The Monthly Q&A with Allison Grant Lounes allows you to ask questions and learn about how to move to France. Q&As are free and held monthly on the first Monday of every month via zoom (and the following Monday in case of a holiday).
Register for the next Q&A here: http://www.yourfranceformation.com/qas/
Submit your questions here: https://forms.gle/szjGyttsqTAtzWri9
Some of this month’s questions include:
❓ Can I arrive in France before the official start date of my visa?
❓ If we’re moving to France this September to permanently live, will we pay our 2024 taxes in the US or France since we’ll have lived in France less than 183 days this year?
❓I’m moving to France as the spouse of an EU citizen. Do I have to wait until I get my carte de séjour before being able to work and apply for a Carte Vitale?
❓How difficult is it to get the autoentrepreneur visa and are there income requirements?
❓What is GarantMe?
❓Would Social Security, dividend, and/or annuity payments be taxed in the US or France?
❓If one does not have a French driver’s license, can a Vespa be ridden in the streets without one?
❓If applying for a Long Stay Visitor Visa, what should be included in the Cover Letter for my application, and is it okay if the cover letter is in English?
❓What are the most common reasons for denial of a long-stay visa?
❓ Is it true that the new immigration law permits individuals who are hired by a company to seek their own visa rather than waiting for the company to sponsor them?
❓Will my daughter be able to follow me to France after her college graduation? Until what age can she come to France under my visa?
❓If we are long-term residents of France, how is our estate taxed when we die? Would our assets in the USA be subject to French estate taxes?
❓Can I make my visa appointment for one VFS office and do the interview at a different one that I applied to?
Thinking about moving to France? If you liked this video and want to learn more about how you can pursue your own Franceformation, check out the following resources:
💜 Like this video and subscribe to this channel
💜 Check out the Profiles in Franceformation podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere you get your podcasts, or here: https://yourfranceformation.com/podcast/
💜 Learn about what you need to learn before you’re ready to move to France by downloading the Franceformation Readiness Assessment here: http://yourfranceformation.com/assess…
💜 And if you want to learn more about which French visa type is right for you and how you can make your dream of moving to France a reality, check out my book Foolproof French Visas here: http://www.yourfranceformation.com/bo…. or order the paperback on Amazon.com.
Watch on YouTube 💜 Register for the Next Q&A 💜 Submit Your Questions
[Music] [Music] all right hello and welcome to uh the June 2024 Q&A session on moving to France my name is Alison gret luness I am the owner of the relocation agency your France formation we help people get the right visa and do all the French admin to follow their dream of living in France I’m also the admin of the Americans in France Facebook group I am a newly elected board member of the association of Americans resident overseas which is a nonprofit organization that’s 50 years old based in Paris that advocates for the rights of Americans living outside the US and has done a lot of important advocacy work on banking taxes voting citizenship transmission Etc so the very first thing I want to say is that if you are not registered to vote in the 2024 election and you are a US citizen then um we are going to be hosting some virtual voting q&as to help you with registering but I want to give you the link to the federal voting assistance program in the chat which is where you’re going to fill out a postcard to mail into your election official and this is going to be sent to voter registration for your last physical address in the US so if you’re not yet registered to vote you can go and do that on fvap.gov and again we’re going to be hosting some voter registration Q&A and assistance over the next couple of months to make sure that everybody can request their ballot I also want to make a little bit of an exciting announcement that if you’re familiar with our work and our programs one of our signature programs is called FastTrack to France and it is about all of the preparation that you need to do in order to plan a and execute a successful move to France and we first released it in 2021 and it covers everything from identifying the types of work that you’re going to be doing and your Visa process through how to get your children registered for school how to bring your pets how to ship your belongings Etc our clients have access to it we also sell it individually and we just finished doing a really nice uh upgrade we redid some of the videos that had become a little bit dated uh we added some more uh information and documentation to some of our modules we recorded a webinar with a specialist U Mary Katherine Lumbard who is a therapist and specialist in culture shock working with a lot of the study abroad programs in France so I’m really pleased with how this program came out we just finished working on it today so if you are in the early stages of your move and want some help with planning and organization I would highly recommend checking out our program and I’m going to stick that in the chat for you as well now without further Ado I’m going to go ahead and get started on the questions that were pre-submitted you can submit questions in the Q&A box if you did not have the opportunity to submit your questions in advance the last thing I want to let you know before we get started is our final Q&A of the 2023 2024 season is going to be on Monday July 1st and then I’m going to be taking a break from the Q&A for the month of August and we’ll be back in September I can’t believe we’re almost at the end of the school year I have not yet seen the sun it’s been the rainiest year since I think 1886 is what I saw on Instagram earlier on one of the one of the France social media web pages okay Chris visitor Visa if I have a Visa Delong your visitor as a Canadian am I allowed to arrive in France 1 to two weeks prior to the official start date of the Visa does entering before the Visa start date count towards the 90 at of 180 day Rule and automatically roll over into the Visa or must I exit France and reenter on the official start date of the Visa thank you okay so when you fill out the Visa form you can designate the date that you want your visa to actually start so if you want to arrive in France on July 15th you can put a start date of July 15th on your Visa form that you submit to VFS Global or TLS contact if you’re in the UK and that way you’ll get a Visa start date that corresponds to the date that your accommodation start in France the date that your insurance policy starts in France Etc now if it just so happens that you apply for the Visa you know June 10th thinking you’re going to leave September 10th and then you get your visa back and your plans change and you can leave earlier as a Canadian it’s not going to be an issue to arrive before the Visa start date because you’re allowed to travel into France without a Visa so you’re just coming in on your passport and technically it would be the 90 out of 180 day rule that would apply to those first you know 10 days or whatever before the Visa starts when you go to validate your Visa you cannot put an arrival date that is anterior to your actual Visa start date so if you arrive in France on September 1st but your Visa starts on September 10th you’re going to have to put that you arrived on September 10th nobody is going to make you actually leave and come back that advice would be different if you were were from a country where people were not allowed to travel to France as tourists without some kind of tourist visa so if you were from for example Morocco or Sri Lanka where you can’t just come to France as a tourist without requesting a short stay tourist visa then that advice would be totally different but that’s not the case Amy we are beginning the information gathering portion of our intended move to France we would like to begin looking for rentals preferably houses in small towns or villages in burgundy and the alas region each for four to 5 weeks we will retire next spring and would like to spend mid October through mid January in France what’s the best way or resource to begin this Unique Kind of search so it’s going to be really tough I think to find four to five week rentals in small towns and Villages you would have to look at places that have yeets in slightly more touristy areas it can be really tricky to secure a rental property in some of these smaller towns where you know if you’re especially if you’re looking for a house because there’s just not a lot of properties available and because they’re really reticent to rent to foreigners who don’t have standard French dosier and CDI and tax declarations and a French garenter and all of that it’s going to be really tricky so I would look at the websites where you can reserve Jets that’s going to be VRBO there might be on Airbnb uh booking.com is a really good one and you can look at the OR at websites to see if there are some in the areas that you want to look at Julie I am a dual us French citizen French by marriage since divorced I’m now engaged to an American we currently live in the US what are the Visa nationality options for my fiance once we are married for us to live in France or another EU country you will get married in the US at 2025 so your spouse will be able to apply for a v Visa based on being married to a f citizen for another EU country you’re going to have to look at their requirements for showing up and requesting a c toour as a spouse of an EU citizen and I can’t answer those questions because I only know about France Megan if we’re moving to France this September to permanently live will we pay our 2024 taxes in the US or France since we’ll have lived in France less than 183 days this year so you’re going to make a tax declaration that starts on the date that you arrive in France for example if you arrive on September 1st then you have September October November December four out of 12 months in France now if you have earned income like salary self-employment business income that is going to be taxable in France from September 1st so whatever you earn between September 1st and December 31st you’re going to subject to social taxes and income taxes in France per the tax treaty if you have for example us Social Security if you have pensions even if you have dividends that are signed qu sort of distributed evenly throughout the year you are going to PR rate the amount that you’re reporting on your 2024 taxes we have two videos that go through this in FasTrack to France one was last year tax workshop and I also did a tax workshop on April 30th for the 2023 taxes that kind of goes over and explains how to do these calculations but let’s say you get $2,000 a month in US Social Security obviously you’re going to convert that into Euros but whatever the amount is for September to December $8,000 converted into Euros would be the amount of Social Security pension you would report on your French tax return for 2024 now you’re not going to pay French tax on that but it’s important to report it and of course to report uh your foreign bank accounts as well now if you are not earning money in France like if you’re not self-employed if you don’t have a job Etc there’s always a chance that the tax office might actually refuse to take your tax declaration if you were not in France for 183 days however I would highly encourage you to write a letter explaining you know when you arrived that you’re arriving to stay longterm Etc because technically you are required to you you become a French tax resident when you arrive with a longstay Visa and therefore you should encourage them to take your tax declaration I’m moving to France as a spouse of an EU citizen do I have to wait until I get my cure before being able to work and apply for a c retail unfortunately yes so you have to apply for the Cure within 90 days of arriving in France the sooner you’re able to do it the better it can take a long time to process we have a client who submitted hers in Paris in the fall I think November actually she got called in to do fingerprints in the prefecture in January and we still do not have her card and because you don’t have an aggra number you don’t so is the so it’s the sort of the preor tracking application that they use for all foreigners in France and you get assigned a 10-digit number that’s your Foreigner number that will follow you you know from your visa to your cure you know from validating your visa to your cure until you get French nationality or until you leave and apply for a new Visa in the US and when you are the spouse of an EU citizen you don’t you get a number but it’s not valid until they actually approve your and so she can’t even make an appointment to potentially go pick up her card three months in the future two months in the future because she doesn’t yet have that number so be prepared to not be able to work for a few months and unfortunately there’s nothing you can do about that because there’s no Visa that you can can apply for in advance to mitigate that situation Scott how difficult is it to get the auto entrepreneur visa and are there income requirements so I would say it’s mostly about knowing what to do for the auto entrepreneur visa and not necessarily about it being difficult obviously there are more documents to supply than some of the other Visa types that you might apply for but to me none of the Visa types are harder than any other it’s just what is the a type that is appropriate for your situation are you going to be self-employed when you have an auto entrepreneur or Prof Entre Visa they’re looking for you to make French minimum wage which is currently 1767 per month so that’s what’s in all of our materials it can occasionally increase slightly due to inflation I think the last time it went up from like 7 1745 to 1767 or something so you know you do want to make sure that when you’re preparing your financial projections and things like that that you’re projecting over that amount they are looking at the income that comes from your self-employment activity so they care about your other income in the sense that if you’re not destitute they’re willing to be a bit more lenient on you know if you don’t get up to that minimum wage amount quickly but technically they’re looking at what income is coming in from your self-employment activity that you say you’re doing and if your bus business isn’t making money they’re not going to renew your visa for it the other thing I want to point out is that they have been become very strict on making sure that there’s some kind of economic tie to France for the self-employment visas and so you know it’s not just a matter of having all these clients in the US that you’re working for that’s fine once you’re in France once you’re in France and declaring your income They Don’t Really Care where the money’s coming from but in order to get the visa they are looking at do you have potential clients potential collaborators potential business projects happening in France with French companies or individuals Susie what is garant me can people from the US use it to find an apartment in France yes so we work with garant me garant me is a lease guarantee service and it’s especially for people who don’t have a traditional French dosier for a rental agreement and they don’t have they don’t have a garenter in France so in France a gar would be somebody who like has a good job who can coign for for your apartment who has a CDI who’s lived in France for a long time and they’re willing to you know provide or basically they’re saying that they’re willing to pay your rent if you don’t so unless you have really good friends or family members most people even if they know you are not willing to do that because they might be screwed so and landlord you know rent non-payment Service uh insurance basically is not going to like any foreign documents right that insurance If a landlord is is signing up for an insurance policy for if their tenant doesn’t pay the rent they are going to want to see you know a certain number of years of French tax declarations a certain amount of stable income Etc and the more competitive the area you know if you’re looking in Neath they can be Wicked picky because they can take anybody they want there’s so much demand and not enough Supply that it doesn’t matter you know how much money you might have sitting in the bank so guarant me is an insurance policy that you take out as the tenant that provides a guarantee to the landlord and you pay about 4 and a half% of one year’s rent to get this insurance policy we can refer you to to guarant me we work with them and so if you do want a referral to that then I would say fill out our our referral request form and we can we can put you in touch with somebody who can help with your application we also work with some people who are real estate Hunters you know apartment search agents who help our clients find rental properties so if you want to be put in touch with you know with with one of our partners who does rental searches in a particular City I would highly recommend having somebody who can support your application who can you know advocate for you with an agency because it’s just so tricky in so many places so I put our referral form in the chat so if you want us to send you to garant me or to some of the apartment SE services that we work with we have some people who have found some really nice places like Downtowner we had some people in me find some really nice Apartments all right Jacqueline a retirement so presumably a visitor vaa would dividend or annuity payments be taxed in the US or France so according to the tax treaty dividends from us companies and annuity payments presumably pensions and you asked about social security as well all of those would be continue to be taxed in the US you have to report them on your French taxes and you have to report all of your non-french financial accounts on your US taxes but you will pay taxes on those in the US now you have to be careful because if you have dividends that are not in the cover of a retirement account so let’s say you have a regular brokage account and you are invested in European or Asian stock markets or bonds or you know the top 100 countries in Africa growth index I don’t know what index funds are called but anything that is not us according to the tax treaty would potentially be taxed in France so if you have have Investments that are you know not us companies then it’s possible that those would be subjected to French tax but for everything else that you mentioned dividends annuities so social security benefits taxed in the US under the tax treaty the dividends potentially if they were not in a retirement account and they met a certain threshold they could potentially be subject to Puma but usually you’re looking at $20,000 in passive income or more before we talk about Healthcare premiums to taking that income into account Zora long-term visitor Visa if one does not have a French driver’s license can a Vasa be ridden in the streets without one I actually don’t know if a Vasa qualifies for A1 so for motorcycle licenses there are two levels I think a a vesa would be the lower level which is A1 which is motorcycles under a certain size and I believe that’s what size of vesa is if you have a license so during your first year in France before your us license is no longer valid for driving in France you can drive a vesa on your us license even if it’s not a motorcycle license if you get a French license then it’s going to cover A1 so I have never driven any kind of motorcycle or bike you know motorized bike in my life but I have the A1 on my on my French license if you have a motorcycle license in the US that is like the level above Vasa it does not convert only only the A1 would convert and then you would have to take a motorcycle license exam hat on the long stay visitor visa application form it asked if you have ever had a Visa before in France if yes it asked for an address of where you lived I had a student visa in France August 1995 to February 1996 but I have no record anymore of the address where I lived before the invention of email no digital record close to V Metro stop what should I put on the visa application if I don’t remember the address from 30 years ago where I lived so I would recommend possibly if you can if you happen to know where the study abroad program was or what university you you were at I would put that if you want to randomly pick an address next to V Metro stop and put that address you could also do that and just explain in the cover letter like hey I lived in this neighborhood and had a Visa 30 years ago but I don’t remember the exact street address and honestly from 30 years ago nobody cares if applying for long state visitor Visa what should be included in the cover letter for my application and is okay if the cover letter is in English yes it’s okay any documents can be submitted in English I also have to have an A affidavit swearing I won’t work is there a pre-existing form for the affidavit or just a letter that I have to write usually I just have people include that in the cover letter so I would just I like to use the visitor Visa cover letter for a couple of things now it’s not a required document but I found it really helpful one to clarify ify that if you want to stay longterm and you want to renew your Visa I would be very specific with I am planning on retiring to France I would like to live for at least several years in in certain particular area I would write maybe about the activities that you want to do if you’re looking forward to joining any kind of local Association if you already have friends in France or people that you would like to volunteer with or work with or anything like that you know I have visited bits many times and taken classes at the local surfing school I have hang out with the old guys playing ponk along the pr in me and I look forward to improving my ponk skills I don’t know whatever it is just include some things about what you want to do that you’re planning on getting a renewable visa to be able to stay more than a couple of years if you brought if you’ve bought property indicate that but if you haven’t it’s fine just say you know I understand that the condition of my Visa is that I not work or seek employment in France and I agree to abide by those terms and I have my social security retirement account dividend you know Willy Wonka inheritance money to support me can be short and sweet you know sentence or two about why you like France why you want to live here sentence or two about what you want to do doesn’t have to be that complicated at pendra student to profal I’m making a career transition and moving to France in June 2025 I’m planning to study French for a year in an intensive program on a student visa then enroll in a one-year photography program that grants an rncp 6 diploma L3 Lance poll in terms of transitioning from a student visa my understanding from the school is that this will allow me to apply for a Prof only Beal visa and work as a freelancer do you see any pitfalls with the plan should I consider the passport to after finishing training if I have a modest portfolio by then I spoke with campus France they could not tell me yeah you won’t be eligible for because you do you won’t have completed a degree program of at least two years so yeah in short yes Prof only Bal is going to be the Visa type that will be appropriate for you a profal atis isn’t really going to work for photography in this situation it would be more like if you were selling numbered prints if you were displaying your Photography in art shows and selling it in galleries then it would be more artistic but if you’re doing photography as a service then it falls more into the professional category so yeah I mean I think that’s you don’t have to have a degree in photography in order to work as a photographer in France you if you already are a photographer and you have already provide you know you are experienced enough to be doing shoots and charging people you could just go right for the photography only behal visa and skip the student visa even if you still plan to enroll in the program like you can be a student on the profal Visa you cannot be self-employed on the student visa but you can absolutely switch and that’s going to and so we’re we’re revamping our complete French business incubator program as well just finished recording some new videos for that one of the things we talk about is the change of status how when when you’re changing status from something to you know say Prof you’re going to have to figure out what your prefecture does how to you know how to make that appointment in some prefectures it’s going to be submit a form online it’s not through NF in other cases like Bordeaux you send things in the mail and you hope that it gets to the right person and then in some cases you’re going to make an appointment and go into the prefecture so it really depends like what what department you’re in and you’re going to have to figure out where to where to file that change of status you also want to be really aware that it can take a long time when you change your status when you apply for a Visa in the in the US or in your home country typically you have it back in about 2 weeks but when you apply for a change of status it really depend it really depends on the processing time of your perfecture Airbnb now has long-term rentals for 6 to 12 months do you see a problem with securing before arriving rather than arriving with a short-term rental and an apartment search Once there and planning to buy after the first year so my main concern is that you want to have a place where you can get mail especially if you’re going to be a freelancer because certain things are still sent to you and mail them now they’re trying to reduce the amount of things that actually go to you in the post but there are still a few things that get sent to you and if you cannot get mail at your Airbnb that’s going to be a problem first of all I’m not sure that the 6 to 12 month Airbnb thing is totally legal because that would be a legal time frame for something called a bobil which it has to be you know very specific circumstances I wouldn’t trust that usually what we would advise is you want four to six weeks a little longer if you’re in one of the big cities that is really a tight rental market like if you’re in nce you probably want at least 8 weeks but you really want to put pressure on yourself to find a long-term lease that is a primary residence lease where you are going to be able to get mail where you’re going to be able to renew it doesn’t matter whether you’re buying at some point buying in France now again we cover this in FastTrack to France there’s a whole module on buying property it can take 3 months or longer for a sale to go through even if you’re you’re living in an unfurnished rental in the middle of nowhere the maximum amount of notice you would have to give at any time during your lease would be 3 months there are no penalties for breaking a lease early or in the middle there are only penalties for a landlord who tries to break a lease early or in the middle so I would say you want to get into a long-term primary residence lease as quickly as possible and then when you have a property and you know what the completion date is going to be that’s when you can calculate and give your notice Teresa long stay visitor Visa we are moving with a 12-year-old with intentions for him to finish high school and onto University if he chooses we have cousins in France but it seems the only Visa we can apply for is the long state visitor Visa our previous professions are firefighters they’re a different Visa we can or should apply for other than the visitor Visa please I mean as firefighters not really that’s not it’s a regulated profession it’s something that is often volunteer in France there’s no Visa that is just like randomly allowing you to work it has to be either a job that is sponsoring you for a particular contract or you have to be starting your own self-employment thing I would encourage you to purchase and read foolproof French visas to understand all of the options that are available to you and then you can schedule a consultation with me if you need to talk through your questions and things but I don’t know off the top of my head what could be a good fit if you’re not self-employed and you’re and you’re not retired I will say that it’s way easier for a child to integrate and to obtain French nationality if they arrive before 13 so I know you’re getting you’re getting close to the wire and you’re asking me what visa type but you may want to consider you know I don’t usually advise getting over here and then figuring it out but if you come as a visitor and then want to change in a year year and a half it could be to your advantage to get your child into France before the age of 13 because then it becomes really easy for him to get the ability to stay longterm when he reaches adulthood Catherine liberal or independent Visa how far ahead of the proposed Visa start date can you make a Visa appointment you can go to your Visa appointment up to 90 days before your planned arrival date in France how long do you need to have proof of accommodation booked for when applying for the Visa again I I suggest four to six weeks unless it’s like a really really tight rental market like nce it depends a little bit on your financial resources if you have you know really significant financial resources where it’s obvious L not going to be a problem if you have to reserve something at the last minute then four to six weeks is totally fine if you are on a really tight budget then I would say you want to secure a place within your budget first yita I work as a freelancer in the USA but I’m able to work anywhere I’m looking into taking French classes and with looking at the student visa but I came across the long stay Visa I assume you mean the visitor Visa I want to see which is the better option I’m looking to go to to France for about 4 to 6 months and I don’t speak French so first thing I want to say is that there is no such thing as a digital Nomad visa for France if you are living and working in France then you need to be registered to do so you are not allowed to be self-employed on a student visa so if you’re getting a short-term visa for under six months it’s a temporary Visa that’s not renewable and you’re not establishing residency at all then is anybody going to catch you probably not but if there’s any chance that you might want to renew your Visa or stay longer then student visa and visitor Visa are not good ideas RJ visitor Visa we are a US couple planning to retire in France other than mistakes on the application or an incomplete application what are the most common reasons for denial of the longstay visitor Visa under those circumstances honestly usually usually it’s people like saying they’re going to work when they shouldn’t be or being really unclear about the reasons they want to go to France I do not see a lot of Americans get denied for visitor visas in relation to the selected validity start date of the visitor Visa how long after that date must we arrive in France so it’s not to run a follow of the law or jeopardize the Visa you need to validate the visa to a long-term address within 90 days you can put on the start date of the Visa you can you can set the start date of the Visa to be any date you want and you have to have accommodation your temporary health care plan and your departure date all lined up now they they’re not going to request a copy of your plane ticket but if you’re saying you want a visa to start September 1st then you need to have accommodation from September 1st in France and you need to have a temporary insurance policy that starts September 1st in France now of course if you like already own property and the property is going to be there whether you arrive September 1st or October 15th then basically what you would have to do would be adjust to the dates of your insurance policy when you are going to arrive but yeah you want you want those things to line up to the to the start date of your visa and then you want to arrive in France and if you don’t own property and you don’t already have you know a long-term address where you can get mail for you know a 12-month lease then you need to find that as quick as possible so you can validate your Visa within the 90 days obviously arriving after your Visa start date reduces the amount of time that you have to find long-term housing before you can validate your Visa I prefer very very strongly not to validate the Visa with a temporary address because it tends to cause a mess you then have to go and change your address on your online account when you move and things like you know sending in your Healthcare application you need to do that on day 90 or day 91 if you want to have any hope of having proof of coverage by the time you go to renew your Visa at the end of your first year so if you don’t have a long-term address yet and you don’t have a place to live you can’t send in your Healthcare application yet and that’s going to cause problems later is it possible Estell is it possible to visit the Visa migration office in Paris without an appointment just to ask questions I don’t know what office you mean if such an office exists I would love to know about it how to register a sole Pro sole proprietor Soul Trader business in France so there’s multiple different types of Soul Trader businesses there’s mro entrepreneur which would require a professional Lial entrepreneur visa and setting up a self-employment self-employed on the NP website which is something that we do for our clients in our VIP coner package for entrepreneurs and artists and it’s something that we have video modules on how to do in our complete French business incubator so that would require you know putting together a business plan with potential clients and getting that type of self-employment Visa now there are also two types of companies that are considered Sole proprietorships and one would be the suu the societ uni personel meaning a oneperson SAS and the other type is an URL an entrepr un personel responsility Li and those are two different company types where your status as the owner and operator of the company is slightly different so an sasu which is the type of business that I have I am the salaried president of the company so I pay myself a salary I pay social charges on the salary amount and then there’s a profit from the company that can also get distributed to me or get kept in the company when you are an URL your status is of a director and you are not a salaried employee you are considered to be self-employed as the Director you receive owner’s compensation which is subject to a certain per of social charges which is different and the company is not giving you or paying you a salary and profit it is paying you self-employment earnings which are not really different so the overall percentage of charges is lower but basically all of the net income is subject to them we have videos on these different business types in complete French business incubator that our clients have as well for each of these three business types it’s going to potentially be a different type of Visa so an sasu or an URL would be either a classic entrepreneur Visa or a passport tent entrepre entrepreneur visa and let me just explain the distinction between those Visa types so a passport tant is if you have at least a master’s degree or five years of professional experience in your field and you’re starting a company with at least a €30,000 investment in the social capital of that company that means you’re putting €30,000 EUR into your future company and then the that becomes the company’s money that it can then spend on you know its business expenses what I mean by a classic entrepreneur Visa just to make the distinction with the passport tent entrepreneur is you don’t have to have a master’s you don’t have to have 5 years of professional experience and you don’t have to invest $30,000 you can invest as little as one Euro in creating the social capital of your company however you do have to in both cases get approval that your company is a real and serious business project that is going to be viable in France and successful pass portella entrepreneur is for four years classic entrepreneur is just for one year so you do have to show that your company is viable and paying you money a lot more quickly when you are just on the classic entrepreneur or when you are self-employed and on the micro preneur you know entrepreneur the type there’s a lot of nuances there they’re all covered in the complete French business incubator they’re also covered in uh foolproof French visas there’s a chapter on each Visa type so if you haven’t read it I would recommend obviously setting up a company involves a lot more steps you have to undertake all of the process of setting up the company before you actually you know request the Visa so when we do this for our clients we write the business plan we work with a law firm that can draft the legal documents because we’re not lawyers you know we we help with all of the other company creation admin things like setting up the company address hooking you up with an accountant etc etc and all of the things that are going to be required for getting the business approved and then getting the business Visa approved okay Susan entrepreneur or I think I read somewhere that the new immigration law permits individuals who are hired by a company to seek their own Visa rather than waiting for company to sponsor them is this true not in that way that sounds like a something that has gone through telephone a couple of times so it’s true that people who work in certain they’re called can now request a visa on the basis of employment without having to get prior work authorization from their employer or their employer getting prior work authorization from the government the challenge with that is that the law also created a dil so basically a misdemeanor of working without the proper paperwork so it has created a catch22 of technically you can go and request a Visa with you know some pay flips and things from your company that didn’t request work authorization for you if you haven’t previously had a work visa for France but you are also sort of admitting that you were working without a Visa and not following the law so it’s a little bit up in the air as to how exactly that is going to play out in the real world but the short answer is no there is no such thing as a salar work visa you can apply for without without already having a job to sponsor you okay I have now finished all the questions that were pre-submitted so I’m going to go to the questions that are in the chat or the Q&A box can you explain what a note verbal is it’s required for the long stay visitor Visa no it’s not a note verbal is if you are applying with a diplomatic passport so I assume that is not your case you are very likely applying with a very ordinary passport and will not need that a long state visitor Visa is better for more than 6 months or what do you mean I’m not sure what I mean a long state visitor Visa is appropriate for the amount of time that you intend to live in France if you intend to live in France and renew your Visa you want a 12mon Visa and you want to state in your cover letter that you intend on renewing and you know staying in France for several years to enjoy your retirement you don’t have to project yourself like until death do you part but you know pro project yourself into a future for a couple years in France if you are doing something that you shouldn’t really be doing like working remotely in France for a longer term but not setting up to do that in a legal way then you would do best to have a shorter length Visa that does not in any way remotely at all establish you as tax resident and then leave can we access this recording at a later time yes it will be edited tomorrow hopefully tomorrow if not then by Thursday and post it on our YouTube channel where we post all of our past q&as I hope to move to France in 2025 or 2026 on an auto entrepreneur Visa or P passport tant Visa my daughter is currently a senior in high school and will likely follow me after college graduation until what age can she come to my come to France under my Visa 18 at best 21 so unfortunately I think that’s not going to work she will have to have her own Visa if she were here before 18 she could probably piggy back onto your Visa until TW until 21 but because she will be an adult already she’s going to need her own Visa I don’t know what you mean by talk to the Visa office but there’s no Visa office to talk to I’m the Visa office there is nobody whose job it is to answer your questions about French visas or to advise you that’s why my job exists the consulate has outsourced everything to VFS who does not know the slightest thing about French visas they if you’re not applying for a visitor like visitor visas they tend to do okay with because it’s what they see a lot student visas they tend to do okay with because they see those quite a bit as well but I mean we send people with Talent passport applications with you know all these documents for opening a French company and they’re like we don’t understand what this is this can’t be real so yeah there’s there’s nobody who there’s nobody whose job it is to help you with visas except mine in other countries you can go to migration office without an appointment that sounds nice that is not France you can’t even go to the preure without an appointment anymore like you used to be able to go and get information from the prefecture ask a question get a ticket get inform get updates on your status not anymore Co killed all of that they don’t answer the phone they don’t answer their emails I believe right now my suspicion because there’s been a there’s been there’s been a significant decline in the number of people going into these government job positions they do get good vacation time but the pay is not good compared to what they could be earning in the private sector most of the people that are working in these jobs now are very young I suspect they are contractors or like on temporary contracts and have not passed any kind of conour I’ve been recently to the prefecture with clients and seen like nobody over 25 or like a couple a couple people who are clearly like the old you know the old school function who have been there for a really long time who are settled in their careers but there’s a really big gap between the people who are in that position and the new people who are very young who cannot answer your question it’s not it’s it’s bad it’s bad and they when you submit things online you know the people on the website they’re only there for technical issues they’re not and even then half the time they can’t answer the questions and everything is forwarded onto the prefectures where you know you you have no contact with the people who are potentially reviewing your file how long does it take for approval of a classic entrepreneur Visa the one without in without significant investment I would say that you want to submit your business plan for approval at least two to three months before you want to actually apply for your Visa so in that case you have to write the business plan you have to do all the things to set up the company you have to you know draft the legal documents you do have to make some kind of investment even if it’s only a Euro I wouldn’t recommend starting a company with one Euro so you have to yeah you have to prepare all of the visa application documents then you have to get approval from D I would expect that to take two months honestly we most of the Visa applications we do are either Prof only behal or they’re the €30,000 EUR passport investment visas because to me the classic entrepreneur in the middle doesn’t make a whole lot of sense all right do I need to apply for a long State visa first if I’m moving to France as a spouse of an EU citizen no you cannot apply for a long stay Visa first you have to apply you have to request a de isual within 90 days of arriving in France and so for you it’s even more important to establish an address very quickly after you arrive because you can’t put in your practices your request until you have proof of address if we are long-term residents of France how is our estate taxed when we die specifically would our Assets in the USA be subject to French estate taxes it depends a little bit on what kind of assets and what how long you’ve been living in France when you die we are going to have on June 25th I believe it’s June 25th a webinar with a notter who is going to be able to answer that question because I am not the least bit qualified to talk about that but it brings up a really interesting point that we go over slightly in FASTT track to France and that it’s really important to consider is when you live in France French law is what applies to you and if you’ve been living here for a long time you know that could potentially include Financial Planning and estate planning issues so there whole of questions which again you know we’ve put together a workshop a workbook of the things that you should ask in FastTrack to France but we are not the people that you can ask those questions to because we’re not the legal people you know my experience is I’ve worked in a tax office I know probably more than the average person the average American in France I know slightly more about taxes because of certain professional experiences that I’ve had but it’s not my it’s not my area so what we have done for our clients is put together these are a list of qu this is a list of questions you should answer for yourself and then you should go see a notare um or an estate planner Financial International financial planner to talk through what could potentially happen to your assets so that’s going to be on June 25th I have not received the bio for the notar guy he’s currently doing some work for me on you know so that I can be ready to die someday my dad had a cousin who unfortunately passed away last year after an illness and he was about he was about 70 I think did not have a will and and it was not a fun situation for anybody in the family who had to sort through all that and it would be even worse in France so a really important topic to bring up and yeah we’ll we’ll send out the details for for that Q&A really soon but I think that’s going to be a really popular one I asked a question on the Google Forum but can’t day yeah the recording will be on will be on YouTube is it better to sell a US property before after moving to France in terms of taxes will a US property trigger sale on any particular taxes in France so not during the first year now this is a question that came up in a Q&A that we did recently with our accountant Isaac bisha of mono CPA he’s also going to be joining us on the estate planning workshop with the notter in at the end of the month but somebody asked that question very specifically and so if the property sells within the first year then France isn’t going to Care really about taxing it if it’s after the first year and it would not be considered your primary residence anymore because you will have been living in France then it’s possible that it would be sub subject to tax so you would definitely want to talk to an accountant about that situation can I apply for a longstay visitor Visa at one consulate and do the interview at a different one that I applied to no so you you when you fill out the Visa form you code it to the Visa Center that you’re going to be going to so in the US and Canada that’s VFS Global in the UK that’s TLS contact you once you select the city that you will be submitting your application to it generates a barcode and the application when it’s finalized will only go to that City’s VFS so if you fill out a form that says Boston on it and then you make an appointment in in New York guess what you have to redo your Visa form you submit the Visa form online you print it out you bring it with you with all of your supporting documents to the appropriate VFS office you have to make the appointment separately now all of this we take care of for our VIP conage clients or we review it for people who are in FastTrack who are in our self-guided program get a visa application review with me before they go to their appointment but there’s no interview per se it is going to an appointment and giving them a stack of papers and then they pass it along to the consulate who reviews it and issues your Visa and sends back your passport is it ridiculous to think I can apply for a long-stay visitor Visa June 12th and be approved by September 1st I think if you go on June 12th that you will have your Visa back by the end of June so not ridiculous at all if you don’t already have your appointment though it might be hard to get an appointment before June 12th all right I have time for one or two more questions can I apply for the Visa in the USA but use my New Zealand passport I have a primary home currently in New Zealand and I’m I’m a new citizen so you can apply for a Visa in any country where you have citizenship or residence so if you are applying on your New Zealand passport in the US you can certainly do that and give them your New Zealand passport there’s a section on the Visa form where you have to put you know I’m applying from a different country than my citizenship and you have to fill out some kind of ID you know for why so you can put like your US passport number and you know your us passport expiration date Etc and then there’s you know nationality nationality at Birth Etc that you will have to fill out and then I would just mention in your cover letter like hey I’m a New Zealand and US citizen and I’m giving you my New Zealand passport but it really doesn’t make a difference I’m self-employed and the long St Visa says that for the purpose of travel I have to put a letter from my employer proof of business ownership I’m a contract worker but do not have an LLC how will this work you are not allowed to work in France on a visitor Visa so you need to apply for a self-employment Visa if you’re planning on working as self-employed in France so that would be aose entrepreneur and you need to look at the requirements for that I do not recommend putting any information about working when you’re applying for a visitor Pisa if anybody advises you to do that I would ask them if they’re willing to pay your tax bill if and when you get caught all right so I just want to remind everybody the next Q&A is going to be Monday July 1st first and then following that we’re going to take a break in August and do a new one in September if you would like referrals to any of the partners that we discussed I’m going to give you that link again if you are in the beginning stages of planning your move to France a couple of resources for you one is obviously our book foolproof French visas which goes through every single one of the basically 29 different ways that you can move to France the requirements of each why you might choose one particular option over the other that can be really helpful if you’re you know if you have different self-employment options different salaried Visa options Etc if you want to schedule a call with me I do offer one-hour paid consultations where we can talk through any and all of your questions about moving to France getting the right Visa etc etc you can apply the cost of the consultation to one of our packages if you sign up or one of our courses if you sign up within 90 days I’m going to give you that link as well to schedule a 1hour consultation with me and then as I mentioned if you are in the planning stages of your move we have our program FastTrack to France which is 10 modules uh covering all sorts of different admin things that you’re going to have to do to get ready and to prepare for your move so it does cover all of the questions you’re going to want to talk to an attorney a state planner a an international financial planner Etc about during the move and relocation process it has our workbook with questions to ask them it has a career workbook if you are planning on developing your career or working in France we cover things like bringing your children and enrolling them in school bringing your pets bringing your belongings we recently did as I mentioned our culture shock Workshop which talks about you know adapting to living in France and how to navigate the ups and downs of you know living here when you’re not on vacation and and things get real and things get hard so it can be a really great resource and then of course you know if you are one of our VIP consur clients where we’re doing all the admin stuff for you and getting you set up in France with all of your French admin you do get access to those programs as part of our services so if that’s all for this evening then I will let you go and thank you very much for coming I will see you in the Americans and France group on Facebook we will be sending out announcements about that that estate planning workshop at the end of the month we’ll be sending those out very shortly because I know that’s going to be a really popular event and I will see you soon on the internet thank you so much and have a great rest of your evening or rest of your day if you were in the US [Music]