Family reunification in France: the steps and their deadlines
From OFII’s filing certificate to your spouse’s first residence permit, here is the order of the steps and the only deadlines the law sets.
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Family reunification: your dates
Application possible from
1 September 2026
| If filed that day, implicit refusal on | 1 March 2027 |
Family reunification (regroupement familial) runs in five stages: check the conditions, build the file, send it to OFII (the French immigration and integration office), wait for the mayor’s review and the prefect’s decision, then prepare the family’s arrival. You can only apply after 18 months of lawful residence: if your first permit began on 1 March 2025, the application opens on 1 September 2026. For a complete file lodged on 15 September 2026, the mayor must give an opinion within two months, by 15 November 2026, otherwise it counts as favourable; the prefect must notify a decision within 6 months, by 15 March 2027, after which silence means refusal. Once approved, your spouse applies for a long-stay visa, enters France within three months, validates the visa online for a €100 tax, has the OFII medical check and, the following year, pays €150 for a first card. Prefectures publish no average processing times.
Step 1: check the conditions
When you apply, you must hold a residence card valid for at least one year, a multi-year card, a resident card, or the receipt (récépissé) for renewing one of these. Above all, you must have lived in France for at least 18 months; that time may have been spent on a long-stay visa serving as a permit, a card of less than a year, a temporary permit, a receipt or an asylum-application certificate. Then come income (income calculator), housing (floor-area calculator) and respect for the basic principles of family life in France. Polygamy rules out bringing a second wife. The rules are in CESEDA (immigration code), articles L434-1 to L434-12.
Mayotte has its own rules: you must have lived there for at least three years on a permit of at least five years. Family members are a legally married spouse aged at least 18 and children under 18: the couple’s own, or a previous partner’s if the other parent has died, lost parental authority, or a foreign court has granted parental authority. Ages are assessed on the filing date.
Step 2: build the file
The file contains the official application form (cerfa), a two-sided copy of your permit, full copies of civil-status records (marriage and everyone’s birth) translated by a sworn translator, twelve months of income evidence and proof of housing. Income evidence depends on your situation: tax notice and payslips for an employee, an extract from the national business register and accounts for a trader or craftsman, a France Travail statement for a jobseeker, the award letter for a pensioner. Housing is shown by the lease and last rent receipt, the title deed or a statement from the person housing you. The official page lists everything case by case.
Step 3: sending the file to OFII
The file goes to OFII online or by registered letter. If complete, OFII issues a filing certificate showing the date: it starts the legal clock and lets your family begin the visa application. Keep it safe and send it, with the civil-status documents, to your family abroad as soon as you receive it. The calculator below gives the date the application opens and, if you file on that day, the date of implicit refusal.
Step 4: the mayor’s review, then the prefect’s decision
The mayor of your town, or of the town where you plan to live, examines income and housing. The mayor has two months to give an opinion, and silence counts as favourable. The file then returns to OFII’s regional office, which completes the review if needed and sends it to the prefect of the département (in Paris, the police prefect). The prefect has 6 months from the complete filing to notify a decision. These are the only periods set by law, notably in articles R434-7 to R434-11 of the CESEDA; no prefecture publishes its actual average.
| Step | Legal period | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Application opens | 18 months of residence | 1 September 2026 |
| Complete file lodged | - | 15 September 2026 |
| Mayor’s opinion | 2 months | 15 November 2026 |
| Prefect’s decision (or implicit refusal) | 6 months | 15 March 2027 |
Step 5: preparing the family’s arrival
After approval, OFII informs the mayor and the consulate. Your spouse should apply straight away for a long-stay visa serving as a residence permit; the family must enter France within three months of the visas being issued. Once here, the spouse validates the visa online within three months and pays the tax, €100 at the reduced rate that applies to family reunification. The family has a medical check organised by OFII, sometimes in the country of departure; the certificate issued afterwards is essential to obtain a permit. The VLS-TS validation timetable gives the exact dates.
Long-stay visa: what you pay once in France
VLS-TS validation tax
€300
| First card (year 2) | €350 |
| First two years | €650 |
| Visa fee at the consulate | depends on country |
The family’s residence permit, and the stamps
In most cases, your spouse applies after a year for a temporary private and family life card (vie privée et familiale). Minor children need no permit; once adults, or from 16 if they want to work, they apply for the same card. For nationals of Morocco and Tunisia, and of the African countries with a movement agreement with France (including Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Mali, Senegal and Togo), the family receives the same permit as the sponsor, temporary or resident card, to be requested within two months of arrival. Each family member’s permit costs €150 in tax stamps; if that person entered without a long-stay visa, the regularisation fee brings it to €450, €100 of it paid at filing and non-refundable. These amounts follow the increase of 1 May 2026.
Families that follow another procedure
As Service-Public.fr points out, family reunification only covers the family of a non-EU foreign national. The spouse of a French national, the parent of a French child, the family of an EU citizen, of a refugee or subsidiary-protection holder (family reunification for refugees, réunification familiale), of an EU long-term resident arriving from another EU country, and of a talent-card holder (talent-family card) get their visa another way, often faster. A family already in France can exceptionally be reunited on the spot. This is information, not legal advice: if you are refused, a migrant-support association or a lawyer can help with the appeal.