Spouse of a French citizen
You apply for a vie privée et familiale visa at the French consulate, and you have the right to work immediately on arrival. There is no income requirement on the French spouse, and no visa fee.
- Your marriage certificate, apostilled — digital apostilles are now accepted
- Your spouse’s French identity document
- Proof that the relationship is genuine
Spouse of a non-EU resident: family reunification
Here the spouse already in France (the sponsor) files the regroupement familial dossier with OFII on your behalf; the prefecture then decides, and only after that does the family apply for its entry visa at a French consulate. The sponsor must have lived in France legally for at least 18 months (12 months for Algerian nationals) and hold a residence permit valid for at least one year.
This file is the one exception to the rule that no French translations are needed before you travel. The first long-stay visa application at a US consulate needs none, but the regroupement familial dossier is filed in France by the sponsor, with OFII and the prefecture, not at a consulate, and the documents in it must be in French. A US marriage certificate and each child’s US birth certificate cannot go in as they are, or with an informal translation.
- Stable household resources over the previous 12 months, measured against the SMIC: about €1,867 a month for a household of two or three in 2026, 1.1× the SMIC (about €2,054) for four or five, and 1.2× for six or more
- Housing of adequate size and condition, verified by the prefecture
- Processing of 6–15 months after submission
- An apostille on each US civil-status document, such as the marriage and birth certificates, from the issuing US state authority
- A French translation of each document by a sworn translator (traducteur assermenté) registered with a French Court of Appeal; the list is on courdecassation.fr. The interior ministry’s applicant portal says translations by anyone else are not accepted, while service-public.gouv.fr also allows one certified by a French consular or diplomatic authority
PACS partners
A civil union follows the same vie privée et familiale process as marriage, with more scrutiny. The PACS must have been registered for 12+ months with continuous cohabitation, and you should expect to prove a shared life in depth — joint accounts, lease, travel together, utility bills, insurance policies.
Moving together, and children
When a household moves, the applications are separate but the timing is shared. File each adult’s application as its own dossier, lodged together so the consulate sees one household, and attach the children to a parent’s file with the documents below.
- Each spouse needs their own visa application — there is no joint file
- If one of you holds an EU Blue Card or Talent Passport, the other gets automatic work authorization
- Time the applications together for consistency
- Minor children under 18 get their own long-stay visa on the same route, with birth certificates and, where relevant, custody agreements
Read next
- VLS-TS or Carte de Séjour à Solliciter?VLS-TS or carte de séjour à solliciter: what your visa means on arrival
- Validating Your Visa After ArrivalValidating a VLS-TS on ANEF
- Enrolling Your Children in School in FranceMoving with children: enrolling them in school
- Bringing Your Dog or Cat from the US to FranceBringing the dog or cat
How we verify this guide
Every statement above is taken from the official French or US government pages listed below, through our knowledge base, which is re-checked against those sources every week. This guide was written from it and is dated: its facts were last verified in September 2026 and its text last changed on September 29, 2026.
Because a visa or tax decision is hard to undo, this guide is also reviewed by the Relo2France research team before it changes. What people who made the move report is kept apart, in the In Practice note, and is never stated as the rule.
Spotted something out of date? Write to support@relo2france.com. More on how we work.