You have lived with your partner for years in Manchester, Bristol or London. You are not married, you do not want to marry simply to satisfy an immigration rule, and now France is part of your plan: a job in Paris, a flat in Lyon, a house in the Dordogne, retirement near the sea. Since Brexit, the British partner in an unmarried couple faces a blunt question at every counter: what is your right to be here, and what is your relationship worth in French law? The pacte civil de solidarité, universally known by its abbreviation PACS (civil solidarity pact), is the French registered partnership for two adults who organise their life together without marrying. This guide explains, for a British reader, how a PACS works, what it changes for your residence permit, your tax, your home and your succession, and how to challenge a refusal. Every French term is explained at first use. The law quoted is the law in force on 1 October 2026.

The starting point matters. Article 515-1 of the Civil Code states that “Un pacte civil de solidarité est un contrat conclu par deux personnes physiques majeures, de sexe différent ou de même sexe, pour organiser leur vie commune.” A PACS is therefore a contract, not a marriage and not a British civil partnership, even though the British civil partnership helps the French authorities understand what you mean. It is open to same-sex and different-sex couples. It creates duties between you, a property regime for what you buy together, tax consequences from the third year or immediately for joint taxation depending on the date of registration, and a defined place in succession law. It does not create a British-style spouse visa. It does not automatically give a residence right. It is evidence, often powerful evidence, of a stable family life that the prefecture (the French local authority office that issues residence permits, headed by the préfet) must weigh when you apply for a carte de séjour (residence permit) with the mention vie privée et familiale (private and family life). The distinction between automatic right and evidence to be weighed explains most refusals, and most successful challenges.

British couples regularly misunderstand three points. First, a PACS registered yesterday carries little weight for a residence application filed tomorrow; duration, cohabitation and integration matter as much as the certificate. Second, a PACS does not convert a short-stay Schengen entry into a long-stay right; as a rule the first issue of a temporary or multi-year card still requires a long-stay visa, the visa de long séjour. Third, a PACS without a will leaves the surviving partner exposed: the partner pays no succession tax where a will or gift gives them something, but without a will they inherit nothing. Each of these points is developed below with the exact text, the Paris procedure, and the remedy when the administration says no.

I. How does a British partner get a PACS and a residence permit in France after Brexit?

Since the end of free movement, a British citizen is a third-country national in France. You enter visa-free for short stays of up to 90 days in any 180-day period, but settlement requires a long-stay visa followed by a residence permit. For an unmarried partner, the route typically combines two files that move at different speeds: the PACS file at the mairie (town hall) or before a notaire (the French public officer who registers contracts, successions and conveyances), and the residence file at the prefecture. Our guide to long-stay visas and residence permits for British newcomers sets out the general visa categories; this article focuses on what the PACS adds and where British files most often fail.

A. How do you register a PACS at the mairie or before a notaire?

Registration is deliberately simple, but documentary traps await British applicants. Article 515-3 of the Civil Code provides that “Les personnes qui concluent un pacte civil de solidarité en font la déclaration conjointe devant l’officier de l’état civil de la commune dans laquelle elles fixent leur résidence commune” The officier de l’état civil (civil-status officer, in practice the mayor or a delegated deputy) receives your joint declaration at the town hall of the commune where you fix your common residence. The same article continues: “A peine d’irrecevabilité, les personnes qui concluent un pacte civil de solidarité produisent la convention passée entre elles à l’officier de l’état civil, qui la vise avant de la leur restituer.” You must therefore produce the written agreement between you, called the convention de PACS, which the officer stamps and returns. Where the agreement is drawn up by a notarial deed, “le notaire instrumentaire recueille la déclaration conjointe, procède à l’enregistrement du pacte et fait procéder aux formalités de publicité” In plain terms: either the town hall registers a privately signed agreement, or the notaire receives the declaration and registers a notarised agreement.

In practice, choose the town hall route when your situation is straightforward and you want speed and low cost; choose the notaire route when money is involved. A notarised agreement costs fees but lets you tailor the property regime, record unequal contributions to a purchase, and keep evidence that later satisfies a bank, a mortgage lender or the land registry. Couples buying a flat in Paris or the inner suburbs with unequal deposits should strongly prefer the notarial route, because the default rule described below will otherwise treat unexplained assets as jointly owned and complicate a later separation.

Conditions are strict. Both partners must be adults, unmarried, not already bound by a PACS, and not closely related. At least one partner must be French or lawfully resident for registration abroad; in France, both partners appear in person with identity documents, birth certificates, proof of address, a certificate that neither is married or already pacsed, and for a British partner the documents the town hall actually asks for: a full birth certificate with a recent certified translation, a certificate of non-marriage or certificate of celibacy, and sometimes a certificate of custom, the certificat de coutume, confirming that British law allows you to enter a PACS. Order these from the United Kingdom early. British birth certificates without parental details, expired translations, and statutory declarations drafted for another purpose are the three most common causes of an adjourned appointment. Ask the town hall for its checklist in writing before booking flights for family.

Effects begin on registration, not on signature. From that date, Article 515-4 provides that “Les partenaires liés par un pacte civil de solidarité s’engagent à une vie commune, ainsi qu’à une aide matérielle et une assistance réciproques.” The duty of common life and mutual material help is the moral and financial core of the status. Towards creditors, “Les partenaires sont tenus solidairement à l’égard des tiers des dettes contractées par l’un d’eux pour les besoins de la vie courante.” Each partner is therefore jointly liable for everyday household debts run up by the other, except manifestly excessive spending. A British partner who signs a PACS should understand this plainly: the supermarket account, the electricity arrears and the children’s expenses can follow both of you, while a hire-purchase deal signed without your consent and a business debt remain outside that solidarity.

Property between partners follows separation of property by default, with a safety net. Article 515-5 states that “Sauf dispositions contraires de la convention visée au troisième alinéa de l’article 515-3 , chacun des partenaires conserve l’administration, la jouissance et la libre disposition de ses biens personnels.” You each keep what is yours and manage it alone. The same article adds the evidential rule that “Chacun des partenaires peut prouver par tous les moyens, tant à l’égard de son partenaire que des tiers, qu’il a la propriété exclusive d’un bien.” Keep bank transfers, notarial schedules and invoices. Where neither partner can prove exclusive ownership, the asset is presumed to belong to both in equal shares, the indivision (joint ownership in undivided shares). For British buyers this is the point most often missed: money you brought from London and paid into a French purchase without a paper trail becomes half your partner’s on separation. A short clause in the convention recording who paid what, plus transfers labelled by reference to the property, avoids a dispute that no witness statement can reliably repair two years later.

Dissolution follows the same offices. Article 515-7 states that “Le pacte civil de solidarité se dissout par la mort de l’un des partenaires ou par le mariage des partenaires ou de l’un d’eux.” It also ends by joint declaration or by unilateral decision served by a bailiff, the commissaire de justice, with the officer or notaire who registered it recording the end and publishing it. Marriage automatically ends a PACS, which matters for couples who pacs first for speed and marry later for succession or immigration reasons in another country. Think through the sequencing with advice before acting, because dissolution restarts clocks for gifts and reshapes tax.

B. How does a PACS help you get a vie privée et familiale card and challenge a refusal or OQTF?

A PACS is not a marriage, and French immigration law treats the two differently. A foreign spouse of a French citizen has a dedicated route; a PACS partner does not. The PACS partner typically applies under the general private-and-family-life provision. Article L.423-23 of the Code on the Entry and Residence of Foreigners and Asylum, known by its abbreviation CESEDA, provides that “L’étranger qui n’entre pas dans les catégories prévues aux articles L. 423-1, L. 423-7, L. 423-14, L. 423-15, L. 423-21 et L. 423-22 ou dans celles qui ouvrent droit au regroupement familial, et qui dispose de liens personnels et familiaux en France tels que le refus d’autoriser son séjour porterait à son droit au respect de sa vie privée et familiale une atteinte disproportionnée au regard des motifs du refus, se voit délivrer une carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention” of a one-year card. In short, that card is issued where refusal would disproportionately harm your private and family life. The same article directs the administration to assess that family life carefully: “Les liens mentionnés au premier alinéa sont appréciés notamment au regard de leur intensité, de leur ancienneté et de leur stabilité, des conditions d’existence de l’étranger, de son insertion dans la société française” Duration, stability, cohabitation, resources and integration are therefore the legal criteria, not the PACS certificate alone.

This explains prefecture practice. A PACS of three months with separate addresses, no joint bills and no French language effort will usually be refused, lawfully, for lack of stable family life. A PACS of eighteen months with a shared lease, joint tax return, French health cover, employment or genuine job-seeking, and letters from neighbours and employers will usually succeed if entry was regular. British applicants refused after short relationships should not reapply with the same file plus a covering letter; they should build duration and proof, then reapply or appeal with a materially stronger file.

Regular entry remains the gateway. Article L.412-1 CESEDA states that “la première délivrance d’une carte de séjour temporaire ou d’une carte de séjour pluriannuelle est subordonnée à la production par l’étranger du visa de long séjour” The first issue of the card normally requires a long-stay visa. A British citizen who entered visa-free for a holiday, stayed on, signed a PACS and then applied in Paris will often be told to return to London and seek the correct long-stay visa. Exceptions exist for narrow cases, and the prefecture may regularise on vie privée et familiale grounds where refusal would be disproportionate, but do not plan around an exception. The reliable sequence is: obtain the right long-stay visa from the French consulate in London, enter regularly, register the PACS, live together, then apply before the visa expires. Keep every boarding pass, entry stamp and visa vignette; loss of proof of regular entry sinks files that would otherwise succeed.

In Paris and the inner suburbs, procedure is digital and unforgiving. Applications go through the ANEF online portal (the Administration numérique pour les étrangers en France), with an appointment or document request from the Paris prefecture or the prefectures of Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne depending on your address. File early, ideally two to four months before your current visa or permit expires, because receipts, the récépissé, and appointment delays determine whether you may work and travel while waiting. A complete Paris file for a British PACS partner typically contains: passport and long-stay visa, PACS certificate and convention, proof of the partner’s French nationality or lawful residence, twelve months of joint cohabitation evidence such as a shared lease, joint electricity and broadband bills, joint home insurance and joint bank statements, the joint or separate tax notices, health cover, proof of resources such as payslips or a work contract, and integration evidence such as French courses and payslips from French employment. Translate every English document by a sworn translator, the traducteur assermenté, and label each exhibit. An incomplete upload that generates three successive requests for missing documents adds months and invites refusal.

When refusal comes, read the reasoning before reacting. A refusal is often paired with an obligation de quitter le territoire français, abbreviated OQTF (order to leave French territory), sometimes with a ban on return and a country of removal. Article L.611-1 CESEDA explains that “L’autorité administrative peut obliger un étranger à quitter le territoire français lorsqu’il se trouve dans les cas suivants” including unlawful entry or stay without a valid permit. The remedy depends on the form of the order: an OQTF with a short voluntary-departure period is challenged before the administrative court within a short deadline running from notification, often 30 days and sometimes 48 hours or 15 days where detention or a simultaneous refusal applies. The application for interim relief, the référé-suspension, can suspend enforcement where urgency and serious doubt about legality are shown. Grounds that succeed for PACS partners include: erroneous assessment of family life where a long, proven cohabitation was ignored; failure to examine proportionality under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights; and reliance on a short PACS duration while ignoring years of prior cohabitation in the United Kingdom and France proved by tenancy agreements and travel records. Grounds that fail include: invoking the PACS certificate alone without cohabitation proof; relying on untranslated WhatsApp screenshots; and alleging employment without a contract or payslips.

Act within days. Keep the envelope, the notification email headers and the ANEF timestamps to prove the start of the time limit. Do not leave France while challenging an OQTF without advice, because departure can moot the case or trigger a re-entry problem. Do not sign a fresh short-stay entry to restart the clock. If the relationship has produced a child, or the British partner cares for the French partner’s child, add school certificates, medical records and proof of daily care; the best interests of the child reshape proportionality. If the couple can marry and genuinely wish to do so, marriage creates a different legal route but does not erase an existing OQTF; take advice on timing so that a wedding does not look like a manoeuvre and is instead part of a coherent family record.

II. What does a PACS change for your tax, home and inheritance in France?

Once registered and living together, PACS partners are treated like married couples for income tax, better treated than cohabiting partners for gifts and succession tax, and specifically protected for the family home on dissolution by death. The protection is real but conditional: joint taxation helps most couples, the gift allowance rewards planning, and succession exemption helps only what a will or designation actually gives. British families who assume that a PACS is a marriage for every purpose overpay in some cases and leave the survivor with nothing in others.

A. How are PACS partners taxed and what happens to the flat or house?

For income tax, PACS partners file jointly like spouses. Article 6 of the General Tax Code states that “Les partenaires liés par un pacte civil de solidarité défini à l’article 515-1 du code civil font l’objet, pour les revenus visés au premier alinéa, d’une imposition commune. L’imposition est établie à leurs deux noms.” Joint assessment is established in both names. In practice this means one household return, the foyer fiscal (tax household), two shares, and the progressive scale applied to pooled income. Where one partner earns little in the first French year while the other earns a City salary paid through a French payroll, joint taxation usually lowers the bill and speeds access to health cover and family benefits that look at household income. Where both partners earn high and broadly equal French salaries, the gain is smaller; run the numbers with the official simulator before electing anything.

Timing matters. Joint taxation starts in the year of registration, with specific transitional rules for the year of marriage, PACS, separation or dissolution that the tax office applies from your filing status. New arrivals from Britain should align three dates: the PACS registration date, the date tax residence moves to France under domestic law and the France-United Kingdom double tax treaty, and the date employment or self-employment starts. A couple who register a PACS in November, move tax residence in December and file correctly the following May will show the administration a coherent household from day one; a couple who register in January but file as single for the prior year without explanation invite questions. Keep the PACS certificate with the tax file and declare the change of family status online promptly.

Gifts between partners benefit from a dedicated allowance. Article 790 F of the General Tax Code provides that “Pour la perception des droits de mutation à titre gratuit entre vifs, il est effectué un abattement de 80 724 € sur la part du partenaire lié au donateur par un pacte civil de solidarité.” Each donor can give each PACS partner up to 80,724 euros exempt from gift tax up to the allowance, before the progressive rates apply above that. The same article warns that “Le bénéfice de cet abattement est remis en cause lorsque le pacte prend fin au cours de l’année civile de sa conclusion ou de l’année suivante pour un motif autre que le mariage entre les partenaires ou le décès de l’un d’entre eux.” A PACS signed for a quick gift and dissolved the next spring loses the relief. Plan gifts after the relationship has stabilised, use a notarial deed for traceability, and never use a PACS as a same-year gift wrapper.

The home follows the property rule you chose. Under the default separation regime recalled above, each partner keeps sole ownership of what they can prove is theirs, and only proven joint funding creates indivision. Partners may instead elect indivision for what they acquire together after registration, typically 50-50 unless the convention states otherwise. For a British couple buying in Paris, where prices punish ambiguity, the convention should state the funding shares, who pays the mortgage, how works are funded, and what happens on sale or buyout. Where one partner owned the flat before the PACS, record that separate ownership and decide expressly whether mortgage repayments during the PACS create a reimbursement claim. Without that clause, the partner who paid the mortgage from joint funds may claim compensation while the owner claims sole title, and both will pay a lawyer to argue over bank statements.

On separation while both partners are alive, Article 515-6 provides that “Les dispositions des articles 831, 831-2, 832-3 et 832-4 sont applicables entre partenaires d’un pacte civil de solidarité en cas de dissolution de celui-ci.” The rules on preferential allocation, the attribution préférentielle, therefore apply between PACS partners when the pact ends. The partner who most needs the family home or the family business can ask to receive it in the partition, paying the other an equalisation sum, the soulte. Courts weigh housing need, children, and professional use. British partners who assume that leaving the home means losing any claim, or that staying guarantees keeping it, are both wrong; the question is who can fund the equalisation and whose need is greatest. Start any separation discussion with a valuation, a mortgage-capacity letter and a draft partition before positions harden.

For Paris buyers, add the local layer. Notaire fees and transfer duties in Paris routinely exceed those newcomers expect, co-ownership charges, the charges de copropriété, affect mortgage capacity, and buildings with poor energy ratings face letting restrictions that change yield. None of this is PACS-specific, but the PACS convention is the right place to allocate the risk: who funds the special assessment, the appel de fonds exceptionnel, for façade works, and how a temporary letting or a professional move to London affects occupation. A two-page annex today prevents a five-figure dispute later.

B. How do you protect your surviving partner and challenge a blocked succession?

The hardest truth comes first: a PACS does not make your partner your heir. Without a will, a gift, a life-insurance designation or a surviving-partner clause in the purchase deed, the surviving PACS partner inherits nothing under intestacy. Children, parents and siblings take the estate, and the partner may have weeks to leave the home they shared. This surprises British couples who equate a PACS with a marriage or with an English cohabitation remedy. French law is explicit by omission: protection exists, but only what you wrote gives it.

What you write is then powerfully tax-efficient. Article 796-0 bis of the General Tax Code states that “Sont exonérés de droits de mutation par décès le conjoint survivant et le partenaire lié au défunt par un pacte civil de solidarité.” The surviving PACS partner is fully exempt from succession tax on what they receive. This mirrors the spouse’s exemption and is far more generous than the 60 per cent rate that applies between strangers. The exemption does not create a share; it exempts the share you created by will or gift. Every British PACS couple with French assets should therefore pair the PACS with a will, reviewed for cross-border effect, that actually gives the partner something to exempt.

The family home enjoys a further shield. Where the pact ends by death, the survivor can invoke the dwelling protection. The mechanism cross-refers to the spouse’s one-year occupation free of charge under the statute and to testamentary rights over the home. Article 763 of the Civil Code provides for the spouse that “Si, à l’époque du décès, le conjoint successible occupe effectivement, à titre d’habitation principale, un logement appartenant aux époux ou dépendant totalement de la succession, il a de plein droit, pendant une année, la jouissance gratuite de ce logement,” with furniture included, and Article 515-6 extends cognate protection to the surviving PACS partner, including where the deceased expressly provided for it by will. In practice, the notaire settling the succession, the règlement de succession, should record the survivor’s one-year occupation, the attribution-preference claim over the dwelling, and any testamentary lifelong right of habitation or use. If the notaire tells a surviving British partner to vacate within weeks despite a will giving them the dwelling, ask for the written legal basis and the inventory, and challenge it.

Wills between France and England need coordination, not duplication. Many British PACS partners hold assets in both countries, pensions with death benefits, and an English will drafted before the move. An English will can dispose of French assets, but French forced-heirship, the réserve héréditaire (the share of the estate reserved by law to children), French formalities, and the EU Succession Regulation’s choice-of-law rules interact in ways a single-jurisdiction will misses. As a working method: choose expressly the law you want to govern the whole succession where permitted, typically your national law; mirror the choice in both wills without revoking the other by accident; give the PACS partner expressly what you intend them to have, whether full ownership, a lifelong right, or a defined legacy; and designate life-insurance beneficiaries, the clause bénéficiaire, consistently with the wills. Review the package whenever you buy French property, have a child, marry, or move tax residence. A will that was right in London in 2022 is rarely right in Paris in 2026.

When a succession blocks, method beats pressure. Common blockages for British survivors include: a notaire who will not release funds without a British grant of probate with an apostille and sworn translation; co-heirs who dispute the will’s validity or the PACS itself; a bank that freezes the account beyond what prudence requires; and a dispute over whether an English property or a French property pays the French tax. Steps that unblock files are sequential: obtain the death certificate, PACS certificate and will within days; instruct the notaire in writing with a complete family tree and asset list; supply the foreign probate with apostille and translation where demanded rather than debating the principle while funds sit frozen; request a detailed statement of the succession account and the draft partition; and where the file stalls, send a formal notice setting a deadline before seizing the court. Preferential allocation of the dwelling, reduction of excessive gifts that infringe the children’s reserve, and liability for an unjustified refusal to distribute each have their own court and time limit; filing in the wrong court loses months.

Paris practice adds urgency and cost. Notaire offices in Paris handle high volumes and will prioritise complete files; a British file with missing civil-status documents sits at the bottom of the pile. Budget for sworn translations, apostilles, and, where needed, a grant of representation. If the deceased owned a Paris flat with a surviving PACS partner in occupation, tell the building manager and the co-ownership manager, the syndic, promptly, keep paying charges and insurance, and record the one-year occupation in writing with the notaire so that a sale by co-heirs cannot proceed as if the flat were vacant. Where co-heirs press for a quick sale at an undervalue, ask for an independent valuation and exercise the attribution-preference route rather than accepting a discount for speed.

Conclusion

A PACS gives an unmarried British partner in France something valuable and bounded: a recognised contract for life together, joint taxation, a tailored property regime, full exemption from succession tax on what a will actually gives, and, above all, structured evidence of stable family life that supports a vie privée et familiale application. It does not replace a long-stay visa, it does not create heirship, and it does not persuade by its certificate alone. Register it properly at the town hall or before a notaire, live it visibly through shared address, shared bills and shared tax, enter regularly and file early in Paris, and pair it with coordinated wills that give the survivor a defined share and the home. When the prefecture refuses or the succession stalls, challenge quickly on the file as it stands, not on the relationship as you live it: duration, cohabitation, integration and documents decide. Prepared in that spirit, the PACS does what British couples most need from French law after Brexit, which is to turn a private commitment into recognisable proof.