Validating Your Visa After Arrival

The deadline is counted from your entry stamp

A VLS-TS must be validated within 3 months of the date you entered France — the date your passport was stamped at the border, not your lease date, your address registration, or the date printed on the visa. Leaving and re-entering during that window does not reset the clock.

This step is what makes the visa function as a residence permit for its first year. In-person OFII validation of the sticker no longer exists; it is done online for essentially every VLS-TS category.

OFII’s role is narrower than its reputation. It does not issue residence permits — that is the prefecture’s job. OFII validates the VLS-TS (visa long séjour valant titre de séjour), which then legally functions as your residence permit, and separately organizes the medical examination for new arrivals.

What to have ready before you start

The portal asks for the same few things in most categories, but the exact checklist depends on your visa type, so read the one shown in your ANEF account. Start soon after arrival rather than close to the deadline: the three-month clock keeps running whatever happens on the portal, technical errors included.

• Your valid passport with the VLS-TS sticker
• The details the ANEF account asks for: an email address, your visa number, your date of entry into France and your French address
• Proof of address in France — a utility bill, a lease, or an attestation d’hébergement
• A bank card for the validation tax: paying online by card is the primary and most reliable method, and paper timbres fiscaux are generally no longer accepted for this step
• A digital identity photo in ICAO format, which may be requested depending on your visa category

The online steps

Validation is done entirely online and takes an evening if the documents are to hand. Follow the six steps in order on the ANEF portal; the account activation and the tax stamp are both time-limited, so do not start unless you can finish the same day.

1. 1Go to administration-etrangers-en-france.interieur.gouv.fr and choose “I validate my visa”
2. 2Authenticate via FranceConnect, or create a direct account and activate it within 24 hours of the confirmation email
3. 3Enter your visa details, arrival date and French address
4. 4Upload your passport photo page, the visa sticker, and proof of address in France
5. 5Pay the timbre fiscal online by card, or buy it at timbres.impots.gouv.fr — the code is single-use and time-limited, so finish the validation the same day
6. 6Keep the confirmation email and the PDF “Confirmation de validation”, which you can download as soon as the validation goes through. That PDF, not a card in the mail, is your proof of legal residence until your first residence-permit renewal; banks, healthcare and the prefecture will ask for it in your first year

The tax went up in 2026

Under Article 128 of the loi de finances pour 2026, the validation tax for standard VLS-TS categories rose from €200 to €300, effective May 1, 2026. Some exemptions remain — spouses of French nationals, certain scholarship holders — so confirm your category on the portal.

Reduced-rate categories, students among them, pay a tax of €100, up from €50, under article L.436-1 of the CESEDA as rewritten by the same law. Whether a separate €50 stamp duty is added to that at checkout, for a total of €150, is not settled: the law attaches the stamp to residence cards, and published figures for the visa validation differ. Treat €100 as the confirmed tax and check the total ANEF shows before you pay.

The amount is set by the finance law and can now change mid-year, not only once a year, so check the ANEF portal or timbres.impots.gouv.fr on the day you pay rather than trusting any figure written earlier, including this one.

If your passport was not stamped

Entering by land or rail from another Schengen country, or on a flight connecting through another Schengen airport, may leave you without an entry stamp. ANEF still requires an entry date, so be ready to document it another way — a boarding pass, a ticket, a lease start date.

After validation: the medical visit and the CIR

Depending on your visa category, OFII may then send you a convocation (summons) to a medical visit, to an appointment to sign the Contrat d’Intégration Républicaine (CIR), or to both. For most non-student categories the CIR includes a civic training day and a possible French-language assessment.

• Visitors: typically summoned for the medical visit and exempt from the CIR
• Salaried workers, entrepreneurs and family-visa holders: generally subject to both
• Students: generally not routed to the CIR
• Talent Passport holders: exempt from both

The medical visit is free and comes later

Where your category requires it, the medical visit — a chest X-ray and a brief medical interview — is free of charge and is scheduled separately, by a convocation sent after you validate. Capacity varies significantly by region, and in high-demand areas the wait for an appointment can run to several months. Bring your vaccination history and any relevant medical records.

A late convocation does not by itself put you in an irregular situation, as long as you completed the online validation within the three months. It can, however, delay related steps such as full affiliation to Assurance Maladie (CPAM).

From January 1, 2026, passing a civic exam tied to the CIR is required for a first multi-year residence card in the categories subject to the CIR. It is described as a 40-question multiple-choice test in French with an 80% pass mark; that detail comes from a single source, so confirm it on your ANEF account or with your local OFII office before relying on it.

Biometrics: validation is not the EES border system

No new fingerprint or biometric step in the OFII validation itself could be confirmed. What became fully operational around April 10, 2026 is the EU’s separate Entry/Exit System (EES), which records the fingerprints and facial images of non-EU travelers crossing Schengen borders.

Holders of a valid long-stay visa or residence permit are not registered in EES, so the border system is distinct from validating your VLS-TS and should not be confused with it.