You bought the stone house in the Dordogne, the village house in the Luberon or the fisherman’s cottage in Brittany years ago, and for two decades the routine never changed: the ferry or the budget flight, the shutters opened at Easter, the long summer, the shutters closed at the end of October, and no official ever counted your days. Since 1 January 2021 that routine has a legal ceiling. As a British citizen you are now a third-country national in European Union law, which means you may spend no more than 90 days in any rolling 180-day period in the Schengen area without a visa, your entries and exits are now logged with fingerprints and a photograph under the European Entry/Exit System, and an overstay can end with a refusal of entry and a ban recorded against your name. Owning the house changes nothing about that ceiling: the title deeds give you a right of property, not a right of residence. The lawful way to spend the winter, to supervise the roof works in March and still be there for the village fête in July is the long-stay visitor route, the visa de long séjour (the long-stay visa) followed by the carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention visiteur (the one-year temporary residence card marked visitor). This guide explains, entirely from the British owner’s point of view and in plain English, how the 90-day count really works and how the new biometric border catches overstays, why the house itself neither helps nor protects you but a long presence can quietly make you French tax resident, exactly what funds, health cover and paperwork the consulate in London expects before it stamps a visitor visa, and how to challenge a refusal before the appeals commission and the administrative judge, with the courts’ own words on what counts as sufficient resources. Every decisive legal point is tied to the exact text in force, quoted word for word and linked to the official source, so you can verify each statement with your file in hand before you apply.

I. How Long Can You Stay in Your French Second Home Without a Visa After Brexit?

A. The 90 Days in Any 180 Days Rule, Fingerprint Tracking and the Overstay Ban

The starting point surprises many British owners, because the rule counts days, not trips, and it counts them backwards. The British government’s own travel advice states the position bluntly: United Kingdom passport holders may travel in the Schengen area, which includes France, for up to 90 days in any 180-day period when travelling as a tourist, to visit family or for similar short stays, and visits to Schengen countries in the 180 days before travel count towards the 90 days (see Entry requirements, France travel advice, GOV.UK). The period is rolling, not per calendar year: on any given day, you add up your days of presence in the whole Schengen area over the previous 180 days, and the total must not exceed 90. A fortnight in Spain at Christmas, a month in Italy in May and ten weeks in your Dordogne house over the summer can together exhaust the allowance even though no single trip looked excessive. Days spent in France under a residence permit or a long-stay visa do not count towards the limit, which is precisely why the visitor visa described in Part II is the pressure valve, but every visa-free day does. The same official advice warns that overstaying the limit may lead to a ban from entering, and that warning should be taken literally: an overstay is recorded, it colours every future visa application, and it can ground a refusal of entry at the border on the next trip.

Since the European Entry/Exit System began operating, the count is no longer an honour system enforced by occasional passport stamps. When you enter the Schengen area for a short stay you may now have to register biometric details, fingerprints and a photograph, at no cost, and the system computes overstays automatically: as the official guidance explains, the system modernises border controls and facilitates the identification of non-EU nationals who exceed the authorised length of stay (see Arrival in France, France-Visas). In practical terms, the border officer no longer needs to squint at faded ink stamps to reconstruct your movements; the computer already knows. British travellers who grew used to flexible, unrecorded long stays before Brexit are the group most exposed to this change, because old habits now leave a digital trail. Count every day with a diary or a calculator before you travel, keep boarding passes and ferry bookings, and never assume that leaving France for a weekend in Geneva resets anything: Switzerland is inside Schengen, and only days spent outside the Schengen area altogether pause the accumulation.

At the border itself, even a short visa-free stay is conditional, and the conditions are set by statute, not by the mood of the officer. French law provides that to enter France, every foreigner must hold, first, any required visa, and second, subject to international conventions, the supporting documents laid down by decree concerning the purpose and conditions of the stay, means of subsistence, insurance cover for medical and hospital costs and guarantees of repatriation: « Pour entrer en France, tout étranger doit être muni : 1° Sauf s’il est exempté de cette obligation, des visas exigés par les conventions internationales et par l’article 6, paragraphe 1, points a et b, du règlement (UE) 2016/399 du Parlement européen et du Conseil du 9 mars 2016 concernant un code de l’Union relatif au régime de franchissement des frontières par les personnes (code frontières Schengen) ; 2° Sous réserve des conventions internationales, et de l’article 6, paragraphe 1, point c, du code frontières Schengen, du justificatif d’hébergement prévu à l’article L. 313-1 , s’il est requis, et des autres documents prévus par décret en Conseil d’Etat relatifs à l’objet et aux conditions de son séjour et à ses moyens d’existence, à la prise en charge par un opérateur d’assurance agréé des dépenses médicales et hospitalières, y compris d’aide sociale, résultant de soins qu’il pourrait engager en France, ainsi qu’aux garanties de son rapatriement ; 3° Des documents nécessaires à l’exercice d’une activité professionnelle s’il se propose d’en exercer une. » (Article L311-1 of the Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile). The government’s arrival page spells out what officers actually ask for: proof of accommodation covering the whole stay, sufficient financial means assessed against the duration and purpose of the visit, a return ticket or the means to buy one, and an insurance certificate covering all medical and hospital expenses plus repatriation (see Arrival in France, France-Visas). The British guidance adds that you may be asked to show proof of travel insurance, proof of funds, proof of accommodation and a return or onward ticket, and that anyone staying with family or friends may need an attestation d’accueil (the formal welcome invitation your French host obtains from the local mayor’s office, the mairie) sent as the original (see Entry requirements, France travel advice, GOV.UK, and Attestation d’accueil, service-public.fr). Owners staying in their own house should carry the latest taxe foncière bill or title extract, recent bank statements and an insurance certificate in the car or the hand luggage, because the second home answers the accommodation question but never the funds or insurance ones.

Two final border points matter for owners. First, passports must satisfy Schengen validity rules: issued less than ten years before arrival and valid at least three months after the planned departure from the Schengen area, a trap for holders of old British passports whose validity once ran beyond ten years (see Entry requirements, France travel advice, GOV.UK). Second, none of this applies if you already hold a withdrawal agreement residence card: British citizens protected by the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, holding the carte de séjour portant la mention accord de retrait du Royaume-Uni, live under a different regime with different renewal and travel rules, described in our guide to renewing a Withdrawal Agreement card and challenging a refusal or removal order. If you arrived after the transition, or you never secured that status and simply kept the holiday house, the 90-day ceiling and the visitor visa below are your framework.

B. Owning the House Gives No Right to Stay, but Staying Too Long Quietly Makes You French Tax Resident

The most expensive misunderstanding in this whole area is the idea that the deeds open the border. They do not. French property law and French immigration law are watertight compartments: buying the cottage gave you an asset enforceable against the whole world, but no right to be present on French soil for one day beyond what your passport or your visa allows. The visitor residence card itself hammers the point home, because it is issued on the express condition that the holder promises not to work, and the statute adds that by way of derogation the card does not authorise any professional activity at all, a provision examined in detail in Part II (see Article L426-20 of the Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile). British owners who quietly manage a gite business, take on paid gardening rounds or invoice UK clients from the kitchen table while on visitor status are therefore breaking two rules at once: the immigration condition attached to their card and, as will be seen, often the tax position they thought they held. If you intend to earn a living in France, you need a work-authorised status, not the visitor route, and the application must say so honestly from the start.

The mirror misunderstanding is just as costly: many owners assume that as long as each trip stays under 90 days, France cannot tax them. French tax residence does not work on visa stamps; it works on facts. The General Tax Code provides that persons whose fiscal domicile is in France are liable to income tax on all of their income, while those domiciled outside France are liable only on French-source income: « Les personnes qui ont en France leur domicile fiscal sont passibles de l’impôt sur le revenu en raison de l’ensemble de leurs revenus. Celles dont le domicile fiscal est situé hors de France sont passibles de cet impôt en raison de leurs seuls revenus de source française. » (Article 4 A of the Code général des impôts). Domicile for this purpose is then defined by alternative factual tests: « 1. Sont considérées comme ayant leur domicile fiscal en France au sens de l’article 4 A : a. Les personnes qui ont en France leur foyer ou le lieu de leur séjour principal ; b. Celles qui exercent en France une activité professionnelle, salariée ou non, à moins qu’elles ne justifient que cette activité y est exercée à titre accessoire » (Article 4 B of the Code général des impôts). Either your main home or your principal place of stay being in France suffices; no single one of the tests needs the others. In practice the administration looks at where the family actually lives, where the children go to school, where the bank accounts and club memberships cluster and, yes, how many nights were spent in the French house. An owner who strings together 200 nights a year in the Dordogne through back-to-back visa-free stays, or who settles the household there while keeping a London pied-a-terre, can become French tax resident without ever holding a French visa, and the consequence is worldwide taxation in France: UK pensions, UK rental profits and investment income all enter the French return, with the France-United Kingdom double taxation convention of 19 June 2008 then allocating taxing rights and granting credits rather than exemptions. The tie-breaker rules of that convention decide the hard borderline cases, but they are a shield in a dispute, not a planning tool to be waved at the tax office in advance.

The practical lesson is to fix the tax question before the immigration question tempts you to drift. If the plan is genuinely to live in France most of the year, accept French tax residence from the start, register correctly, declare worldwide income and claim treaty relief methodically, because the penalties for an undeclared foreign account or an omitted UK income stream dwarf the cost of compliance. If the plan is to remain British tax resident with long French holidays, keep the centre of life demonstrably in the United Kingdom and keep the French presence within both the immigration ceiling and the tax factual tests: HMRC correspondence, GP registration, council tax bills and travel records are the exhibits that prove where the foyer really is. Mid-year arrivals need particular care, because the year of the move can split awkwardly between the two systems, and the French return for the first year must describe the entry date precisely. Owners who later rent out the second home while resident in France face a second layer, the French taxation of the rents with treaty credit mechanics, covered in our guide to British residents in France with UK rental income and the treaty credit. In every configuration, the visa and the tax return must tell the same story: a visitor file that boasts of permanent settlement followed by a tax return claiming non-residence, or the reverse, hands either administration a ready-made contradiction.

II. How Do British Owners Get a Long-Stay Visitor Visa and Challenge a Refusal?

A. Funds, Health Insurance and the Promise Not to Work: Building a File the Consulate Accepts

Any stay longer than three months requires advance permission; there is no way to extend a visa-free stay from inside France. The statute states that any foreigner wishing to enter France for more than three months must apply to the French diplomatic and consular authorities for a long-stay visa valid for no more than one year, a visa that can authorise stays of a family nature, as a visitor, student or trainee, for professional activity, and generally any stay of more than three months conferring the rights attached to a temporary or multi-year residence card: « Tout étranger souhaitant entrer en France en vue d’y séjourner pour une durée supérieure à trois mois doit solliciter auprès des autorités diplomatiques et consulaires françaises un visa de long séjour dont la durée de validité ne peut être supérieure à un an. Ce visa peut autoriser un séjour de plus de trois mois à caractère familial, en qualité de visiteur, d’étudiant, de stagiaire ou au titre d’une activité professionnelle, et plus généralement tout type de séjour d’une durée supérieure à trois mois conférant à son titulaire les droits attachés à une carte de séjour temporaire ou à la carte de séjour pluriannuelle prévue aux articles L. 421-9, L. 421-11 et L. 421-13-1 à L. 421-24 » (Article L312-2 of the Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile). The same code confirms the architecture: beyond three months, a foreigner must hold a stay document, and the long-stay visa is the first of the listed documents (see Article L411-1 of the Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile), while first issue of a temporary or multi-year residence card is as a rule conditional on producing that long-stay visa (see Article L412-1 of the Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile). For British applicants the application is lodged in the United Kingdom, in practice through the outsourced TLScontact centres with an appointment, biometrics and the France-Visas online form completed first; the France-Visas portal confirms that for any stay exceeding 90 days an advance long-stay visa is mandatory regardless of nationality, valid between three months and one year, and that supporting documents specific to the situation must be attached (see Long-stay visa, France-Visas). Apply months before the planned departure: a refusal in August against a September ferry booking leaves no time for the appeal described below.

The visitor category itself is defined by three cumulative conditions, and the file must prove all three, not just one. The governing article provides that a foreigner who proves the ability to live on personal resources alone, at a level at least equal to the annual net minimum wage, receives a one-year temporary card marked visitor; the holder must in addition prove possession of health insurance covering the stay and promise to carry on no professional activity in France: « L’étranger qui apporte la preuve qu’il peut vivre de ses seules ressources, dont le montant doit être au moins égal au salaire minimum de croissance net annuel, indépendamment de l’allocation aux adultes handicapés mentionnée à l’article L. 821-1 du code de la sécurité sociale et de l’allocation supplémentaire mentionnée à l’article L. 815-24 du même code, se voit délivrer une carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention ” visiteur ” d’une durée d’un an. Il doit en outre justifier de la possession d’une assurance maladie couvrant la durée de son séjour et prendre l’engagement de n’exercer en France aucune activité professionnelle. Par dérogation à l’article L. 414-10, cette carte n’autorise pas l’exercice d’une activité professionnelle. Les conditions d’application du présent article sont précisées par décret en Conseil d’Etat. » (Article L426-20 of the Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile). Note the three French terms because the consulate reasons in them: ressources (the money), assurance maladie (the health cover) and engagement de non-activite (the promise not to work). The reference level is the SMIC net annuel (the French statutory minimum wage, taken net and annualised); check the figure in force at the application date on service-public.fr, since it moves, and budget a margin above it rather than landing exactly on the line.

On money, the courts’ message, developed in the next section, is regularity, durability and origin: pension award letters, annuity statements and
ranee maladie (the health cover) and engagement de non-activite (the promise not to work). The reference level is the SMIC net annuel (the French statutory minimum wage, taken net and annualised); check the figure in force at the application date on service-public.fr, since it moves, and budget a margin above it rather than landing exactly on the line.

On money, the consulate looks past the headline total to regularity, durability and origin. Pension award letters, annuity schedules and twelve months of bank statements showing the pension landing every month beat a single large balance dropped into the account the week before the appointment. The case law is unforgiving on this exact point: in one visitor-visa refusal case the applicant added a 5,000 euro French bank balance and a 7,400 euro currency withdrawal to a 6,604 euro annual business profit and argued the monthly average exceeded the minimum wage, but the court upheld the refusal because, for some of the sums, regularity, durability and origin were unproven: « dont, pour certaines d’entre elles, la régularité, la pérennité et l’origine ne sont pas établies, ne pouvaient être regardées comme étant suffisantes » (CAA de Nantes, 5th chamber, 26 November 2018, No 17NT03268). The court also refused to simply add the pots together where it was unproven that the bank balance and the currency did not themselves come from the same 2013 profits, and it noted that no evidence at all covered later years. Translate that into file-building advice: show twelve months of statements, label every large transfer with its source document, separate savings from income, evidence the current year’s income rather than a historic peak, and remember that owning the French house outright helps the narrative but, as that same judgment confirms, does not compensate for unproven resources. Rental income from the French house itself is awkward evidence, since collecting it hints at the professional activity the visitor promises to avoid; UK pensions, investment drawdown with a history, and savings seasoned over many months are the clean materials.

On health cover, the statute demands private insurance for the whole stay, and British applicants must understand why: the French universal health system, the protection universelle maladie (PUMA), covers people who work in France or who reside there in a stable and regular manner, « Toute personne travaillant ou, lorsqu’elle n’exerce pas d’activité professionnelle, résidant en France de manière stable et régulière bénéficie, en cas de maladie ou de maternité, de la prise en charge de ses frais de santé » (Article L160-1 of the Code de la sécurité sociale), but a newly arrived visitor has not yet built that stable residence and the consulate wants a private policy, not a promise to register later. Buy a one-year comprehensive policy from an insurer authorised for visa cover, with hospitalisation, repatriation and ideally no crippling excess, keep the certificate wording that states the territorial scope and the ceilings, and carry it at the border as well as in the visa file. The United Kingdom Global Health Insurance Card is not a substitute for this requirement on a long stay, and travel policies capped at 30 or 60 days will be spotted and rejected. Owners who later transition onto PUMA after a year of settled residence face a different set of questions about contributions and back-billing, examined in our guide for British early retirees entering PUMA and challenging a refusal or a levy; for the visa itself, private cover is the only answer.

On work, sign the promise with open eyes. The engagement not to exercise any professional activity covers employment, self-employment and freelance invoicing alike, whether the client sits in London or Limoges, and the card carries no work authorisation by derogation from the ordinary rule. Remote work for a UK employer from the French house sits in the greyest corner of this promise: the administration did not design the visitor status for it, and an applicant whose file screams full-time remote employment invites either a refusal or an invitation to seek a work-authorised status instead. Do not volunteer contradictions: a file declaring total inactivity alongside an employer’s letter confirming full-time remote duties from France is a refusal waiting to happen. Finally, mind the two physical forms of the visa. France-Visas explains that the long-stay visa valid as a residence permit, the VLS-TS, exempts the holder from applying for a card but must be validated online within three months of arrival on the Foreign Nationals in France portal (ANEF), while the visa marked carte de séjour à solliciter requires a préfecture appointment within two months, and that a temporary long-stay visa, the VLS-T, suits those certain not to extend beyond its term (see Long-stay visa, France-Visas). British owners who want renewable years should aim for the VLS-TS visiteur and validate it on time; an unvalidated VLS-TS leaves the holder undocumented, and the préfecture will not backdate the validation.

B. Refusal, the Visa Appeals Commission and the Administrative Judge: Remedies That Work

A refusal is not the end of the road, but the clock starts immediately, so read the refusal form the day it arrives. Short-stay refusals use a standard multilingual form with ticked boxes; long-stay visitor refusals arrive as a consular decision that can then be taken to the specialised appeals body, the commission de recours contre les decisions de refus de visa d’entrée en France (the appeals commission against visa refusal decisions, usually shortened to CRRV). The two court rulings relied on in this guide both travelled exactly that path: consular refusal, appeal to the commission, rejection by the commission, action before the tribunal administratif de Nantes (the administrative court in Nantes, which hears this litigation), then appeal to the cour administrative d’appel de Nantes (the administrative court of appeal). The lesson is procedural: use the commission stage to repair the file rather than merely protesting. If the refusal ticked insufficient resources, add the missing twelve months of statements, the pension letters and the source-tracing for every transfer; if it doubts the visitor purpose, add the return ties, the UK home, the family and the concrete holiday purpose; refile a documented, dated, complete bundle by tracked delivery and keep the proof of posting.

Understand what the judge will and will not do, because the two judgments set the standard with unusual clarity. First, inadequate resources are in themselves a lawful ground for refusal: « Il résulte de ces dispositions que lorsqu’elle est saisie d’une demande tendant à la délivrance d’un visa de long séjour en qualité de visiteur, la commission de recours peut légalement fonder sa décision de refus sur la circonstance que le demandeur ne justifie pas des moyens d’existence suffisants pour faire face aux dépenses de son séjour en France. » (CAA de Nantes, 5th chamber, 26 November 2018, No 17NT03268). That case ended « La requête de M. A… est rejetée » after the court found the claimed 19,004 euros for the year unproven in origin and durability. Second, the administration may also refuse where it shows the stated purpose does not match the real plan: « L’administration peut, indépendamment d’autres motifs de rejet tels que la menace pour l’ordre public, refuser la délivrance d’un visa, qu’il soit de court ou de long séjour, en cas de risque avéré de détournement de son objet, lorsqu’elle établit que le motif indiqué dans la demande ne correspond manifestement pas à la finalité réelle du séjour de l’étranger en France. » (CAA de Nantes, 5th chamber, 1 February 2022, No 21NT00204). But the same judgment draws a fine and useful line for genuine visitors: that misuse-of-purpose reasoning cannot justify refusing a long-stay visitor visa as such, « un tel motif n’est pas de nature à justifier un refus de visa de long séjour en qualité de visiteur, qui permet de séjourner en France pendant une durée supérieure à trois mois et de solliciter, le cas échéant, avant l’expiration de la durée du visa, la délivrance d’un titre de séjour », unless the real plan is durable settlement without any prospect of meeting the later residence conditions. In that second case, an 84-year-old widow visiting her daughters lost on the facts, the court finding no manifest error where family ties in France outweighed remaining links to the home country and the resources file stayed thin: « la commission de recours contre les décisions de refus de visa d’entrée en France n’a pas entaché sa décision d’erreur manifeste d’appréciation », and « La requête de Mme F… est rejetée. » (same judgment). Note the two different intensities of review the court applies: ordinary review of the legal ground, manifest-error review (erreur manifeste d’appréciation) of the factual assessment. You win by showing the commission had no proper basis for its ground, or that its reading of your file was indefensible, not by inviting the judge to re-weigh decent evidence.

Threats to public order sit apart as an independent ground the administration can always raise: a temporary or multi-year card or a resident card may be refused by reasoned decision to any foreigner whose presence constitutes such a threat, « La délivrance d’une carte de séjour temporaire ou pluriannuelle ou d’une carte de résident peut, par une décision motivée, être refusée à tout étranger dont la présence en France constitue une menace pour l’ordre public. » (Article L432-1 of the Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile). Ordinary British owners with clean records will never meet this ground, but anyone with a criminal history should take advice before applying rather than discovering the objection mid-file. Discrimination and private-life arguments, finally, face the steep climb shown in the 2022 ruling: the court rejected the Article 8 family-life claim where visits in both directions remained possible, and dismissed the discrimination claim where the decision rested on resources and purpose rather than nationality. Frame the challenge around the three visitor conditions and the evidence, not around fairness in the abstract.

Deadlines decide everything. Contentious applications to the administrative court must be filed within two months of notification of the contested decision: « La juridiction ne peut être saisie que par voie de recours formé contre une décision, et ce, dans les deux mois à partir de la notification ou de la publication de la décision attaquée. » (Article R421-1 of the Code de justice administrative). Calendar backwards from each notification, commission refusal included, and file by a method that proves the date. Ask the court, where appropriate, for an injunction to issue the visa and for costs, as both applicants did, but understand that injunctions follow only successful annulments. Alongside litigation, a fresh, repaired application often runs faster than a judgment: consulates decide new files while courts take months, and nothing forbids reapplying with the strengthened bundle once the weakness is understood. Many British owners succeed on the second attempt precisely because the first refusal taught them what regularity, durability and origin mean in practice.

Conclusion

The Brexit settlement for British second-home owners is strict but navigable. Ninety days in any 180 is a hard, biometrically enforced ceiling that the deeds to the house cannot lift; each visa-free trip must be counted against the whole Schengen area, with passports, funds, accommodation proof and insurance ready at the border. Longer stays are lawful through the visitor route, which rewards exactly three things: money that is regular, durable and traceable to its source at or above the annualised minimum wage, a full-year private health policy bought before departure, and an honest promise of complete professional inactivity. A long presence carries a second consequence that has nothing to do with visas: once the foyer or the principal place of stay moves to France, worldwide income enters the French tax return and the treaty allocates relief, so the immigration file and the tax file must tell one consistent story. And a refusal, whether for thin resources or a doubted purpose, is challengeable, first by repairing the file before the visa appeals commission, then before the administrative judge within two months, measured against the standards the courts of Nantes apply. Count the days, build the file early in London, insure the full year, align the tax position, and keep every refusal letter: in this system, the owner with dated documents beats the owner with strong feelings every time.