Moving to France from the US: The Order That Actually Works
By Maxime Roseau, co-founder of EasyFranceNow
Most Americans who write to us about moving to France have already picked the town. Some have picked the apartment. Very few have looked at the order the paperwork has to happen in, and that order decides whether the first year is calm or a scramble. I'm French, I work on these files every week with people coming from the US, and this is the sequence I'd give a friend.
This is general information, not legal advice, and the rules move. Every figure below links to the official page it comes from, so open that page again the week you act on it.
Moving to France from the US starts with the 90-day question
An American can come to France without a visa for short stays. The European Commission's short-stay calculator page states the rule: a maximum of 90 days within any 180-day period, counted back 180 days from each day of your stay. It covers the whole Schengen Area, not France alone, so the week in Italy counts too.
Living here is another matter. France-Visas, the official visa site, says that for any stay in France exceeding 90 days you have to apply in advance for a long-stay visa, and that your nationality does not exempt you. In advance means from the US, before the flight. There is no version of this where you land as a tourist and sort it out at the prefecture.
The 90 days still matter if you plan scouting trips before the move, because those trips come out of the same allowance. To check a plan of trips against the rule, we built a free Schengen 90/180 calculator that counts the days for you.
Pick the visa your life actually fits
Service-public.fr, the French government's information site, says a long-stay visa (type D) lets you live in France for more than three months and up to one year, and that it is most often issued for study, work or family reasons. Your reason for coming decides the category, and the category decides every document after that.
You won't work in France: the visitor visa
This is the route most retirees and people living on savings or a pension use. Service-public's page on the visitor residence card sets three conditions: enough resources for the whole stay, health insurance covering the whole stay, and no work in France, whether as an employee, a trader, a self-employed person or a liberal professional.
The minimum for a single person is €1,477.93 net a month over one year, which the same page turns into €17,735.19 a year. Family allowances don't count. Your own pensions or rental income can, and so can the resources of a family member. Read the figure as a floor the whole year has to reach, not a monthly test you pass once.
The no-work condition is the one people underestimate. If you plan to keep a US remote job, raise it with the consulate before you apply, not after you arrive.
You'll work, study or bring a particular skill
Service-public lists the main cases for the long-stay visa that serves as a residence permit, the VLS-TS: student, salaried worker on a permanent contract, spouse of a French national and the talent card. The talent card is a multi-year permit with several tracks of its own, among them skilled employees, the EU Blue Card, researchers, company founders, innovative projects and direct investment, each with separate conditions. Service-public notes that some of these rules were changed by a decree of October 26, 2026, from October 30, and that its page is being updated, so read it again close to your filing date.
If you hesitate between two categories, MigrantIQ's France visa hub puts the routes side by side. Then confirm the one you choose on France-Visas.
Build the file, then book the appointment
In the US the system has two layers. France-Visas' page for the United States says applications filed in the US are examined by the French Consulate in Washington DC, the only office authorized to decide. Appointments and the handing in of files go through TLScontact centers: ten in the US (Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington) and one in Jamaica. You can book at any of them, wherever you live. TLScontact's own site now also advertises a Philadelphia location for New York and Washington applicants.
Then the timing. France-Visas' US page recommends booking at least one month before departure for a long-stay visa and says no application can be submitted more than six months before departure. The French Embassy in the United States says the same: you can submit up to six months before your departure date. Service-public's general page on long-stay visas, written for every country, still says three months. If you live in the US, the two pages written for the US are the ones to follow. Book early anyway, because appointment waits change with the season.
The online form is not the end of it. The same page says you print the form and bring it, with every supporting document, to the center. You pay twice. TLScontact's fee page for the US lists the long-stay visa fee at €99, charged $118, and €50 ($60) for a student with a Campus France certificate. On top of that comes TLScontact's service fee, "approximately" €220 for a long stay. Fees are fixed in euros but payable only in dollars, at an exchange rate the French administration sets and updates from time to time, so the dollar figure can move. Neither fee is refunded if the visa is refused.
France-Visas builds your document list in its visa assistant once you enter your situation, so start there rather than from a list on a forum. Then check your passport tonight. Service-public says it must be valid at least three months after your visa ends, carry at least two blank pages and be less than ten years old. It's the cheapest problem to fix at home and the most annoying one to discover at the window.
The first three months in France
Validate your visa online
If your visa is a VLS-TS, France-Visas says you must validate it within three months of arrival on ANEF, the online portal of the Digital Administration for Foreigners in France. Service-public adds that you pay a tax at that step, on top of the visa fee. Do it in your first weeks. Nothing is gained by waiting until month three.
Some visas carry a different mention, "residence card to be applied for within 2 months of arrival." With those, France-Visas says you go to the prefecture within two months to get your residence permit.
Find a place to live
Renting is where newcomers from the US lose the most time, mainly because French landlords expect a complete file and a US file doesn't look like one. The law helps here. Service-public says there is a list of authorized documents a landlord may ask a future tenant for, and that the landlord is forbidden to demand others.
An ID is on it, and a foreign passport is accepted. So is your last tax notice, and when part of your income was not taxed in France, the same page accepts the equivalent document from the other country's tax administration. Your US return therefore has its place in the file. For a guarantor, service-public adds that copies must be written in or translated into French, with amounts converted into euros. Apply the same courtesy to your own documents. A landlord who can read your income in euros at a glance has one less reason to pick another file.
Get into the health system
France's universal health coverage is called PUMa. Service-public says you qualify if you work or live in France in a stable and regular way, and both conditions have to be met. Regular means holding a residence document. Stable depends on whether you work: if you do, you are affiliated as soon as your request is accepted; if you don't, you wait three months after arriving before your rights open, and they stay open as long as you live in France at least six months of the year.
Retirees and visitor visa holders are in the second case. Keep your private policy running until you hold written confirmation of your French coverage, not until the three months are up.
Taxes: two countries, one treaty
The US keeps you in its system. The IRS says US citizens are taxed on worldwide income and that the filing rules are generally the same whether you live in the US or abroad. If you live overseas on the regular due date, you get an automatic two-month extension to file, to June 15, although interest runs on any tax not paid by April 15. The foreign earned income exclusion and the foreign tax credit only apply if you file a return.
Then there is the FBAR. The IRS says you must file FinCEN Form 114 when the combined value of your foreign financial accounts exceeded $10,000 at any time during the calendar year. The test is the total across every account you hold, so it is reached sooner than people expect once rent and a deposit sit in a French account.
France has its own test. Impots.gouv.fr says you are tax domiciled in France if any one of these is true: your home (foyer) is here, or if you have none, your main place of stay; you work here, unless the work is incidental; or the center of your economic interests is here. Meet one, and France taxes your income from both French and foreign sources, subject to international tax treaties. When both countries consider you a resident, the same page says the applicable treaty decides which one you are a resident of. France and the US signed theirs on August 31, 1994, and amended it in 2004 and 2009.
The year of the move is the one worth handing to a tax preparer who works with both systems, since part of it falls in each country.
Your US driver's license has a one-year clock
Service-public says a license issued by a non-European country is valid in France for one year from the date you establish your normal residence here, and that exchanging it for a French license is required to keep driving after that. The exchange request also has to be filed within that year, online on the ANTS site. Once your original license reaches the office handling it, you can download a secure filing receipt, valid four months, that lets you drive while you wait, within the period your foreign license is still recognized.
Whether you can exchange at all depends on the state that issued your license. The Interior Ministry's reciprocity list, updated May 1, 2026, names 18 states: Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. Most of them exchange the car license (category B) only. Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire and South Carolina exchange every category, and Connecticut, Florida and Pennsylvania cars and motorcycles. If your license comes from any other state, service-public says you have to pass the French driving test.
A few conditions apply even in those 18 states. The license has to be valid, issued by the state where you lived before moving, and backed by a test you actually passed. It needs an official French translation, apostilled if it is done abroad. A digital license is not exchanged, because the physical card has to be handed in. And the one-year window does not start again when you renew a residence permit or change status: miss it in the first year and a later card does not give you a second chance.
Students are the exception. The same list says holders of a student residence permit can drive on their foreign license for as long as their permit is valid, and cannot exchange it during that time.
A sequence you can pin to the fridge
Count your planned trips against the 90/180 rule.
Choose the visa category that matches what you will actually do in France.
Build the file from the France-Visas assistant, and check your passport dates.
Book a TLScontact appointment at least a month before departure, as France-Visas recommends.
After landing, validate your VLS-TS on ANEF within three months.
Rent with a complete file, your figures shown in euros.
Apply for PUMa when you qualify, and keep private cover until it is confirmed.
Check your state on the reciprocity list, and exchange your license within the first year.
File your US return and FBAR every year, and a French return once you are resident.
None of these steps is hard on its own. What catches people out is doing them in the wrong order, or finding out about a deadline after it has passed. If you want each stage in detail, with the documents and current figures, our full guide on how to move to France from the US takes it one step at a time on EasyFranceNow.
This article is general guidance, not legal or tax advice. Visa decisions belong to the French consulate, and fees, thresholds and deadlines change. Check the official pages linked above before you act.
Sources
European Commission, Short-stay calculator: https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/schengen/border-crossing/short-stay-calculator_en
France-Visas, Long-stay visa: https://france-visas.gouv.fr/en/visa-de-long-sejour
France-Visas, United States of America: https://france-visas.gouv.fr/en/etats-unis-d-amerique
French Embassy in the United States, Applying for a visa (updated March 9, 2026): https://us.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/applying-for-a-visa
TLScontact United States, Visa application fees: https://visas-fr.tlscontact.com/en-us/country/us/vac/usNYC2fr/application-fees
Service-public.fr, Visa de long séjour (F16162, checked by service-public on October 9, 2026): https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F16162
Service-public.fr, Carte de séjour temporaire « visiteur » (F302, June 1, 2026): https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F302
Service-public.fr, Carte de séjour pluriannuelle « talent » (F16922, June 1, 2026): https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F16922
Service-public.fr, Justificatifs pour louer un logement (F1169, April 10, 2025): https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1169
Service-public.fr, Protection universelle maladie (F34308, May 13, 2026): https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F34308
Service-public.fr, Échange de permis de conduire étranger (F1460, June 1, 2026): https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F1460
Ministère de l'Intérieur, list of licenses that can be exchanged, May 1, 2026: https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/files/files/liste-reciprocite-hors-ue-et-eee-au-1er-mai-2026.pdf
IRS, U.S. citizens and resident aliens abroad: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/us-citizens-and-resident-aliens-abroad
IRS, Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR): https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/report-of-foreign-bank-and-financial-accounts-fbar
impots.gouv.fr, Résident de France: https://www.impots.gouv.fr/resident-de-france
impots.gouv.fr, France-US tax convention of August 31, 1994 (consolidated version): https://www.impots.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/media/10_conventions/etats-unis/etats-unis_convention-avec-les-etats-unis-impot-sur-le-revenu-impot-sur-la-fortune_fd_1835.pdf
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