France Visas

Are you visiting as a tourist, seeing family, on a business trip or staying for medical care given by a hospital? If so, you’ll likely need a visa. For these reasons, you’ll probably need to get a tourist or private short-stay visa.

Are you a young person who wants to spend up to a year in France, exploring the culture and working to support yourself? The young traveller – working holiday visa might be the one you need. This is a type of long-stay visa that contains “vacances travail” (working holiday).

If you’re booking a long stay in France without any plans of working, whether that’s for pleasure or personal reasons, you’ll need a visa. For any stay of more than 3 months, you’ll need a tourist or private long-stay visa.

If you’ve been invited to stay in France by colleagues or business partners or you want to attend or take part in trade fairs, talks or conferences, this is possible by applying for a short-stay visa.

If you’re self-employed and you want to start or take part in a commercial, industrial, artisanal or agricultural activity or you’re hoping to work for yourself in France, you will need to apply for a long-stay visa (the same as a VLS/TS) residence permit.

Living in France as a student lets you create special memories and work on your language skills, all whilst studying. We know that applying for a visa can seem overwhelming at first, so we’ll guide you through the process. 

If you’re a student who is looking to do a professional work placement in France, but you’re unsure if you will need a visa for this, you can visit this visa wizard tool that will offer you some helpful student visa guidance.