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The key documents for British people in France after Brexit

Since January 2021, some British nationals in France have an unusual status, so proving your rights may require certain key documents.

Published: 7 December 2020 14:55 CET
Updated: 29 September 2021 11:02 CEST

The key documents for British people in France after Brexit

Make sure you have the correct documentation. Photo: AFP

British citizens who were resident in France before December 31st 2020 now have an unusual status – no longer EU citizens, but through the provisions of the Withdrawal Agreement afforded many of the same rights as EU or Schengen zone passport-holders.

While this makes perfect sense to British people who live here – after all, it only guarantees (some of) the rights they had when they moved – it is likely to be confusing for others.

Note – this article refers only to Brits who were living in France before December 31st 2020. Anyone who arrives after that needs to follow post-Brexit rules on visas and work permits – full details HERE, while tourists and visitors are subject to different travel rules, full details HERE.

We have already seen some cases of British people wrongly being told they immediately need extra paperwork.

So here are the helpful documents to cut out and keep if you ever need to prove your rights.

Also, a plea – please be patient with French officials who make mistakes. Even those of us who write about it for a living find Brexit pretty confusing and although employees in local government should have been briefed, it is not impossible that some will misunderstand how the rules should apply to Brits.

While we fully appreciate that it’s frustrating and worrying being told your status is not official – and that Brexit itself has been five long years of fear and stress for British people abroad – one thing we can all agree on is that Brexit is not the fault of the employee of the CPAM office/the local gendarme/the lady at the préfecture.

Residency

This is the big one – you need to be sure that you are officially a resident of the country you live in.

What are your rights? If you moved to France before December 31st 2020 and took up legal residency here then you are covered by the Withdrawal Agreement, which gives you the right to stay in France. You do, however, have to apply for a carte de séjour residency card.

You can read the full text of the Withdrawal Agreement (in English) HERE.

There are two key dates here – you have to make your application by September 30th 2021 and must be in possession of the card by January 1st 2022. Until then, there is no legal requirement for you to have a carte de séjour to prove your status as a resident.

How do you prove it? This is the document most likely to be asked for, as it’s highly unusual for non EU residents not have any kind of residency permit or visa.

There are two things you can use here. Once you have made your application for a carte de séjour on the online portal you receive an automated email acknowledging your application. This is an official document and can be used as proof of your residency status until the card arrives, particularly if you are travelling. So we would suggest printing out the email and tucking it into your passport.

The other thing you can use is the French government decree, which lays out all of the rules of applying for residency. Published in the Journal Officiel, this document (in French) lays out in Chapter III, article 5 that until the deadline, British people only need a passport to be legally resident. Find the decree HERE.

While the deadline to have made the application remains September 30th 2021, the deadline to actually be in possession of the card has been extended until January 1st 2022. This was a fairly last-minute extension – less than a week before the previous deadline of October 1st 2021 – so it’s not impossible that some people will have missed this. If you need to prove the extension, you can find the Decree HERE.

Resources

When applying for residency, if you are not working, studying or seeking work you will need to prove that you have sufficient means not to be a burden on the French state.

What are your rights – the minimum level of resources for British people in France is more generous than the European standard. You can find full details here, but you need to prove that you have more than the guide figure for RSA (the French in-work benefit) which at present is €564.78 a month. Importantly, this is declared per household, so if you are a couple you only need €564.78 in total per month, not €564.78 each.

You also have the right to a case-by-case decision, so if you fall slightly under the threshold but have savings or own your home outright, that would have to be taken into account.

How do you prove it – the provisions around the minimum income level can be found in the Arrêté that the French government published at the end of November. You can find the document HERE, Article 3 concerns the minimum income level.

The right to an individual decision is mentioned in the Decree and the Withdrawal Agreement.

Working

Although with living in France, the Withdrawal Agreement also guarantees that British people can work here.

What are your rights? If you were resident in France before December 31st, 2020 you are entitled to continue working on the same terms as before – whether you stay in your current employment or apply for new jobs.

Employers will not have to complete any of the extra admin tasks that come with non-EU citizens – such as certifying that the job cannot be done by a European – if they employ a British person who is covered by the Withdrawal Agreement.

If you were a registered job-seeker on January 1st you are also entitled to continue to receive benefits while you look for work.

Until January 1st 2022 you will not have to show a residency card to your employer.

How do you prove it? Again, the principle of being allowed to live and work in the EU is laid out in the Withdrawal Agreement, while the detail is in the French decree.

Chapter IV, article 10 of the decree lays out the right to exercise a professional activity of your choice now and in the future.

Healthcare

What are your rights? This is one of the more straightforward aspects – if you are living France you are entitled to healthcare, although you must register with the French health system.

In practice, most people did this already, so there is no change but if you haven’t here is how to apply.

How do you prove it? When it comes to applying for residency, some people will need to prove that they have healthcare. For this, simply being registered in the French system is sufficient, there is no need to have private cover or the top-up insurance policy known in France as a mutuelle.

Proving that you’re in the French healthcare system requires an attestation de droits. This is simple to obtain – go to the Ameli website ameli.fr, log into your account and select attestation de droits from the ‘mes démarches‘ section and you will be provided with a download. The certificate you get will be dated from the day you request it and in most cases lasts a year. This can be used for all official purposes.

Driving

What are your rights? – If you are a resident in France you will have to swap your British licence for a French one, but not necessarily immediately.

After a years-long impasse on this issue a deal was finally agreed between British and French authorities.

If your licence was issued before January 1st, 2021, you can keep driving on your UK licence for now. You only need to swap it for a French one once the licence itself or the photocard expires, whichever comes first.

If your licence was issued after January 1st, 2021 you will need to exchange your licence for a French one within one year of moving to France.

Full details of the deal and how to swap your licence can be found HERE.

How can you prove it? Even before the transition period ended we heard reports of some people being stopped and incorrectly told by gendarmes that their UK licence was no longer valid.

The government-run French Public Services website has been updated with full details of the deal and the new conditions HERE.

The above applies only to British residents in France. Tourists and visitors to France can continue to use their UK licences and do not need an International Drivers’s Permit.

Other useful sources

The French government has a Brexit website in both English and French, with details of the rules for individuals and businesses, although it can take some weeks for information to be updated after new announcements. Find the site at brexit.gouv.fr.

The British government has a section called Living in France on its Brexit page which gives an overview of the rules for British people in France – gov.uk/guidance/living-in-france

The British Embassy in Paris also has an active Facebook page giving details of the latest information – facebook.com/ukinfrance

The above three sites are all government sites, so can be used to show a country’s official position on the rules. The following three have no official status, but do contain useful information to keep you up to date.

Citizens’ rights group France Rights has a lot of information and guides for British people in France – www.francerights.org

Remain in France Together (RIFT) has a similar site with lots of information and bitesize guides, as well as an active Facebook page of the same name – remaininfrance.fr

And don’t forget The Local France! In our Dealing with Brexit section you will find lots of information on residency, healthcare, driving, travel, pensions and pets. We are also happy to answer questions from our members.

Member comments

Anonymous - 22 January 2022 at 13:34 CET

I have just received my Carte de Sejour.
My UK Passport runs until March 2023, but it was obtained in September 2012
Hence 9 and a half years since the passport started is March this year.

Does having the Carte de Sejour mean I can delay getting my new passport, or do I need to renew this March?

Become a Member to leave a comment.

9 things Brits need to know about moving to France since Brexit

Brits who want to move to France now face a radically different process from those who took advantage of EU freedom of movement to make the move before Brexit.

It’s a more complicated process – but it’s still possible and 8,700 UK nationals moved to France in 2023.

Here are some of the big things you need to know before making the move.

1 Visa

The biggest post-Brexit change is that Brits moving to France now require a visa (unless they have dual nationality with an EU country).

The visa must be applied for first, and only when it is granted can you make the move – you cannot come to France and then apply for residency (unless you are covered by the Withdrawal Agreement, more on that below).

There are various different types of visas depending on what you intend to do in France – work, study, retire etc – and many of them contain conditions eg people on a ‘visitor’ visa are not permitted to work in France.

It makes things less flexible as it’s harder to change your plans once you have arrived. It also means that it’s harder to have a ‘half and half’ lifestyle – eg retire from your day job and move to France to run a gîte or B&B.

Explained: What type of French visa do you need

The best visa type is undoubtedly the ‘Talent Passport’, so it’s worth checking whether you fit any of the criteria for this visa type.

2 Residency card

Once you have your visa and have moved to France this is very far from being the end of the process.

You will need to apply for a residency card after a certain period (usually three months but different visa types have different rules) and according to your personal situation you may also be required to attend a compulsory medical, language classes and ‘integration’ classes through the French office of immigration and integration (OFII) – more on that here.

3 Health cover

When it comes to health there is some good news – Brits have retained many of their pre-Brexit rights to healthcare.

While you may need to provide proof of private health cover for your visa (depending on the visa type) once you have been resident in France for three months you are entitled to register in the French health system, which covers most of your medical costs.

Full details on how to register HERE.

Brits who are retired and have reached UK pension age also retain their right to an S1 – the status which entitles you to register in the French health system, while the UK continues to pay your medical costs.

4 Remote working

The rise in remote working means that the dream of moving abroad seems much closer for working-age people – since you will be able to work remotely in your native language, maybe even keep your existing job and simply relocate.

While this is possible, you need to do careful research in advance to ensure that work is compliant with your visa and tax situation. Unlike some countries, France does not have a ‘digital nomad visa’ or other visa types aimed at remote workers, in fact the visa rules were written before remote working became widespread, which is why there are some grey areas.

Most lawyers advise getting a working visa (salarié if you are working remotely for a French company as an employee, or auto-entrepreneur for freelancers) and paying social contributions in France. Find full details on visa and tax implications.

You also need to be aware that being a remote working can have an effect on your long-term plans in France – for example if after five years of residence you intend to apply for French citizenship you will need to prove that the ‘centre of your economic activity’ in in France. If all your work is done remotely for foreign companies then this could be a reason to have citizenship refused.

5 Working restrictions

If you want to work in France (remotely or not) you first need to check if there are any restrictions on your profession – certain types of work are ‘regulated professions’ in France, which means you will need specific French qualifications and/or registration within a French guild or professional organisation. The number of professions that are ‘regulated’ is surprisingly wide – taking in everything from chimney sweeping to hairdressing.

The next step is whether your qualifications will be recognised in France – EU countries generally recognise most of each other’s qualifications apart from in certain specific areas like medicine, but this is no longer the case for qualifications gained in the UK – more details here.

There are also certain jobs that are restricted to French citizens only, while others – including working in the public sector in positions including being a librarian – are limited to EU citizens only.

In visa terms, the simplest way for working-age people to come to France is as a salarié (employee) but to do this you will need a job already in place and your new employers will have to act as sponsors for your visa and may also be required to get a work permit for you. All of which means that Brits are less attractive as employees than EU citizens, which makes getting a job harder.

The other option is to be self-employed as either a freelancer, contractor or running a small business – this is a more complicated visa to get, requiring a detailed business plan. Once in France you need to register yourself as a small business/self-employed and register with Urssaf.

6 Tax

If you are living in France, then you will need to do the annual income tax declaration – even if all your income comes from abroad and you are retired/not working in France.

Full details on that HERE.

This was in fact the case before Brexit as well but previously there was a little more flexibility for people who split their time between France and the UK. These days if you want to be here for the majority of the year then you will need a visa/residency card, which removes much of the ambiguity about who is a ‘resident’.

The main post-Brexit difference is the rate at which prélèvements sociaux (social charges, similar to National Insurance) are charged on overseas income (eg earnings from work in the UK or income from renting out a UK property).

The rate is 7.5 percent for income from an EU country and 17.2 percent for income from a non-EU country – after Brexit, UK income switched to the non-EU rate.

7 Driving licence

Foreigners who make France their home will sooner or later need to swap their driving licence for a French one. This too was the case even before Brexit, but many UK or NI licence holders never got round to making the switch, and there wasn’t a lot of enforcement of the rule.

This has now been tightened up and UK/NI licence holders will need to swap their licences for a French one – the exact details of when you make the swap are slightly different for Brits than from other non-EU nationals due to a specific UK-France deal. Find full details HERE.

If you want to bring a car with you from the UK to France, you will also need to re-register it as French – full details HERE.

8 Banks

Most people moving to France will want to set up a French bank account for daily life, but you may also need a UK account, especially if you are a pensioner as some pensions will only pay into a UK account.

However since Brexit some of the biggest UK high street banks have been closing the accounts of their customers who do not live in the UK.

Alternatives include specific ‘expat’ accounts or internet banks – more details HERE.

9 The Brexit Withdrawal Agreement

It’s worth mentioning the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement even though most of it will not apply to newcomers. In brief, the citizens’ rights part of the Withdrawal Agreement covered people who moved to France prior to December 31st 2020, and intended to give them an easy way to remain in France and retain at least some of their pre-Brexit rights.

In general it does not apply to newcomers unless you are a close family member of someone who is covered by the Withdrawal Agreement – either a spouse or civil partner (in which case you must have married/ registered your partnership prior to December 31st 2020) or child. These people have a different path to residency, and can arrive in France and then request residency via the local préfecture of the family member who is already living here.

It’s also worth mentioning because of how different it is to the situation for new arrivals. It’s normal to ask Brits already living in France how they found the whole process – but if someone starts to tell you that getting residency is easy, the first question that you need to ask is when they moved here.

Those here prior to 2021 did indeed get an easy process – they had a special website to apply online for (free) residency cards and received straight away either a 5-year or 10-year card. This is a totally difference process to the one for Brits moving to France now.

If you’re asking around you would be better talking to Americans, Canadians or other non-EU nationals since their process is much more similar to that now in place for Brits.

. . . And new deals/visas/residency permits for Brits

Every now and again UK media will report which great excitement the possibility of a ‘new deal’ for Brits that will make moving to France, or buying a second home here, easier.

These reports should all be taken with a pinch of salt – there are currently no negotiations underway that would affect the process of Brits moving to France, and even if something is proposed in the near future it will likely take years to come into effect because these types of international agreements usually happen slowly.

A proposal for a ‘youth mobility scheme’ from the EU was rejected out of hand by British politicians before it had even been formally offered.

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