Visa information

France offers two named routes in the 2026 guide: the Long-Stay Visitor visa (VLS-TS) for non-working residents, and the Talent Passport for skilled and creative workers — EU citizens settle freely, and there is no digital nomad visa. The guide scores France just 48/100 for visa and bureaucracy, the joint trade-off against its 90/100 healthcare, so expect the paperwork stage to be measured in weeks on every plan tier.

The routes the guide names

Long-Stay Visitor visa (VLS-TS) — for non-working residents. It is also the guide's standard retirement route (see the Retirement page).

Talent Passport — for skilled and creative workers; the schemes list adds its duration: a 4-year permit. The Luxury timeline's “investor and talent options” wording points back to this route — the guide names no separate investor visa.

EU citizens settle freely — no permit route is described for them.

And a named absence: there is no nomad visa — see the remote-work section below.

Remote work: no nomad visa — what the sources actually say

The guide's remote-work line is explicit: “No nomad visa; Long-Stay Visitor visa allows residence but not French-sourced work.” The site data carries the identical line. Two limits follow from that wording, and only those are claimed here: France offers no dedicated nomad route in these sources, and the visitor visa is a non-working residence route — the guide does not spell out a remote-work-for-foreign-employers test, an income threshold, or a salary floor for either route, so none is stated here.

At the guide's exchange rate of $1 ≈ €0.86, any dollar figure you are quoted converts at roughly that rate for planning.

What the paperwork costs — plan budgets, not government fees

The guide does not list individual government visa fees. What it gives is a bundled “Visa, permits & translations” budget line in each move plan, described as covering government fees, apostilles and translations (the Luxury tier adds an immigration lawyer), and those lines are the only sourced cost figures for the application itself:

• $950 — Affordable plan (you file yourself)
• $1,400 — Mid-range and Retirement plans
• $3,350 — Luxury plan

The Retirement plan carries one further, separate line: $2,600 for “Retirement visa, lawyer & pension certification”, covering an immigration lawyer, apostilled pension letters, medicals and translations.

Application steps and timelines, by tier

The guide builds the application into each plan's timeline rather than printing a single step list. The common sequence across the plans and checklists is:

• Choose the route first and print its requirements; the Affordable checklist starts with “Visa route chosen and requirements printed.”
• Gather and legalise documents — apostilles and translations are named in every tier; the Retirement paperwork stage adds pension or income letters certified and apostilled, a police certificate, a medical, and birth and marriage certificates translated.
• Check your passport — the Affordable checklist requires a passport valid 18+ months.
• Arrange health insurance before you file (see the Hospitals page for the guide's first-year insurance budgets).
• File — yourself on the Affordable tier, or with a lawyer or agent on the Mid-range, Luxury and Retirement tiers.

Paperwork-stage durations in the guide: ~10 weeks filing yourself (Affordable), ~8 weeks with a lawyer or agent filing (Mid-range), ~6 weeks with a lawyer filing everything (Luxury), and ~14 weeks for the Retirement paperwork stage. After the move, the settle stage includes registering your address and opening a bank account.

Renewals and longer stays — the honest limit of the guide

The one duration the guide does give is the Talent Passport's: a 4-year permit, from its schemes list. For the Long-Stay Visitor visa it gives no validity period, no renewal intervals, and no path-to-permanent-residency or citizenship timetable, and the site data adds none. Treat the pathway questions as something to confirm with an immigration lawyer or the consulate before you rely on them — the Retirement plan's lawyer line exists for exactly this kind of question.

Frequently asked questions