Wednesday, January 4, 2017

So you say you want to move here...

Let's say you have your reasons for moving some place else.  Let's say you've chosen France as your destination.  Well, today's your lucky day.  Um, well, most likely not.  However you see the outcome of your day (luck vs no luck), we've been encouraged to share our experiences in following the immigration process to legally live here.

As background, we are retired from our working lives.  We have what we hope are sufficient financial resources to live in retirement.  We were looking to "get out" while the "getting was good."  More properly said, we wanted to experience something new and different and knew that wherever we landed we'd be putting down new, perhaps strong, roots.  Leaving the US for us was not a halfway, uncertain thing.

We recognized immediately that we would become immigrants.  And in becoming immigrants we made a conscious decision to set aside our American "exceptionalism" and to try as best we could to follow all of the rules and laws of immigration of our new home country.  We did not want to run any risk of being told we could not live here.

Here's an overview of the process we've followed -

  • Researched immigration requirements through a French Consulate website
  • Discovered we could not simply move to France on our travelers visa (3 months automatically granted to US citizens).  We had to apply for our long stay visas through a French Consulate in our country of origin.
  • Rented an apartment for three months (so we could show the contract to the French Consulate officials)
  • Purchased one-way airline tickets (to show the French Consulate officials we meant business)
  • Visited the French Consulate nearest us with all of the documentation they asked for on their website
  • Received our passports with a large page filling Visa sticker (valid for one year)
  • Sold our home in the US
  • Boarded a plane and left
After landing in France
  • Greeted our short stay apartment owners, went through the contract and details they felt important to point out and moved in
  • Sent required documentation to the immigration authorities and received our appointment time/date
  • Visited OFII for a medical exam and receipt of a second page filling sticker (seems like it's good for a long time)
  • Opened a French bank account (to pay for utilities)
  • Found a long term (in our case furnished) apartment and moved in
Eight months on...
  • Made our first appointment with the Prefecture de Police
  • Gathered required documentation and had translated into French, using a state approved translator ONLY, all documents originating in English
  • Visited the Prefecture de Police and received a récépissé that granted us permission to remain in France until our Carte de Séjour (Visiteur) had been prepared a few months later
  • Picked up our Carte de Séjour (Visiteur - valid for one year)
Annually thereafter - 
  • Make an appointment with the Prefecture de Police
  • Gather required documentation and have translated into French, using a state approved translator ONLY, all documents originating in English
  • Visit the Prefecture de Police and receive a récépissé that grants us permission to remain in France until our Carte de Sejour (Visiteur) had been prepared a few months later
  • Pick up our Carte de Séjour (Visiteur - valid for one year)
We understand that after ten years the French state might grant us without our asking a version of the Carte de Séjour that is valid for ten years.  They also may allow us to apply for the ten year Carte de Séjour after five years, but we have yet to test this.

Reading the list of steps we've followed to living legally here hides the very many details and small dramas that arise at seemingly each and every stage.  There are language issues.  There are process issues (usually stemming from our lack of understanding of why something is being asked for).  There are personality issues (though these are very rare and we've only encountered two, perhaps three, nasty fonctionnaires in all our time here).

Taking all this into consideration you might wonder if it's worth it?  Afterall, a made famous by TV person who lives here has been known to advise Americans to not worry about all that silliness and just come live here without a proper visa.  Their contention is that the authorities leave Americans alone and won't bother them.

For us there are two ways of answering the question of "is it worth it."  The first is very practical.  When you look at the list in it's entirety it's easy to forget that all of this unfolds over the months and years.  There is plenty of time at each stage to do what is needed.  Sure, it can feel sometimes like you'd rather be out enjoying the day than sitting at home working through all the things immigrants are demanded of.  But if your experience is anything like our's, there will be plenty of time in a day to do the needful.

The second way of looking at it is from the perspective of emotion and experience.  When looked at this way, following all the details of processing an immigrant's stay here is a small price to pay for living in a truly civilized place.  The quality of food and drink is second to none.  Art museums, monuments, and cultural experiences simply can not be duplicated anywhere else.  The beauty of our surroundings extends many times from the biggest, grandest things all the way down to the smallest detail.  And then there's the people.  After you get to know the locals and after the locals get to know you, friendships can bond you in a way never before imagined.  For us it's been very much worth the effort to stay "legal" in living here.  The peace of mind is worth every minute spent on the details required by the French state.

We took a look elsewhere around Europe to see what their immigrant processes were.  We wanted to see how difficult it might be to move to a different country (the French Carte de Sejour is only good for living in France).  What we found is that the processes are largely the same.  Though we're sure there are differences in the details.  For instance, when looking at the visa requirements for Portugal there seem to be no requirement to have English documents translated by a state licensed professional.

We hope this blog entry helps.  We can't vouch for how this would go for you.  We're not immigration professionals, so take all this with a grain of salt.  Still, we would like to give people some idea of what they might go through and to give them hope that it will all work out OK in the end.


Autumn in Paris