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BREXIT

Reader question: Do I have to register British visitors to France with the town hall?

Since Brexit, British travellers have found themselves in the often confusing and complicated world of non-EU travel, which in certain circumstances could involve telling your local town hall in France whenever you have guests visiting from the UK.

Reader question: Do I have to register British visitors to France with the town hall?
Does having Brits to stay really now involve a form? Photo: Jean-Philippe Ksiasek/AFP

Question: I read that if I want to have visitors from the UK staying at my home in France I will need a permission certificate from the Mairie – surely this can’t be right? I need permission even if my own family members are coming to stay with me?

Brexit has made life more complicated for Brits living in France – such as having to apply for the compulsory residency permit – but it has also had an impact on those just visiting.

Visitors need to abide by the 90-day rule and, if wanting to stay longer they will also need a visa. 

But there is also something called an attestation d’accueil which is required for people hosting non-EU visitors in their homes for private or family visits.

The attestation costs €30 and must be obtained in advance of the trip by the host.

But do people hosting British visitors need this?

Non-EU visitors may be asked at the border to provide proof of where they are staying.

If you are staying in tourist accommodation such as a hotel, campsite, Airbnb, gîte or B&B then you can show proof of booking, but if you are staying with friends then you may be asked for an attestation d’acceuil – a certificate obtained by your hosts.

We have published a complete guide to how to get it HERE.

Is there an alternative to getting the certificate?

Because the process of getting the attestation is quite cumbersome – the host must apply in advance at their local mairie and send the form to the guest – there are plenty of people for whom this is impractical or impossible.

In this instance there is an alternative – you can instead provide proof that you can support yourself financially while in France, and if you cannot show either a hotel/gite/Airbnb booking OR an attestation d’acceuil, this means proving that you have at least €120 for every day of your stay in France.

Full details on the financial rates here.

The EU states that proof of means that will be accepted are; cash, travellers cheques, bank statements for the last three months showing the balance of your account at the required level or credit cards (debit cards are not accepted).

Will this really be checked?

Because of the pandemic we haven’t really had a normal tourist season since the end of the Brexit transition period in 2021, so there is still some uncertainty on this.

Anecdotal evidence would suggest that in reality proof of residency or proof of means are rarely asked for, and this tallies with the experiences of other non-EU visitors such as Americans, Canadians and Australians.

However, be aware that French border guards are entirely within their rights to ask for this, and you can be turned back at the border if you cannot provide this information.

Member comments

  1. attestation d’accueil – wow this will be a drag
    It could almost stop folk coming or staying in France if family coming to stay for a few days have to be logged into this system. Also how many visitors will have 30,000€ of travel insurance just for hopping across the channe plus how will a family ‘have to have show that for each memver they have 30€ a day available for living expenses?
    Comments please, or am I misinterpreting the situation?

    1. I think the attestation d’aceuil doesn’t apply if you are a permanent resident in France.🤔

  2. What will happen at passport control when they get here without the form? Hold people at the airport until they can get on a plane back? All you need to show is a confirmation of booking accommodation, then no form needed

    1. Rog, the point of the article & the declaration is that it is about private visits to private homes, if the host is not an EU cit (+ couple of other included countries). The host has to do the form & once approved send it to the visitor before travel. Not about hotels or other accommodation professionals.

      1. I understand no form needed if you have booked accommodation, but you do need all the paperwork if staying with your family. My question is what will happen to people at the airport that haven’t seen this and got the paperwork. Americans, I have read only need to provide an address. Also what happens if you just want to explore in a camper van, can they no longer just tour?

  3. Welcome to life outside the EU. This is what visitors from much of the rest of the world already have to do. The funny thing is, they just get on with it. British exceptionalism again means rather than just accept it, people will rather whine and moan about it until the French give in and exempt them from it. No doubt the old arguments of “the British contribute so much to France” and ” the French need us more than we need them” will be trotted out in conversations around this topic again and again and again and again…ad infinitum.

    This is life outside of the EU. This is what travellers from most third countries have to do already. It is not onerous nor difficult, just another form that needs filling in and a bit of money to pay. If you can afford the holiday chances are you can afford to pay for this.

    1. Your assumption that everyone can afford holidays is wrong, having family living here offers an opportunity otherwise not available.

  4. On the RIFT website this morning (14th May), they say they have contacted the British Embassy, who have confirmed that this is now law, it applies to UK passport holders not resident in France and should be followed. Just how much it will be enforced is, of course, another matter.

  5. Yet another increase in the cost of a trip to France. We usually collect random grandchildren and bring them over for parents to follow on. I assume under 18s will need to be included which will double the cost to a family. I checked Eurotunnel costs last week, Frequent Traveller single tickets now £54.00 but currently suspended from sale. As if we haven’t had enough to test our resolve!

  6. Assuming all foreign resident in France (myself) paperwork and all foreign visitor from England (my family) paperwork has been confirmed by the local mairie as sufficient and correct and Attestation d’Acceuil issued for the family visit to my home, does UK Home Office advice not to travel to France (Covid precautionary) invalidate necessary health + repatriation insurance (30,000 Euros)and consequently invalidate the Attestation d’Acceuil? Will be very helpful if someone knows the answer to this.

  7. I’ve now just completed my first Attestation d’Accueil – it’s new for your local Mairie too.
    BEFORE you go, ensure you’ve got ALL the paperwork required and purchase your timbre fiscale online here – it’s 30€ per visitor: https://timbres.impots.gouv.fr/pages/achat/choixSeries.jsp
    You’ll need to print off the confirmation email you receive once purchased and take this with you along with:
    Latest utility bill
    Latest Avis d’Impôt
    Passport, flight/travel confirmation with dates, Travel/Medical insurance doc that must include full repatriation costs for your guest/s
    Currently there is no electronic system for the Attestion d’Acceuil which means the stamped/signed Attestation along with copies of all the paperwork have got to be posted to your visitor and arrive with them BEFORE they travel as only the original document is acceptable.
    This is going to cause problems for anyone wanting to make a quick, last-minute trip as the way the system currently works does not allow enough time for this.
    Anyway, hope the above helps and if any of you have got any tips/tricks to get round any of this – please do let me know.

  8. I am confused, having spoken to my Mairie today they told me that it is not necessary to have an Attestation D’Accueil!

  9. I have just completed one of these and sent to the proposed visitors and am in the process of doing a second. My mairie is very small and had not heard of the attestation but did some investigation and agreed that it was necessary ( whilst commenting, this is France and we love paper for the sake of it!). My mayor’s secretary has been extremely helpful and supportive, although as others have said it is a faff.

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For members

TRAVEL NEWS

Are France’s loss-making regional airports under threat?

Just a quarter of France's airports break even financially with the rest - the smaller, regional airports - heavily subsidised by the state. But can this situation continue?

Are France's loss-making regional airports under threat?

France last year welcomed 199 million airline passengers – bringing the country numbers back to almost pre-pandemic levels. 

But it was only a handful of French airports that took in the vast majority of those millions – with Paris’ Roissy-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and Orly airports responsible for more than half of the air traffic.

France’s Cour de Comptes counted 73 mainland commercial airports in their 2023 review of the airline sector – but only 15 of those actually break even, the rest rely on subsidies.

Some of these airports are exceedingly small, like Troyes which had just 1,562 passengers in 2023. Others, like Rodez with 31,577 passengers and Castres with 36,454 got a bit more.

Map of airports in France, including both passenger and non-passenger airports (Credit: l’UNION DES AÉROPORTS FRANÇAIS & FRANCOPHONES ASSOCIÉS – UAF & FA)

Limoges was larger, with 264,426 passengers in 2023, but it still paled in comparison to the 10.8 million that passed through the Marseille airport.

The cost of small-to-medium sized airports

The former head of the Air Transport Institute, Jacques Pavaux, authored a 2019 study on public aid to airports, finding that those with less than one million passengers per year are not profitable, noting that only 15 of France’s airports get enough traffic to be profitable.

As for the others, most have been loss-making for years, unable to continue services without significant aid from the state.

“Their chronic deficit has been filled by recurring operating subsidies granted over decades of existence. Almost half of them have never had, and will never have, any chance of reaching the traffic threshold guaranteeing financial balance,” Pavaux wrote. 

The study found that state and local authorities spend around €90 million every year to help keep the small-to-medium sized airports afloat. 

Of the 73 airports listed in the Cour de Comptes report, a little over half (38) counted fewer than 700,000 passengers a year. 

The Cour de Comptes called these “the most economically fragile”, noting that they depend on aid from local authorities to balance operations and carry out the necessary investments.

On top of that, many do not have negotiation options and find themselves competing with neighbouring airports, leaving them forced to take on contracts with low-cost airlines. 

As of 2021, low-cost air traffic represented more than 90 percent of commercial traffic for airports in Dôle, Vatry, Limoges, Bergerac, Nîmes, while it constituted all of the traffic at the Carcassonne, Tours and Béziers airports.

Over-density of airports

Some areas stand out for having a particularly high volume of commercial passenger airports, like Occitanie along the Mediterranean coast in southern France, which is home to nine.

The Cour de Comptes report found that in Occitanie 71.5 percent of regional airport traffic occurred at the Toulouse airport, followed by Montpellier with 14.4 percent.

The other seven – Carcassone, Tarbes, Perpignan, Nîmes, Béziers, Rodez and Castres – combined provided the remaining 14 percent of traffic. 

Valérie Renet, the head of the Occitanie Regional Chamber of Accounts, told France 3 that it is this ‘over-density’ that leads to financial losses, as “operating deficits are covered by public subsidies, that is to say that taxpayers’ money is used to balance the operation of these airports, usually for the benefit of low-cost companies.”

Last year, the airport of Bézers, which is “totally dependent on Ryanair”, received €5.1 million in public money to reach equilibrium, which equates to about €20.69 paid out per passenger, France Bleu reported. 

As for Ryanair, the company benefits from over €30 million in public subsidies – or €16 per passenger – from regional airports in Occitanie alone.

The picture is similar in Brittany, which is home to eight airports, though over 80 percent of traffic is concentrated in Brest, which has a little over one million passengers a year (as of 2018).

The future for small-to-medium sized airports

Building new airports has already become controversial – a proposal for a new airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes near the city of Nantes was the subject of huge protests for years until in 2018 the project was officially abandoned.

But that doesn’t mean that the loss-making existing airports are under threat. 

In terms of what to do with the loss-making airports, Renet focused on the situation in Occitanie. She told France 3 that she was “not advocating for getting rid of the airports. They serve other needs specific to the region, not just commercial flights.”

For example, the Nîmes airport is a national hub for air rescue and civil protection operations, meanwhile ‘pelicandromes’ which are used to fight forest fires, are installed at the Béziers, Carcassone and Perpignan airports. 

Instead, Renet and the Cours de Comptes advocated for streamlining the management of airports to a regional, rather than local level. This would help to avoid overlapping flights – like a Pau-Paris and a Tarbes-Paris that take off around the same time.

The situation may also change in 2027, when the European Commission is due to examine public aid given to airports and whether large subsidies given to airports constitutes unfair competition.

There are also climate concerns, as France moves to invest more train transport to reduce carbon emissions. In 2021, the country passed a law banning domestic air links of less than two hours and 30 minutes when an alternative train option exists.

However, this law has so far only banned three routes: Orly-Bordeaux, Orly-Lyon, and Orly-Nantes.

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