There are several types of French student visas. If you plan to study in France for four months to one year, you must apply for a long-stay French student visa called the VLS-TS student visa (VLS-TS “Étudiant”). Since my wife and I plan to attend cooking and pastry school for one year in the South of France in September 2024, we applied for the VLS-TS student visa. We found the process obtuse and confusing at times, which led to uncertainty and anxiety. In the end, we did everything right. Once we reached our visa appointment and submitted all hard-copy documents and biometrics, we received our passports back with visas applied in five business days, which is as fast as possible. Below are some notes and tips about the process we learned, which we hope will help you when applying for a long-stay French student visa.
Before You Start
- Ensure your passport is in good condition, issued within the last ten years, has at least two blank pages, and is valid for at least six months after your planned return from France. If you do not own a passport or your existing passport does not meet the above requirements, you must apply for a passport or renew your passport.
- You must apply for a long-stay French student visa in your home country or country of residence. In our case, this was the United States. Although you may be able to begin the process outside your home country or country of residence since the first step involves submitting your application and documents online, you will ultimately have to visit the visa center in your home country or country of residence in person to submit your hard-copy documents and provide biometric data: a photo and your fingerprints.
- In the final stage of the application process, you must leave your passport with the visa center for approval and processing. This can take three to four weeks, but longer if your documentation is incomplete and you go back and forth with the French Embassy. So, during this time, you cannot travel outside your home or residence country until your passport is returned with your visa added.
Step One
- The first step in applying for a VLS-TS student visa is finding a school you want to attend. You can leverage the Campus France website to identify a school and program or, as my wife and I did, find your school independently.
- During the subsequent phases of the visa application process, you will need to state the date you plan to arrive in France before the start date of your program. It was unclear to us how long in advance we could plan to enter France before our program started. We searched for answers and found a lot of conflicting information; we sent many emails to support and received no clear reply. Finally, we scheduled a support phone call with Campus France; we were told that, on average, applicants should pick an arrival date no more than two to three weeks before the start of their program in order not to create an issue with the application process. So, since our program starts September 14th, 2024, we selected August 28th as our entry date into France and had no problems.
Step Two
- You can start this process six months before the start date of your program.
- Once you identify the school you want to attend, you need to apply, enroll as a student, and pay the required deposit to obtain a signed and dated document from the school, typically called an ATTESTATION D’ASSURANCE, that states the program start and end dates and that you are enrolled in the program. You can not move forward without this document.
- Next, you must create an Etudes en France account and submit an application and the required documents for review and approval. The site is straightforward regarding the information needed and documents you need to submit, and once you are logged in, there is a support email system to help answer questions. Once you submit your application and required documents, Campus France USA will review them all and approve or deny your application. The review process can take up to four weeks. My application approval took one week. My wife was required to complete a phone interview, so her application approval took longer (We are still not sure why?). If approved, an acceptance letter in PDF form will be published to your account. It is entitled: “Accord préalable d’inscription (Confirmation of acceptance/pre-enrollment), Attestation « Etudes en France » (‘Etudes en France’ certificate). You will also receive an automated email stating: “Dear Student, Campus France USA has finalized the review of your Etudes en France application. At this time, you can proceed to complete your visa application on the France-Visas platform and make an appointment to submit your visa application at a VFS Global Center. Please review the Student Visa Guidelines to learn about the visa application process and prepare yourself for an upcoming visa appointment.” Save a copy of this email with your other documents. You will need it later. Finally, log back into your Etudes en France account, download the acceptance letter, and store it with all your other documents. For the next step, you will need this acceptance letter and the accompanying application ID number listed within the letter.
Step Three
- You can start this process once you complete step two outlined above and receive the proper documentation.
- Step three involves completing your online long-term stay visa application and scheduling and completing your visa application appointment.
- This step was confusing and seemed like a duplicate effort since we submitted all our documentation during step two. But it turns out not to be the case. Step two is a “checkpoint” to ensure you are “eligible to apply,” while step three is the actual application phase.
- At this point, you will have to deal with VFS Global. As we understand, like many embassies, the French Embassy does not want to handle the direct application process, which requires providing your biometrics: a facial photo and fingerprints. So, the French Embassy has outsourced the online application, in-person meeting, collection of all hard-copy documents, and biometrics to VFS Global. We found VFS global email support untimely, obtuse, and useless. The service center appointment was even worse. It took almost six hours. So, we hope your experience is better, but this is what to expect, and patience is required.
- So the first thing your need to do is more later.