January 2024 Move to France Q&A with Allison Grant Lounes

January 2024 Move to France Q&A with Allison Grant Lounes

All right. Hello everybody. Happy new year. Welcome to the first Move to France Q& A of 2024. I’m Allison Grant Lounes. I am the creator of Your Franceformation. I am the author of Foolproof French Visas, which is now in the complete 2023 edition.

I am the admin of the Americans in France group on Facebook, and I’ve been working in relocation for about 10 years, helping people to follow their dream of moving to France. So if you do want to have an individual paid consultation or inquire about

The services that we offer at the end of this Q & A you can email us at welcometo@yourfranceformation.com. And, of course, I’ll be giving you our contact details in the chat during the call. So, I’m going to start with today’s questions and

If you submitted them during the form, they automatically appear in the order they were submitted in, so I’m just going to go ahead and go through the document that I have here with the questions. You can ask questions in the Q&A box as well, and I will get to those

Once I’m done with all the questions that have been pre submitted. All right, so here we go. William, I am 73 years old and retired. I have a Canadian and UK passport. My partner is a French citizen and we have been together for three years living in Turkey.

I applied for a 1 year titre de séjour long stay visa of VLS-TS in May 2023 and was given a 6 month VLS-T from the 1st of June to the 30th of November 2023. I now wish to stay longer and apply for a residence card on the basis

Of a concubinage with my partner. I’m back in France using a 3 month Schengen visa. I can stay until the middle of March on this tourist visa. How do I apply for a residency card based on my concubinage status?

So, you need to go to a country where you have legal residence or citizenship and apply for a new visa, but I would not advise trying to go the concubinage route, especially if your partner has been back in France and you have been in Turkey and only been visiting France as a tourist

Because technically, you’re not living together because that person is living in France and you are not, legally. And if you’re retired, it doesn’t really make a difference. So I would say that. You want to make sure that this time you’re going to get a renewable long stay visa.

I’m not sure why they would have given you a 6 month visa unless you didn’t provide the correct amount of insurance or something like that. If you didn’t have the financial resources available. Those are the only reasons I can think of off the top of my head why they

Would give you a short term visa. Unless they just didn’t feel like it, because sometimes the consulate just, you know. Issues the wrong visa type, because they don’t really think about it. So, I would say, I don’t know if you’re still a legal resident of Turkey,

William, so you could return there to apply for a visa or you can go back to the US sorry to Canada or the UK. But you’re not going to be able to apply for anything in France and this is something that you can reach out to us for help with.

We can do the visa application and help make sure all the documents are in order so that you’ll get a renewable visa this time. Jill Just attended Adrienne Leeds webinar and she made a big point of saying we

Can work in France as long as we don’t take a job away from a French national. She’s wrong and our clients are completely US based. She’s wrong. What matters is where you are a tax resident. So, I’m not gonna generally debunk other people’s stuff on these calls.

If you want my opinion, you can ask me about it, but please don’t come to these calls or to paid consultations asking me to debunk things that other people say on the Internet. But no, if you’re on a retirement visa, you cannot still work remotely for your U. S. company.

They would have to set up in France as having accounting here, as having employees in France. They would have to issue you French payslips. They would have to get a certificate of coverage showing that you’re covered in the US. It’s a whole, it’s a whole thing.

So, no either you get a visa that enables you to work here and pay social charges and taxes here or you’re retired, but not both. Julian, Profession libérale. How much does one need to contribute into the social services before you’re able to access any of those funds for retirement?

That is not a question that I can answer. You need to contribute, I believe it’s 42. It’s the equivalent of 42 years of quarters to the system totally. So, there’s a totalization agreement between France, the U. S., and then various other countries. So, you can theoretically count quarters worked in countries other

Than France towards French retirement. But then you get paid out based on what you declare in France. So it kind of depends on how much income you’re declaring every quarter in France. Is it correct to say that if I want to apply for a work visa after having

A long term visitor’s visa, I would have to go back to my home country to apply for a work related visa? Not necessarily. You can switch your status from a visitor visa to a work visa or a profession libérale visa. However, it takes a long time.

When you go to apply for a new visa in the US, or your home country, usually, it’s about 10 days between submitting your application and getting your visa back in your passport. Whereas if you are applying in France for a change of status you have to renew your

Initial visa first, and then it depends on the préfecture, how you’re going to submit your change of status application. So, in some cases, it’s online and everything is done through the NF portal. I think that’s the direction that they’re going.

And that within a couple of years, all of the changes of status will be online. Some of them are not. So for profession libérale, for example, in Paris, you fill out an online form on a different website. You submit a bunch of documents. They invite you in for an appointment.

You go in for the appointment, you bring all your documents and then you get your récépissé. So, it’s about 3 months. In Bordeaux, for example, you mail it in and then, it’s anybody’s guess how long it’s going to take before they will reply to you.

But no, you don’t have to go back to apply for a new visa. But of course, it’s quicker if you do, if you let your visa expire and go back for a new visa, you can, you can do that at another time.

Elizabeth for the carte de séjour, different sites say you need to get your American birth certificate within xx days of your appointment. Could you share input on this? In some cases, french administrations will ask for a foreign birth certificate to be less than 6 months old. Not always.

I usually tell people to just use their birth certificate that they have. Make sure you get a long form birth certificate. Occasionally they will come back and ask for a more recent one. But fortunately, they are beginning to realize that in most countries, people’s birth doesn’t change and that the birth certificate is

Not updated in any circumstances. Do any English language documents need to be translated in France? And are there sources you like? We have a list of translators that we send out to our clients. You can also find them on there’s an official directory and, the préfecture or

The mairie will typically give you a list. For the visa application, normally, they will accept documents in English, so don’t worry too much about getting things translated. For the birth certificate for the health care, similarly, they will normally accept them in English.

Usually it’s when you’re submitting your renewal of your visa or your carte de séjour that they will want birth certificate, potentially marriage certificate translated into French. But I wouldn’t do it before somebody officially asks for it.

Cindy, I own a home in Paris and want to stay longer than 90 out of 180 days. What visa do I need? If I want to work remotely from Paris for my business in the US, is the visa different than if I am retired and don’t want to work remotely?

Yes, so if you have a business, then you need a visa that enables you to be self employed. If you’re not going to work, then you can just have a visitor visa and be retired. But you need a long stay visa if you’re going to be staying

More than 90 out of 180 days. If you’re not going to be living permanently in France, and you don’t want to stay long term and renew, you can just get a short term visa every year for the amount of time that you want to come, but you won’t be

Able to renew it or extend it in France. And again, you wouldn’t be able to work remotely. If you’re coming here on a short trip, and you’re officially a tourist, then nobody really cares, but if you’re coming for more than 90 days and

You’re staying quite a long time, then it gets a little bit iffier. Alright. My wife and I are semi retired. We receive Social Security and Japanese pensions totaling more than 2, 000 euros per month. We have an ongoing online business providing language services to clients in Japan.

It’s a self employment business in the UK. Our gross annual income from this is about 40 to 45, 000 Euros. One of our long time clients is Japanese acupuncturist now living in France. Will we qualify for the profession libérale indépendant visa, and is this

Single small client in France enough at the application stage when taken along with other clients in Japan? Yeah, I would say that that you would probably want the purpose, the profession libérale auto entrepreneur visa and I would start with the, with the Japanese acupuncturist living in France, like, get some kind of

Letter of support or recommendation. I wouldn’t say that that client is only paying 90 euros a month out of 40000 euros of income. I Would err on the side of providing less information. But yeah, I mean, I think if you could get some kind of letter or even email

That, that you have this client and then ideally a second one or even a third one. It doesn’t have to be super serious, but if you had additional letters that would be helpful. Uh, this is Muse. She is her new kitty. She’s very cute. She’s about 7 months old.

We recently lost our older 13 year old kitty, in the fall, so our, our younger kitty, who is about four, needed a friend. And she does not like it that fingers can go on the keyboard, but paws cannot, and it’s a very confusing rule. And she also likes to eat cheese.

All right, go do something. Go play with your brothers. In the scenario listed above, so the Japanese language business. Can my wife also apply for the profession libérale and what is the status for her? So I would do it so that there’s one business, one business plan,

And that one of you, it looks like that’s the conjoint collaborator. So, this status is going to be it’s when couples, when married couples or legally registered partners have a business together, you can have one auto entrepreneur business or micro entreprise with both partners, and you can do this for 5 years.

So, you pay social charges that are a little bit higher to cover both of your contributions, but it obviously simplifies things in that you only have to do one business plan, one joint application you have one set of invoices, you do one set of declarations, etc.

Why are you trying to drink my tea? Tea is not for kitties. Yvette, how to obtain a one year visa? You read Foolproof French visas and you determine the best visa type and follow the instructions for that visa type. I don’t have enough information in this question to know what

Visa type you would qualify for. If your income is social security disability, can that be accepted as my income for my entry and stay in France? Yes, if it’s over the net French minimum wage, which is about 1, 300 and 80 ish

Euros that just went up on January 1st, then yes, it can be considered, you know, passive income that will meet the criteria for the minimum financial resources. Leonie, how long does it take to have a long term visa be approved once submitted? So, in most cases, our clients are getting their visa applications

Back within 7 to 10 days. So I haven’t had one submitted in London recently, or, you know, in the past month, so it’s a little bit hard to know what the delays are, but usually for most applications that we submit, usually, it’s less than 2 weeks from appointment to having your passport.

And that’s even if they ask for an additional document. Sarah, is a retired person able to freelance in France without a work permit? No. How could a retired person supplement her retirement income by selling art or tutoring? You would have to apply for either a profession artistique visa to sell art, or

A profession libérale visa to be a tutor. And so that involves putting together a business or a project plan. If you’re on a profession libérale visa, you need to aim to make about 1800 euros per month gross. So, whatever the equivalent of French SMIC or French minimum wage is right

Now, as I said, it just went up. So it’s, I believe 17, let me Google it because. It just went up on January 1st, and I’m not sure of the new, 1767 per month is gross SMIC as of January 1st, 2024.

So, you would have to have self employment income equal to that amount to maintain a self employment visa. If you’re on a professional artistique visa, then it’s 70 percent of SMIC. So whatever 70 percent of 1767 is, um, 1, 237. Keeping in mind that those numbers are the minimum for renewing your visa.

It’s not necessarily going to be good enough to qualify you for naturalization. So there’s no such thing as being on a visitor visa and being retired, but occasionally selling a painting or occasionally doing a tutoring session. Either you’re self employed or you’re not.

David, we intend to be in France on December 1st this year. When should we start the visa application process? So for a visitor visa, you’ll want to have your application submitted by, I would say, mid October to early November. I like to leave a month between appointment and departure date

Just to be on the safe side. You can apply up to 90 days before, so the earliest you could potentially apply would be November, October, beginning of September. If you’re working with us, then we need a couple weeks, maybe a month for us to give you all the information that you need.

We have client orientation. We have client questionnaires to fill out, et cetera. So from the time of starting work with us to having your visa appointment, 3 to 4 weeks would be good. We’ve done it quicker. Sometimes there’s a little bit of pressure there, but, yeah, so I would say.

August September is when you would want when you would want to start working with us at the latest. And I see your 2nd question is about our services. So our services are the visa application, validating the visa once you arrive, getting you set up on the healthcare system, driver’s license exchange.

If you’re eligible for that. And things like that, we have partners that we work with who will help you find housing. We don’t do the housing piece. We don’t do the vehicle registration because we strongly advise against trying to import a vehicle, but we do have insurance partners too who can who

Can assist with the insurance piece. Chloe entrepreneur liberal On the france visa’s website. I select business profession liberale, it puts the purpose of my visa in france as employment, which is not what i’m doing. Yeah, there’s no box to check off for self employment. So That’s what it comes up as.

It’s not wrong. I make more than 77, 000 euros per year consulting. Do I have to start as auto entrepreneur for this visa or can I do a CEZU? I would say that you probably, if you make more than 77, 000, you probably

Want to do a CEZU, but you probably want to do a Passport Talent Entrepreneur rather than Profession Libérale. Those ones are, they take more time to set up. So I would say that. If you’re already at the stage of filling out the visa application, you

Might need to rethink your timeline a little bit because if you’re setting up a company, there’s a lot of stuff that needs to be done before you leave for France and before you apply for the visa. I was going to visit Florida, so I figured I would go to the VFS in Miami.

Is it better for me to go closer to my home? It really doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter which one you go to because you’re able to go to any VFS office in the country. But it’s just a matter of, you know, obviously the timing of your trip versus

The timing of your visa appointment. They will send your passport back to you in the mail or by FedEx, so you don’t have to go and pick it up. Clive. We have a house near Cahours and visit a few times a year, but are

Now retired and want to stay at least six months, but avoid the wealth tax. Advice. So the wealth tax, or the, it’s the Impôt sur la Fortune Immobilière. and it mainly applies to real estate fortunes. So if you have a lot of real estate properties, that’s when it’s going to come into play.

So you want to talk to an accountant but the tax treaty excludes you from ISFI for the first 5 years, so you could theoretically reside in France for 5 years. And then before going back. Compare the 6 to 12 versus 12 month long term visa for retirement purposes.

Well, the 6 month visa is not renewable. You would have to return to the US every year and apply for a new visa. And you can’t extend it in France, whereas the 12 month visa, you can get a renewable option and renew it in France. Irene, Profession Libérale.

If I apply for my visa for my coaching business by Profession Libérale and I open a gîte property at my business in a few years, that will partially be for my coaching clients in person. Do I need to open a 2nd business? No, you can register it on the same auto entrepreneur activity.

How does it affect the visa since that is a different business from the original coaching business? It doesn’t, it just needs to be registered as a secondary activity under your auto entrepreneur. Once you have the auto entrepreneur visa, it’s not like your auto entrepreneur visa

Says coaching on it, and you’re not able to do any other activities other than what you put in your original Visa application. So it’s not an issue, it’s just once you have the gîte you can register location meublée non-professionnelle or you can include it on your auto entrepreneur.

Some checklists mention the need for a background check or criminal report. Is that necessary for the Profession Libérale Visa? No, that’s only required for the Passport Talent Entrepreneur Visa. Is it a requirement for the Visitor Visa? No. Jennifer, I submitted my citizenship application in August 2023 to the Washington, D. C. consulate.

Any information on how long the process may take? No, no idea. When can I expect my complication for my interview? That’s not a question anybody could answer for any consulate or préfecture where you’re submitting a nationality application. There are Facebook groups on applying for French naturalization, where people

Will give their experience of, like, they submitted their application on X date, got their interview on Y date and received their nationality on Z date, so you could go in to some of those groups and search to see if anybody’s given their experience for the, the consulate in the U.

S., but I, I couldn’t tell you any of that. We are purchasing a home in southwest France as early as this summer. We are wishing for an agent to accompany us on some visits. Like in the U. S., we are used to having a buyer’s agent who has the role of looking out

For our interests, but realize this is not common practice in France. We are planning on purchasing an old farm and need a party to help us see potential pros and cons that we may be unaware of. Yeah, so there are people who do buyer’s agent services.

It’s very common in the English speaking community. So why don’t you send me an email, I’ll put my email in the chat. But if you send me an email and tell me where you’re looking, I can put you in touch with.

I, I know a couple of buyer’s agents in that sort of general area in the, like, Dordogne and, area, so I can reach out and share that contact information. David, is age a factor for the profession liberal visa category? No. We have a client who got well, she was profession artistique,

But she was a performing artist, and she got it at, like, 83. So, no. If a husband and wife work together on a microentrepreneur au frais real business, do they need separate visas, and does the income need to be double?

The income does not need to be double but you will pay higher social charges. You need one business plan. And you need to explain the conjoint collaborator situation. So who’s doing what role in the business and why you’ve selected the conjoint collaborator status. You can do that for 5 years.

And then at the 5 year point, the 2nd person needs to theoretically become an employee. So, and that’s expensive and me, so you would want to think of a different status. That’s going to, that’s covered in a complete French business incubator, which is getting an upgrade.

I recorded about half the modules this weekend for the new, the new version of that. So everybody who has already purchased complete French business incubator will be getting access to the new modules and then we’ll be doing a little bit of promotion of it when it’s finally ready, but I’m hoping that

Will be before the end of the month. And if you are working on complete French business incubator now, you are going to get the new videos. The minute they’re done, so you don’t have to put off buying it because the new 1 is going to come. Everybody who has already purchased it.

It’s going to get the new and upgraded edition, last question that was pre submitted is from Miriam. After the interview, once I have the visa, how much time do I have before I need to be in France? I heard within 3 months after getting the visa.

So, you need to apply for the visa. You have to have your departure date before you apply for the visa. You don’t have to have your plane ticket, but you have to have some kind of reservation. If you have, reservations for where you’re going to be staying on arrival.

You don’t have to have a long term lease. If you need to purchase insurance, because you’re getting a visitor visa, then that needs to correspond with your start date. Once you have your departure date for your arrival in France, you can make your visa appointment up to 90 days before that date.

So, it’s the appointment date that depends on your arrival date, not the other way around. So, for example, you could have a visa appointment on January 12th saying that you want to arrive in France a little bit less than 3 months away.

So the consulate’s going to issue a visa that starts April 8th. You don’t necessarily have to arrive in France exactly on April 8th. If you end up changing your plans and getting there on the 15th, not a big deal.

You do have to secure long term housing and register your visa and validate it online within 90 days of its start date. So you don’t want to push it off too much, especially if you don’t have a long term lease. Because then you’re not going to have enough time to find housing and

Validate your visa within the 90 days. Okay. Going over to the questions that were submitted in the zoom chat box, Christy, you’ve said that if you need to return to your home country to get a new visa, it interrupts your continuous day in France.

How long can you go back to your home country for a visit or vacation and not disrupt your continuous day in France? So, your continuous stay in France is not dependent. You can take vacation. That’s not the issue. If you’re maintaining a residence in France and renewing your visa and paying

Your bills in France and have your business registered in France, that’s still your main Your main residence and paying your taxes and all of that. I don’t know how long you’re planning on coming back for. Like, theoretically, you shouldn’t be spending more than 3 months out of the year.

Outside of France, if you have a carte de séjour, a one year one. In practice, they’re really looking at the three months if you are taking benefits from the system. They’re not looking at it so much if you are paying taxes into the system.

And if you have like a really good reason, like, Hey, my mom was sick and I was taking care of her and I had to stay for four months instead of three months, that’s going to be okay. The question is more like if you’re trying to maintain a carte de séjour, but also

Spending more than six months out of France and claiming that means you don’t have to pay taxes in France, then you’re kind of playing both sides of the coin. And that’s called a avoir le cul entre deux chaises. Have your ass between two chairs, and I don’t recommend it.

Can I get the Profession Libérale Visa if I set up a CESU instead of Auto Entrepreneur? No. The president of a CESU is either receiving dividends or they are a salaried employee, and you can’t be salaried when you’re on a Profession Nibéral Visa.

If you’re setting up a CESU, you need to probably do a Passport Talent Entrepreneur. I have an LLC in the U. S. doing software consulting. Will they have an issue with me having this company and setting up a new one to do the same thing in France? No. Not an issue at all.

In fact, it’s very common for our clients to have the same or very similar businesses set up in both countries. I’m planning on working for an American company virtually while living in France. I’m also awaiting my French citizenship submitted in August 2023.

Can you tell me whether I can do this foreign work while on French soil? Do I need a work visa? Yes, you need a work visa until you have citizenship. If you have a company that is going to have you as an employee in France,

Then they need to be registered in France to have employees. They can pay you, they can send you on an intercompany transfer visa and keep you on a U. S. contract for up to three years, but then You’re not paying into the French system. You’re not covered by the French health care system.

They still need to issue French payslips and they’re going to need to do French accounting on having employees and they need to respect all other French labor laws like work hours, maternity leave, sick leave, etc. So, seriously consider whether or not your company is going to be willing to

Do that for you because in many cases, once they find out what’s actually required, they’re not willing to do that. Can a wife who has been in France on a profession libérale visa for five years and paying French taxes while kids have been going to school in France potentially apply for naturalization? Yes.

Then her husband who has only been visiting them on less than a 90 day situation becomes some kind of vie privée later. And a family reunification. Okay. So once you have spent more than 18 months in France, earning at least

Minimum wage and paying taxes, then you can have your spouse get a vie privée. That might go up to 2 years. There’s a 1 of the provisions in the new immigration law might increase that amount of time for doing that family reunification.

But for 5 years short, now what, what unfortunately can’t happen is if the spouse who has been living and working in France becomes French, that then does not give the other spouse the ability to get the vie privée visa by

Virtue of the fact of being married to a French citizen because the person was not French when they got married. Like the, the citizenship doesn’t predate the marriage. But all the kids would be naturalized when a parent is naturalized.

This renting a property on short term, let’s need to be classed as a business. The magic answer here is 23, 000 euros. So, under 23, 000 euros per year, it’s going to be location meublée non-professionnelle, so it would still be registered with a SIRET number and and as

Auto entrepreneur, but it would not be. It would not technically be classed as a business and you wouldn’t need a profession libérale visa for it. It’s over 23, 000 Euros per year. Then that’s a business and you need to have a visa application and a visa that enables you to.

Work and run this business in France Birth certificates. Is that a required document for profession libérale application? Not for the application, but you’re going to need your birth certificate for healthcare registration and the renewal. If my last name is now different than the birth name, do I also need to submit

The marriage and divorce certificates? You will for getting on health care. CPAM is very picky, especially recently. I feel like there’s been a push to take as long as possible to add foreigners to the health care system. So they’ve been coming back on basically everybody. Asking for more documentation that they already have.

They want to see the paper trail between your birth name and your current name, including, like, even the silliest little typos you can imagine. So, if your name is not the same, then you’ll need to provide the document chain. And yeah, if the documents are in Cyrillic, then they

Definitely need to be translated. Can you please clarify you don’t have to have a criminal background check for the profession libérale? Only for passport talent entrepreneur As U. S. citizens. We always hear nightmare stories about not being able to open a bank account in France. Some people like to complain on the Internet.

That does not mean that their experience is the majority or even very common. So, we work with a bank who opens accounts for our clients. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer because there are rules about checking people’s identity, but we don’t have any issues. The feasibility advisability of maintaining bank accounts

In our home country? Shouldn’t be a problem there. I would advise against telling them that you’re moving to France. We can have a conversation at some point about, like, what bank you use for your accounts and potentially your investments and whether or not there’s potentially going to be a problem.

You can move your accounts to a bank that works with Americans overseas. Investment accounts are a little bit trickier, but we have some, we have some financial advisors we work with who can, who can set them up in, in banks that are overseas Americans friendly.

And some companies like Schwab, like, if you’ve been a Schwab customer, you can keep your Schwab accounts and change your address. Fidelity, like, doesn’t want to deal with you if you have a foreign address, but Schwab is fine. for example, so that’s something we can advise on and point you

To the right people as well. It sounds like Jennifer, you might want to have a consultation with me to talk through all your questions. Can one claim, Social Security and Medicare in the US and still get a profession libérale visa? Absolutely… I mean, if you’re getting, if you’re, if you’re getting your

Pension from the US, like. That there’s no reason why you can’t have a profile. I will say that. France is not going to count the social security income towards your financial resources because what they’re looking at is they’re looking at the amount of money that’s coming in from your mi compte piece.

Like, if you’re on a business visa, they’re looking at your income from the business, not your total amount of income. So, You know, you would just want to be careful to make sure that you’re going to be able to renew your visa.

We are looking to purchase accommodation first and then go for the visa. My wife will still work two days a week remotely from our new property, but we are also looking to set up a gîte B& B business at the property.

So it sounds like she will need a profession libérale visa and work remotely like as a contractor. And then you can tack on the B& B business as a secondary activity to that. If I’m on the profession libérale visa, renew it and become a CESU, do I have to change my Visa type?

You will not be able to open a CESU while you’re on a profession libérale visa. So you will have to do the setup for the company, put the comp capital deposit in escrow, and wait until your change of status goes through before you can register your company. And that can take several months.

So I would start, as you mean to continue. I hear your answer about US companies not being willing to be registered in France. And they will ask for copies of your bank statements at the renewal and you’re supposed to be declaring your worldwide income on your French tax declaration.

And you’re putting yourself and your employer at risk. So, I’m Don’t do it For the health care application to the birth certificate and associated documents need to be officially translated? Not usually if they’re in English, but sometimes they come back and ask for a translation.

And if they’re not, if they’re in a different alphabet, then they definitely need to. Do any of the documents need to be apostilled for the visa process or health care application? Again, not usually 1 time. We had. 1, CPAM office come back for an apostille, usually they don’t.

At least for US documents, but it’s not impossible. But typically we just send in documents in English with no translation and we send in photocopies and it’s fine. I would say for apostille, that’s when you’re getting married or pacsed or when you’re applying for French citizenship.

All right, so we have reached the end of the pre submitted questions. So I’m going to give you some links for how to set up a consultation with me. If you need further questions. There were some of you that submitted a lot of questions. Normally, it’s 2 questions a person for the free.

Q and a’s, and this doesn’t obviously replace an individual consultation where you’re able to share more personal information. So I’ll just talk for a minute about some of the things we do. And if you have any final questions, you can continue to submit them. We have a couple more minutes.

So I do individual paid consultations, which is you have an hour with me to go through your whole situation, ask all your questions and come up with a timeline typically. Or things that need to be resolved before you’re ready to move to France.

Now the cost of the paid consultation is applied as a credit to any package that you may purchase within 90 days of having the call. So if you do plan on working with us, then it can be a good idea to have a consultation 1st, just make sure it’s a good fit.

Make sure that all your questions get answered. And then 3 months to actually start the process. Now, for our clients, we have a self guided option, which is we have a series of videos that in both Fast Track to France or, and or in the Complete French Business Incubator.

Fast Track to France covers people who are moving for visitor and family reasons. Complete French Business Incubator is for people who are moving to be self employed get an artist visa or start a French company. And so our resources guide you through the visa process and the French admin

Stuff, and then you have 1 or 2 calls with me, plus a visa application review so that I can make sure that your visa application is complete and pick out any sort of red flags or things that I think the consulate might pick up on that would that would affect your visa application.

So Those are available on the client packages page. I will give you the link to that in the chat as well. Thank you. Okay, I am French and sponsoring my American spouse to get his French nationality. He already had his interview and will probably get his naturalization in six months.

However, we need to move to France next month. Does he need a visa? Yeah, he does, unfortunately. And you’re going to need to inform, presumably the consulate in the U. S., of your change of residence. And hopefully that won’t lengthen the process.

Christie, if we sign up for a clarity call, because we know we need you might after that 30 minutes, we need to do a paid consultation before it packages. Okay. So what we’re doing now is the calls with me to get started are 10 to 15 minute calls about the package.

So, it’s not really about answering all of your questions. So I would say if you have a lot of questions that you need answered 1st, then you want to do a paid consultation. We can always do an additional 10 minutes specifically about the package at a later time.

BuT yeah, the free calls which I’m phasing out and shortening at most are sort of my agenda and they’re to make sure that I can help you, basically, because I obviously don’t want to sell people A service that they don’t need, or that that doesn’t, that doesn’t fit their situation. So.

Yeah, it’s more about what visa type are you applying for? What’s your timeline? What do I need from you? In order to get started and is it going to work? Basically, where the paid consultation, you get an hour of my time. You can ask me anything you want.

And then, as I said, if you do end up going to purchase a package after that. It gets applied as a credit to a call within 90 days. Did he get the vie privée familiale visa? Yeah, that’s the visa for the spouse of a French citizen.

I Assume that you have registered your marriage with the French consulate and gotten the livret de famille and the and the transcription of the marriage certificate from Nantes. You will need an updated transcription, so you need to order that now because sometimes it takes a couple weeks to arrive.

And if you’re making the move in a month, then you’re kind of already too late. Is alimony accepted as a form of income for a visa. Yes, you’ll need to show the court order. All right so next week, I’m going to be doing

A webinar with some lovely people from Leggett and I’m going to find the sign up link because some of you mentioned purchasing property. So I want to give you the sign up link to be able to Okay, so this webinar that I’m doing next week, it’s on January 16th,

Which is Tuesday at I believe 7 p. m France time I’m going to be attending with a financial advisor with people from Leggett and with people from Lumen who are our currency transfer service and the way it works is just there’s 5 of us who are answering questions about moving to

France in different in different areas. So if you do have questions about some of these other services as well you can go ahead and sign up for the webinar through this link and hopefully I’ll see you there. All right, I think there might be 2 or 3 more things that. I got here.

Okay. So, if you’d like to have a little chat about what package might be best for you you can request 1 on the website. You can also email us at welcometo@yourfranceformation.Com, which I just put in the chat. A couple of you mentioned information about purchasing homes and buyers agents.

So send me an email about where you’re looking and I will send an email introduction to a couple people in that at least 1 person in the area. If I, if I have them, I know a few in various areas in the Southwest of France. So.

They tend to be pretty, pretty local, so I’ll have to know what department that you’re looking for. All right, well, thank you so much for attending the Q &A, the next one is on February 5th. Same time, same place. So if you registered for this one, you should get an email reminder

To attend the one in February. And hopefully we’ll be posting this one on YouTube tomorrow or the next day so that you can watch the replay. Thank you so much. I look forward to hearing from you and have a great month and Happy New Year. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.

The Monthly Q&A with Allison Grant Lounes allows you to ask questions and learn about how to move to France. Q&As are free and held monthly on the first Monday of every month via zoom (and the following Monday in case of a holiday).

Register for the next Q&A here: https://www.yourfranceformation.com/qas/

Submit your questions here: https://forms.gle/szjGyttsqTAtzWri9

Some of this month’s questions include:

❓How much does one need to contribute into the social services before you are able to access any of those funds for retirement?

❓ If I want to apply for a work visa after having a long term visitors visa, I would need to go back to my home country to apply for a work related visa?

❓Do any English language documents need to be translated in France, and are there sources you like?

❓If I want to work remotely from Paris for my business in the USA, is the visa different than if I am retired and don’t want to work remotely?

❓Can SSDI (Social Security Disability) be accepted as my income for my entry and stay in France?

Thinking about moving to France? If you liked this video and want to learn more about how you can pursue your own Franceformation, check out the following resources:

💜 Like this video and subscribe to this channel

💜 Check out the Profiles in Franceformation podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere you get your podcasts, or here: https://yourfranceformation.com/podcast/

💜 Learn about what you need to learn before you’re ready to move to France by downloading the Franceformation Readiness Assessment here: http://yourfranceformation.com/assess…

💜 And if you want to learn more about which French visa type is right for you and how you can make your dream of moving to France a reality, check out my book Foolproof French Visas here: http://www.yourfranceformation.com/bo…. or order the paperback on Amazon.on.

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