MichalDisclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Always consult with an immigration lawyer about your unique circumstances before applying for a visa.
With the necessary disclaimers out of the way, I wanted to start my blog off with a topic that is close to my heart, and also somewhat controversial.
When my husband and I began seriously considering moving to France in the summer of 2022 one of our first steps was to look into which visa to apply for. My husband works remotely as an independent programmer and he has the flexibility to live anywhere in the world.
However, France does not have a “digital nomad” visa category that many countries offer. So we then began to look at the other visa categories. Since he wasn’t going to be hired by a French company we didn’t need to go the route of being sponsored by a French company for our visa. And because his clients were in the US and we weren’t looking into starting a business in France, it didn’t seem like the micro-entrepreneur visa applied to us either. We thought that it would probably be the long-stay visitor visa that would best fit our situation, but of course, we wanted to do our due diligence, so we decided to research our situation.
Going down a Google and YouTube rabbit hole, we opened a can of worms. As you will quickly find when doing a search for a French Long Stay Visitor Visa and remote work, or telework, there is a lot of confusion, controversy, and frankly fear-mongering. So-called “experts” (and, disclaimer, I am not an expert!) will say that any sort of remote work on a French Long Stay Visitor visa is forbidden since you have to sign a document promising not to work in France (this part is true). They paint fearful scenarios where if you work remotely as a freelancer or independent contractor on a French Long Stay Visa when it’s time to pay your taxes, you’ll be in deep trouble with the French authorities. After watching some of these videos, I had visions of my husband and I being hauled away to the Bastille (I know it doesn’t exist anymore) to pay for our crimes of working remotely for US clients in France.
What is one to do in this situation? The same “experts” then propose you pay for their services, often a course you buy or video consults, often for several hundreds of dollars, to help you apply for a micro-entrepreneur visa. The micro-entrepreneur visa is a much harder and more complicated visa to apply for, which requires for example that you draw up a business plan to show to the French authorities.
It should be noted that sometimes the micro-entrepreneur visa is the right choice. Perhaps you want to open a small business in France. Or maybe you’re a freelancer and you want to have French clients. Then, yes, this could be the right one to choose.
But if, like my husband, you’re an independent contractor, with clients exclusively outside of France, YOU DO NOT NEED A MICRO-ENTREPRENEUR VISA!
This was confirmed for us when we had a consultation with an immigration lawyer, who practices law in both the United States and France. The modest fee we paid to talk with him for an hour (much, much less than the cost of the courses put together by “experts” on social media) was the best investment we could have made.
He assured us that working remotely on a French Long-Stay Visitor Visa was completely legitimate. He himself had made multiple inquiries to the French authorities about this question. When I told him about what I had seen online, that certain people claimed you couldn’t do telework in France on a visitor visa, he literally rolled his eyes, and without naming names, said something to the effect of “There’s a lot of confusion out there”.
Basically, the French government doesn’t care where you get your money on a Long-Stay Visitor Visa. Just that you have enough money to not be a burden on society, that you haven’t taken a French job, and that you don’t have French clients.
To further bolster the argument that you can work remotely on a Long-Stay Visitor Visa, in the application process itself it says, you can provide a letter from your employer or proof of business ownership. In our case, when we applied for our Visitor Visa, my husband included a signed letter from his biggest client detailing the amount of work he does for them per month and the hourly rate they pay him. So if we were doing something wrong by working remotely, something not allowed for our visa, we were being blatantly open about it. It wasn’t a secret.
What was the result when we applied for our Long-Stay Visitor Visa with our paystubs and bank accounts showing clearly our income from remote work? We received our visas in just under two weeks.
And we’re not the only ones who have written about this. Others have written about getting their French Long-Stay Visitor Visas while working remotely. Such as this article from “The American in Paris” and another from “Culture Travel”. It’s just that our voices are drowned out in the confusion and fear-mongering by those who are truly confused (the visa process can be bewildering) and those who want to make a little money from the confusion.
Another thing to note is this visa advice applies to people who are independent contractors or freelancers, not employees of a non-French company. If you’re an employee that’s a whole other situation and it can get really complicated. Hence the “Sometimes…” in the title of this post.
As always before making any decisions about which visa to apply for, please, please, please, speak with a lawyer. I highly recommend the lawyer we used, Daniel Tostado. His fees are quite reasonable, he sends a very informative recap of your conversation, and if you want he will even hold your hand and walk you through the entire visa process.
In conclusion, can you work remotely on a French Long-Stay Visitor Visa? Yes, sometimes that is. Talk to a lawyer who specializes in immigration law for the country you’re looking to move to and be wary of so-called “experts” wanting to sell you a program or consultation to get you a visa when they have no actual qualifications.
Bon voyage!
