<aside> ☝ This is a complex and ever-changing topic, we’re not legal professionals and cannot give any legal advice for obtaining a visa. The information on this page contains the most important extracts from resources listed below as well as our personal experience.
</aside>
Obtaining a visa is always a painful process that takes some dedication and non-negligible paperwork. France, in general, in this domain is not better or worse than any other EU country.
The good news for tech workers is that there is a special type of visa(and residence permit) for skilled professionals introduced in 2017 called talent passport (”Passeport talent") **which is super easy to obtain if you have support from your employer.
Down below here we try to gather the most essential information for the most common case: obtaining a common long-stay visa and passport talent for the employees of French companies.
For all types of long-stay visas for salaried employees, any employer or company operation in France wishing to recruit you must first request authorization from the French authorities.
You must submit the work permit that was granted to your employer among other documents submitted for visa applications.
You can search for companies that are providing visa sponsorship in our **Jobs database.**
Resources: [2.a, 2.b]
When issued this visa, the holder must apply for a residence permit during the first 2 months. It means that you need to:
The last part is especially important as someplace are notoriously difficult to get an appointment to and if you miss it, you will lose a lot of your time.
Resources: [1.a]
In the case of this visa, you do not have to apply for a residence permit however you still need to validate it within 3 months.
The good news is that the validation process is now completely online.
Within 2 months prior to the expiration date of your visa, you must apply for a residence permit.
Resources: [1.a]