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EXPLAINED: What is France’s ‘working holiday’ visa?

Depending on your age and nationality, you may be entitled to apply for a one-off ‘working holiday’ visa that allows you to live and work in France for a year.

Published: 20 March 2024 14:42 CET
EXPLAINED: What is France’s ‘working holiday’ visa?
(Photo by THOMAS COEX / AFP)

For some people, three months visa-free in France might be enough, while other lucky souls are able to self-finance a longer trip.

But there is another option – a visa that allows you to spend a year seeing France, and earn some cash along the way. It is known as the vacances-travail (working holiday) visa.

Who for?

First things first, this visa is not available to everyone. Brits and Americans, for example, do not qualify.

In fact only citizens of 16 non-European countries may apply for this particular visa: Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, South Korea, Ecuador, Japan, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Mexico, Peru, Russia, Taiwan, Uruguay.

Meanwhile EU citizens don’t require a visa to live or work in France.

READ ALSO EXPLAINED: What type of French visa do you need?

There is also an age limit for applicants. Residents of all but three countries on the list must be between the ages of 18 and 30 at the time of their application for the working holiday visa. Citizens of Argentina, Australia and Canada can apply between the ages of 18 and 35.

How does it work?

The visa is a one-year one and in most circumstances it cannot be extended beyond its one-year limit.

It is not, therefore, suitable for people planning a long-term move to France – it’s intended to help young people spend some time here and pay their own way as they go.

As the name suggests, you can work while on the one-year visa.

In reality, these jobs are mostly short-term, casual or seasonal work – since employers looking to fill a permanent position will be unlikely to take a chance on a short-term visa such as this.

Some of the common jobs that holders of these visas do include bar work, seasonal work on farms, summer tourist employment or working the ski season.

Once in France, it’s up to you to decide how much of your stay will be vacances (holiday) and how much travail (work), there is no set amount of work.

How to get one?

The working holiday visa works like every other visa type.

Applications have to be submitted to the relevant visa centre in their home country, before travelling to France.

However Australian, Canadian and Colombian nationals living overseas can apply via the French consular service in their country of residence.

You need to wait until the visa arrives before travelling to France, and it cannot be linked to any other visa type. In most circumstances you would not be able to stay in France for longer than a year, or switch to another visa type – although exceptions can be made for force majeure (eg illness or other circumstances outside your control).

Find more details here.

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VISAS

Ask the expert: What are the French immigration laws for ‘pacsé’ couples?

The French civil partnership known as Pacs is an alternative to marriage - but the situation is complicated if you're hoping to get a French visa or residency permit through being pacsé with a French or other EU national, as immigration lawyer Paul Nicolaÿ explains.

Published: 2 May 2024 11:59 CEST
Ask the expert: What are the French immigration laws for 'pacsé' couples?

In a 2018 judgement, the Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest administrative Court, put an end to a long-running controversy as to whether or not an individual, signatory of a civil partnership under French law (Pacs) with a European citizen could be considered as a family member of the latter and therefore benefit from favourable EU regulations on immigration.

One of the core principles of the European Union has always been to facilitate the movement of European citizens within the territories of the Member States. And obviously, expatriation is a much more attractive option if family members are allowed to remain united without time limit and with rights equivalent to those of local citizens.

These assumptions form the basis of the European directive 2004/38/EC of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States.

This regulation gives a precise definition of a “family member” that includes the spouse, the descendant, the ascendant in a state of dependance, and also “the partner with whom the Union citizen has contracted a registered partnership, on the basis of the legislation of a Member State, if the legislation of the host Member State treats registered partnerships as equivalent to marriage and in accordance with the conditions laid down in the relevant legislation of the host Member State”.

In other words, if a civil partnership, implemented by an EU Member State such as France, confers on its signatories the same status and the same rights and obligations as a marriage contracted in the same country, then civil partners must be considered as spouses under the EU aforementioned directive, and therefore benefit from the right to move and reside freely within the EU.

Quite logically, the issue was raised concerning the French civil partnership implemented in 1999 and called Partenariat civil de solidarité (Pacs).

After all, Pacs and marriage have in common the same obligation of common life, a commitment to mutual material support and the same consequences on taxes. In the meantime, unlike marriage, Pacs contracts have little to no effect on parentage, nationality, property, and inheritance and are much easier to rescind.

READ ALSO What are the differences between Pacs and marriage?

The first answer given to that question by the French legislative power in 2006 was that Pacs and marriage were not equivalent.

In the following years however, several administrative Courts have ruled otherwise, in contradiction with French national law, and considered that the most important aspects of a Pacs contract make it roughly similar to a civil marriage.

The final word belonged to the Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest administrative Court, which in 2018 overturned this position and definitely ruled that, due to the essential differences between Pacs and marriage, only married spouses are considered family members under EU law.

In practical terms, the main outcome of this legal controversy is that non European nationals cannot apply for a French visa or residence card as family members of an EU citizen, simply due to the fact that they signed a Pacs contract with an EU national.

Of course, other solutions exist for them but, undoubtedly, they do not benefit from EU law and remain under a much less favourable status than spouses of EU citizens residing in France.

READ ALSO What type of French visa do I need?

Their main option is to apply for a residence card under the status vie privée et familiale (private and family life), but in this case préfectures require the proof of a stable and continuous common life of at least one year.

If you find yourself in this situation, be careful to submit your application file through the appropriate procedure. Any confusion, even due to the préfecture itself, could induce frustrating delays and put you in a precarious situation.

Paul Nicolaÿ is a French lawyer based near Paris and specialising in French immigration and nationality law – find his website here.

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