Previously, on Adventures in Becoming an Expat, we applied for and validated our French VLS-TS Visiteur visas, including the OFII medical exam, then converted those visas to Cartes de Séjour Visiteur residence permits.

⚠️ Disclaimer: I'm writing about my own experience going through the renewal process for a Carte de Séjour Visiteur, in Strasbourg (department 67, Bas-Rhin), in the last half of 2023. I hope this information can be helpful, but please note that the process will vary between prefectures and from year to year.

We renewed our Cartes de Séjour for the first time this year, rather than converting our visas as we had previously. This was a much simpler process, partly because of our experience with the conversion and partly because the system was different in a few minor ways. As before, if you run into issues I highly recommend the Legal France facebook groupen, where experts in the process answer questions and offer advice on specific problems.

The renewal application itself was simple

As with the conversion, everything is done on the Étrangers en Francefr portal, which I find good if not great (the English version doesn't include the application itself, which remains in French).

We didn't need to provide any information we hadn't previously submitted to DGEF, and personal information was helpfully pre-filled this time. We gathered data to support our claim of financial self-sufficiency, took 'titre de séjour' ePhotos at Photomatonfr, downloaded our health coverage attestations, and we were good to go.

Processing times are fast as of 2023 — with caveats

It's possible to log in early and see your application window, and I encourage you to do this 6 months or so before expiration. Applications this year were open in August for our 30 November expiration dates, which I noticed when I was double-checking the dates this fall. I'm not sure if it was an error or not, but that's a 4-month application window rather than the 3 I'd seen previously. Apply as soon as you can!

Like last year, we got trapped in the health coverage attestation loop. We participate in the Carte Vitale / PUMA system and l'Assurance Maladie (Ameli) websitefr is unable to generate attestations for longer than 12 months from the request date. Unfortunately, this meant that we were providing DGEF with proof of coverage that expired prior to our CdS validity period.

The agents working our files sent us requests for updates twice, and extended our current CdS validity period each time. This was a new, welcome part of the process, and I'm not sure if it depends on the agent or if it is policy. As a result, we could've continued submitting updated attestations well into January if the situation required it. Instead, the final request asked that we provide a reply from Ameli, stating that a longer-than-12-month attestation was impossible. A quick messaging turnaround provided the response, and that was uploaded to the DGEF portal.

If you were carrying a private health insurance plan that allowed you to renew more than 12 months at a time, this is a hurdle in the process you would likely never face.

Approval took 9 weeks from start to finish

Our applications were officially submitted on 05 September, 2023. We received approval on 14 November, prior to our current (extended!) Cartes de Séjour expiration dates. This felt like a fast turnaround, considering that we had 2 requests for additional information. I delayed submitting the information, thinking that showing a constantly-changing validity period might help, and it likely did not.

With the extensions that we were granted, there was a lot of breathing room compared to last year. This made the whole process much less stressful. We're now waiting to be contacted by the Strasbourg prefecture to collect our physical cards, but we have the relevant documentation (including validity at Schengen borders) for proof of validity through 30 November, 2024!

Our 2023 Carte de Séjour processing times, summarized:

2023-09-05	→ applications submitted

2023-09-23	⇇ additional information requested
2023-09-23	← CdS extension: 2023-12-20
2023-10-05	→ information submitted to DGEF
2023-10-06	⇇ additional information requested
2023-10-23	→ contacted Ameli for longer validity
2023-10-23	← response from Ameli received(!)
2023-10-26	→ information submitted to DGEF
2023-10-26	← CdS extension: 2024-01-25

2023-11-14	⇇ approvals received

Next time, I'll try to be more proactive

Knowing what I know now, some notes to self:

• Check in May to see if applications open in August.
• Submit a request for a longer health attestation prior to submitting applications and include the Ameli response in the initial application.
• Upload any updated responses immediately, instead of waiting on the information requests — it likely wasn't helping.

If this is something you're currently working on, best of luck! I hope your experience is as quick and painless as ours was this year.