French residence permits, citizenship, visas: your 2026 figures

It starts from two answers, your nationality and your plan in France, then reads the conditions of the ground you chose: the salary for a skilled job, whether you hold a French master's-level degree, the years already spent in France, the years of marriage. From these it gives the permit whose conditions match, the alternatives, the first-year cost in tax stamps (timbres fiscaux) and how many years remain before the multi-year card, the resident card or citizenship. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is sent.

The result is guidance. The prefecture also looks at things no online form can see: whether a couple really lives together, professional integration, public order, the authenticity of documents. The calculator tells you which door to knock on and what it costs; what happens behind it depends on your file. Each permit has its own page and each calculation its own tool: permit cost, renewal timetable, naturalisation date, family-reunification threshold.

Three rates exist side by side. The standard rate covers most cards: employee, private and family life, visitor, self-employed, talent, resident. The reduced rate covers stays the law wants to encourage or where income is modest: student, trainee, seasonal worker, post-graduation job search, au pair, family members admitted through family reunification. Some permits only carry the €50 stamp duty: retirees, foreign nationals needing medical care, family members of a refugee. A recognised refugee receives the resident card free of charge.

On top of that come amounts linked to your route rather than your card: the validation tax on the long-stay visa that serves as a permit (VLS-TS) in the first year, the €300 regularisation visa fee if you entered without a long-stay visa, and the €180 fee if your renewal is filed late. The official Service-Public.fr notice explains the 1 May 2026 increase, based on section 128 of the 2026 Finance Act.

A residence period runs from date to date: five years from 1 September 2021 lead to 1 September 2026, not to 1 January 2026. That is what the naturalisation calculator does: it starts from the beginning of your lawful residence, applies the period for your case (5 years, 2 years after a French higher-education degree, none for a refugee) and checks you are at least 17. With a degree earned after two years of study begun on 1 September 2024, the file becomes admissible on 1 September 2026.

The response deadline runs from the receipt issued once the file is complete: 18 months, cut to 12 months after ten years of residence, extendable once by 3 months. A receipt dated 2 November 2026 obliges the administration to answer by 2 May 2028, or 2 August 2028 with a reasoned extension. Through marriage, the declaration becomes possible 4 years after the wedding: 9 July 2026 for a marriage on 9 July 2022. These rules come from the naturalisation page and the declaration-by-marriage page.

For a renewal, the window opens 4 months before the permit ends and closes 2 months before. A card ending on 31 March 2027 is renewed between 30 November 2026 and 31 January 2027. After that, the late fee applies; the receipt (récépissé) then covers three months from the day after expiry.

The rule fits in one sentence: the income of the sponsor and spouse must reach, on average over the twelve months before the application, the gross monthly minimum wage (Smic), plus one tenth for four or five people and one fifth from six. What changes everything is that the minimum wage moved twice in 2026, on 1 January and on 1 June. For an application filed on 13 October 2026, the twelve months still include three months of 2025: the threshold for a household of four is €2,015.63. For an application in June 2027, every month is at the €1,867.02 minimum wage and the threshold rises to €2,053.72. Sites that show a single figure are wrong for one of these dates; some still show January's minimum wage.

Housing counts as much as income: 22 m² for two people in zones A bis and A, 24 m² in B1 and B2, 28 m² in zone C, plus 10 m² per extra person. The floor-area calculator gives the minimum for your household and zone.

The talent passport and the EU Blue Card spare the employer from applying for a work authorisation, which shortens the route considerably. Their thresholds derive from a reference average gross salary set by ministerial order: €39,582 a year for the talent card for skilled employees (with a French master's-level degree), one and a half times that, €59,373, for the EU Blue Card. A company officer must earn three annual minimum wages, €67,212.60. After graduating, the job-search card lets you switch to employee status without a labour-market test if the salary exceeds €2,800.53 gross a month. The official talent card page covers each category.

It books no appointment, files nothing on the ANEF portal and asks for no contact details. It publishes no prefecture waiting times, because no official source gives any, and calculates the periods the law sets instead. It does not replace a lawyer: for a refusal, an order to leave France (OQTF) or a complex family situation, a migrant-support association or an immigration lawyer is the right contact. Information, not legal advice; an independent site, not run by the French administration.