anef) or directly from the prefecture in the area of France where you are living.
Note that if you come to France on a ‘temporary long-stay visa’ it is not possible to apply for a residency card; the same applies, for example, to a visa vacances-travail, which is also for one year maximum.
Read more: Long-stay visa in France: when does an obligatory medical apply?
Otherwise, visas which can be extended by a card are divided into those requiring you to apply for a card within the first two months after arrival, or those said to be valant titre de séjour (VLS-TS), which must be ‘validated’ on the above website within the first three months, and which then makes them ‘equivalent’ to a first residency card during your first year in France.
In the latter case, to stay longer, you must apply for a residency card before the VLS-TS expires.
A residency card, as it sounds, is a physical card, separate from your passport.
Once issued, it takes that place of a visa, as, within its validity period, it proves your right to reside in France. Note that some people, such as Britons who lives in France before Brexit, have a residency card without ever having had to apply for a visa initially.
