You arrived in France after Brexit on a long-stay visa, renewed it, then moved onto a multi-year permit, and now the fifth anniversary of your lawful stay is approaching. The next step matters more than any before it: a ten-year residence card that frees you from annual renewals, from proving your income every twelve months, and from the anxiety of a prefecture queue each autumn. For most British citizens that card is the carte de résident portant la mention ” résident de longue durée-UE “ (the EU long-term resident card), granted after five years of unbroken lawful residence, stable income at least equal to the minimum wage, health cover, and proof of integration including French at an intermediate level and a civic examination. A separate ten-year card exists for Britons who were already living in France before 1 January 2021 under the Withdrawal Agreement. Every decisive statement in this guide is linked to its official text so you can verify it yourself, and every French legal term is explained the first time it appears. Part I sets out the three locks on the door: five years of the right kind of stay, steady money, and health insurance. Part II explains how to prove your integration, where and when to file, and exactly what to do, and within which deadline, if the prefect says no or says nothing at all.
I. The Three Locks on the Door: Lawful Stay, Steady Money, and Health Cover
A. Five Years of Unbroken Lawful Stay: Which Permits Count and Which Cards Are Worthless Here
The general rule is stated in Article L. 426-17 of the Code on the Entry and Stay of Foreigners and the Right of Asylum (Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile, universally shortened to CESEDA): “L’étranger qui justifie d’une résidence régulière ininterrompue d’au moins cinq ans en France au titre d’une carte de séjour temporaire ou pluriannuelle ou d’une carte de résident, de ressources stables, régulières et suffisantes pour subvenir à ses besoins et d’une assurance maladie se voit délivrer, sous réserve des exceptions prévues à l’article L. 426-18, une carte de résident portant la mention ” résident de longue durée-UE ” d’une durée de dix ans.” In plain English, the foreigner who proves at least five years of regular, unbroken residence in France under a temporary or multi-year residence permit or a resident card, with stable, regular and sufficient means and health insurance, is granted a ten-year EU long-term resident card, subject to the exceptions that follow. Note the opening words: five years under a carte de séjour temporaire (a one-year temporary residence permit), a carte de séjour pluriannuelle (a multi-year permit of up to four years), or an existing resident card. If you followed the standard newcomer path described in our guide for British newcomers applying for a French long-stay visa and residence permit and then moved to the multi-year permit explained in our guide to your first multi-year carte de séjour, those years count, provided there was never a gap in your lawful cover.
Not every card opens this particular door. Article L. 426-18 of the same Code lists the permits whose holders are excluded: “L’article L. 426-17 ne s’applique pas lorsque l’étranger réside en France au titre : 1° De la carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention ” stagiaire ICT ” prévue à l’article L. 421-30 ; 2° De la carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention ” stagiaire mobile ICT ” prévue à l’article L. 421-31 ;” and the list continues through intra-company transferees, seasonal workers, students, trainees and others, including “5° De la carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention ” étudiant ” prévue à l’article L. 422-1 ou L. 422-2″, holders of certain passeport talent (talent passport) cards, “15° De la carte de séjour pluriannuelle portant la mention ” bénéficiaire de la protection subsidiaire ” prévue à l’article L. 424-9″, and “16° De la carte de séjour portant la mention ” retraité ” prévue aux articles L. 426-8 ou L. 426-9″. For British readers the three traps that matter are the student card, the posted-worker and seasonal cards, and the retraité (retired person) card: years spent in France under any of those do not build your five-year total for this card. A British early retiree living in France on a visiteur (visitor) card should also check the list with care before counting years, because time that does not legally exist for this purpose is the commonest reason files fail at the first hurdle.
Britons who were already resident before the end of the Brexit transition period travel a different road. Article 15 of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement provides that “Les citoyens de l’Union et les ressortissants du Royaume-Uni, ainsi que les membres de leur famille respective, qui ont séjourné légalement dans l’État d’accueil conformément au droit de l’Union pendant une période ininterrompue de cinq ans ou pendant la période indiquée à l’Article 17 de la directive 2004/38/CE, acquièrent le droit de séjourner de manière permanente dans l’État d’accueil dans les conditions énoncées aux Articles 16, 17 et 18 de la directive 2004/38/CE. Les périodes de séjour légal ou d’activité conformément au droit de l’Union avant et après la fin de la période de transition sont prises en compte dans le calcul de la période nécessaire à l’acquisition du droit de séjour permanent”, as quoted by the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal in a British case examined below. The French implementing decree adds that under Article 21 of Decree No. 2020-1417 of 19 November 2020, “un titre de séjour d’une durée de validité de dix ans portant la mention ” Séjour permanent – Article 50 TUE/Article 18(1) Accord de retrait du Royaume-Uni de l’UE ” est délivré de plein droit au ressortissant étranger mentionné aux 1° à 4° de l’article 3 s’il satisfait à l’une des conditions suivantes :1° Il lui a été délivré, avant le 1er janvier 2021, un titre de séjour permanent en application de l’article L. 122-1 du code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile ;2° Il a résidé en France pendant cinq années et y séjourne régulièrement conformément aux dispositions des articles 13 à 19.(…)”. In short, five years plus lawful residence under the Agreement gives a ten-year permanent card as of right (de plein droit, meaning the administration has no discretion once the conditions are met). If you arrived before 2021 and hold a Withdrawal Agreement permit, that permanent card is normally your target, not the EU long-term card; if you arrived after, the five-year route of Article L. 426-17 is the one this guide prepares you for. The British government\u2019s living-in-France guide, updated on 2 October 2026, points applicants towards the French government\u2019s own residence-card pages to check eligibility and confirms that France recognises dual British-French citizenship, which matters if the ten-year card later leads you towards naturalisation (GOV.UK, Living in France guide).
A British case shows how the Withdrawal Agreement route works when the prefecture resists. In a judgment of 3 October 2023, the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal dealt with a British citizen who had entered France in 1988 and applied under the 2020 decree, only for the Paris police prefect to refuse the permit and order him to leave France within thirty days (CAA Paris, 3 October 2023, Nos. 23PA00821 and 23PA00939). The refusal rested on public-order grounds, based on entries in the criminal-record processing file (traitement des antécédents judiciaires, the police file known as TAJ). The court recalled that under Article 28 of the decree, conduct before 1 January 2021 can justify refusal only if it represents a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat: “Si le comportement à l’origine de cette menace s’est produit avant le 1er janvier 2021, l’entrée et la délivrance du titre de séjour ou du document de circulation peuvent être refusées à la condition que ce comportement représente une menace réelle, actuelle et suffisamment grave pour un intérêt fondamental de la société.” It then observed that “les documents produits ne font état que de signalements et non de condamnations pénales” (the documents showed only police reports, not criminal convictions), noted thirty-four years of residence since the age of three, annulled the refusal, and ordered the prefect to issue the permit applied for within two months of the judgment. The lesson for British applicants on either route is the same: old police reports without convictions, weighed against decades of settled life, do not make a serious threat, and a court will say so.
B. Stable Income and Health Cover: the Minimum-Wage Bar and the Five-Year Paper Trail
Money is where most British files succeed or fail, and the statute sets the bar in two sentences. First, the resources must be stable, regular and sufficient to live on without recourse to the French welfare system. Second, Article L. 426-17 fixes the floor: “Les ressources mentionnées au premier alinéa doivent atteindre un montant au moins égal au salaire minimum de croissance.” Your means must reach at least the salaire minimum de croissance (the statutory minimum wage, universally called the SMIC). The official service-public guidance page for this card, verified on 1 June 2026, translates this into practice: your income must reach at least the SMIC, stated on that page as €1,867.02 monthly gross, and all of your own resources are taken into account (service-public.fr, EU long-term resident card fact sheet F17359). All of your own resources count: British employment income, self-employed earnings, a UK State or private pension paid into your French life, French rental income, and your spouse’s income where you file jointly. What does not count is equally important: family benefits and housing, disability and unemployment allowances listed in the article are excluded, so child benefit, housing allowance and similar top-ups cannot lift you over the bar.
The proof covers five years, not five months. The documentary rules require long-term resident applicants to produce evidence that their resources “doivent être suffisantes, stables et régulières sur les 5 dernières années”, as the Paris court recalled when citing the official list of supporting documents (CAA Paris, 23 September 2026, No. 26PA00772). In practice that means five years of French tax assessments (avis d’impôt, the yearly statements the tax office sends after your return), five years of payslips or pension statements, employment contracts, and bank statements showing the money actually arriving. A British applicant whose income mixes UK and French sources should file both sides: P60s and pension payslips from Britain alongside French assessments, with a short schedule translating each year into euros so the caseworker does not have to do the arithmetic. Gaps need written explanations with exhibits: a career break, a Covid-shortened teaching contract, a year of maternity leave. The file that explains a dip before the prefect asks about it survives; the file that hides it does not.
Two 2026 court decisions, pulling in opposite directions, show exactly how judges read this evidence, and both concerned the same article you are applying under. The strict one comes from the very top. On 3 August 2026 the Conseil d’État (the supreme administrative court) rejected the appeal of an applicant whose resources over the five preceding years were uneven in amount and irregular in pattern, despite a recent promise of permanent employment: “c’est par une appréciation souveraine, exempte de dénaturation, que la cour administrative d’appel a estimé qu’eu égard notamment au montant et à l’irrégularité des ressources perçues par M. B… au cours des cinq années précédant sa demande, et en dépit de l’existence d’une récente promesse d’embauche en contrat à durée indéterminée, l’intéressé ne justifiait pas de ressources stables, régulières et suffisantes au sens de l’article L. 426-17 du code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile.” (Conseil d’État, 6th and 5th chambers combined, 3 August 2026, No. 497914, appeal rejected: “Article 1er : Le pourvoi de M. B… est rejeté.”). A last-minute permanent contract does not cure five shaky years. The same court also confirmed that requiring five years of resource evidence is compatible with the EU long-term residents directive, refusing to refer the question to Luxembourg.
The lenient one came seven weeks later and annulled a refusal. A university teaching assistant in Paris, lawfully resident for well over five years with health insurance, had declared €28,102 for 2018, €19,119 for 2019, then €14,121 and €13,727 for the Covid years 2020 and 2021, before rebounding to €38,288 in 2022. The prefect refused the card solely because two years sat below the minimum wage. The Paris Administrative Court of Appeal quashed the refusal, holding that the statute requires the floor to be met when the administration decides, and uses the earlier years only to judge the pattern: “ces mêmes dispositions n’imposent pas que le demandeur ait disposé, sur la période antérieure qui est prise en considération, de ressources égales à ce même montant.” It added that “Le préfet ne pouvait toutefois, en application des principes rappelés au point 3, refuser de lui délivrer une carte de résident au seul motif que ses ressources étaient inférieures au SMIC en 2020 et 2021”, noting that the temporary dip was attributable to Covid cutting his teaching hours and that his means covered his needs (CAA Paris, 23 September 2026, No. 26PA00772). Read together, the two rulings draw your line precisely: a documented temporary dip with a recovered income can win on appeal, while chronically irregular earnings cannot. If your five years include one bad year with a clear cause and paper to prove it, say so loudly in the file; if they show persistent instability, consider waiting until your record reads steadily before applying.
Health cover is the quieter condition and the easiest to document badly. The statute demands assurance maladie (health insurance), and the same guidance page makes it a standalone condition. For a British worker or self-employed person affiliated to the French social security system, your attestation de droits (the statement of cover downloadable from your Ameli account) suffices. Pensioners holding a British S1 healthcare certificate registered with their French health fund (caisse primaire d’assurance maladie, the local fund known as CPAM) should attach the S1 registration confirmation. Early retirees covered through universal residence-based cover (protection universelle maladie, called PUMA) should attach their affiliation certificate and proof that contributions are paid. Private comprehensive insurance is acceptable for those outside the French system, but the policy schedule must show cover in France without major exclusions. Whatever your route, the certificate must be current on the day the prefect decides, not merely on the day you applied.
II. Proving You Belong and Fighting a Refusal
A. French, the Civic Exam, and the Mayor’s Opinion: What Integration Really Requires
Since the 2024 immigration reform, the ten-year card is also a language and civics test. Article L. 426-19 provides that “La décision d’accorder la carte de résident portant la mention ” résident de longue durée-UE ” prévue à l’article L. 426-17 est subordonnée au respect des conditions d’intégration républicaine prévues à l’article L. 413-7.” The grant of the card depends on meeting the republican-integration conditions of Article L. 413-7, which sets the double requirement: “La première délivrance de la carte de résident prévue aux articles L. 423-6, L. 423-10 ou L. 423-16, de la carte de résident portant la mention ” résident de longue durée-UE ” prévue aux articles L. 421-12, L. 421-25, L. 424-5, L. 424-14 ou L. 426-19, ainsi que de la carte de résident permanent prévue à l’article L. 426-4 est subordonnée à l’intégration républicaine de l’étranger dans la société française, appréciée en particulier au regard du résultat obtenu à l’examen mentionné au sixième alinéa de l’article L. 413-3, qui doit être supérieur à un seuil fixé par décret, et de sa connaissance de la langue française de nature à lui permettre au moins de comprendre des conversations suffisamment claires, de produire un discours simple et cohérent sur des sujets courants et d’exposer succinctement une idée.” In practice the official guidance sets that language description at level B1 of the European framework: sufficient knowledge of French at level B1 of the European framework, alongside success in the civic examination taken under the resident-card syllabus. You prove the level with an approved certificate or diploma; classroom attendance alone is not enough.
The examination can be retaken without penalty. Article L. 413-3 states that “La formation civique mentionnée au 1° donne lieu à un examen. L’étranger peut se représenter à cet examen, à sa demande et à tout moment, lorsqu’il a obtenu un résultat inférieur aux seuils mentionnés au premier alinéa de l’article L. 413-7 et au 2° de l’article L. 433-4.” A failed first attempt is therefore a delay, not a defeat: re-sit as soon as you are ready and attach the pass certificate to your file or your appeal. Applicants over sixty-five are spared the language condition entirely: “Les étrangers âgés de plus de soixante-cinq ans ne sont pas soumis à la condition relative à la connaissance de la langue française.” (Article L. 413-7, Légifrance). Older British residents should still prepare the civic examination and the values commitment, but they cannot lawfully be failed on French grammar.
Two further features of the integration check catch British applicants by surprise. First, the prefect must consult your town hall: “l’autorité administrative tient compte, lorsqu’il a été souscrit, du respect, par l’étranger, de l’engagement défini à l’article L. 413-2 et saisit pour avis le maire de la commune dans laquelle l’étranger réside. Cet avis est réputé favorable à l’expiration d’un délai de deux mois à compter de la saisine du maire par l’autorité administrative.” (Article L. 413-7, Légifrance). The engagement in question is the Republican integration contract (contrat d’intégration républicaine, the CIR you signed at the prefecture when first admitted, “par lequel il s’engage à suivre les formations et dispositifs d’accompagnement qui lui sont prescrits” under Article L. 413-2), so complete every prescribed course and keep the attendance certificates. The mayor’s opinion (avis du maire) is deemed favourable after two months without reply, but a negative opinion must be answered with evidence of local roots: school enrolments, association memberships, neighbour statements. Second, integration also means conduct: a refusal can be based on a threat to public order, and Article L. 432-1 allows refusal “par une décision motivée” where “la présence en France constitue une menace pour l’ordre public”. As the British Withdrawal Agreement case above shows, bare police reports without convictions do not meet that standard against long residence, but recent convictions will damage any file, so disclose and contextualise rather than conceal.
File at the right moment and in the right place. The official guidance allows applications either when renewing your current permit or at any time once the conditions are met: The official guidance allows the application either when renewing the current permit or at any time once the conditions are met. Timing rules are strict: in a prefecture that still takes paper filings, apply within the two months before your current card expires; on the foreigners’ online portal (Administration numérique pour les étrangers en France, known as ANEF), apply between four months and two months before expiry. Paris applications go through the police prefecture’s residence-permit service. Apply too early and the five years are incomplete; apply after expiry and you are unlawfully present, which destroys the “unbroken lawful residence” the whole card depends on. Diarise the window now, assemble the five-year bundle first, book the language test early enough that a retake still fits inside the window, and keep proof of every filing: receipts, screenshots, registered-post slips.
B. Refusal or Silence: Your Appeals and the Deadlines That Decide Everything
A refusal arrives in one of two forms, and your remedies differ. The explicit refusal is a reasoned letter from the prefect, and it very often comes with an order to leave France (obligation de quitter le territoire français, the OQTF) naming your country of return. The official guidance warns that, except in exceptional cases, an explicit refusal comes with an order to leave France naming the country of return, challengeable before the administrative court (tribunal administratif) within 48 hours, 15 days or 30 days depending on the type of OQTF, without a lawyer being compulsory. Those hours and days run from notification, they include weekends, and missing them is usually fatal, so read the appeal notice (voies et délais de recours) printed at the foot of the decision before anything else, and file the challenge against the OQTF even while preparing the fuller case against the refusal itself.
Silence is the second form of refusal. The same official page states that four months without a reply counts as an implicit refusal, and that from that deemed refusal the applicant has two months to bring an informal appeal to the prefect, a hierarchical appeal to the Interior Minister, court proceedings before the administrative court, or a combination of these, without a lawyer being compulsory. The recours gracieux (the free informal appeal asking the prefect to think again) and the recours hiérarchique (the appeal to the Interior Minister) cost nothing and can resolve a file rejected for a missing document, but they do not suspend an OQTF and they do not stop time running for the court. The safe practice is to file the court action within the two months and add the informal appeal alongside it, so that a prefecture willing to correct itself can do so while the judge watches the clock.
Before the court, the general deadline rule is Article R. 421-1 of the Code of Administrative Justice: “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.” Two months from notification of the decision challenged. Your application should ask the judge for three things in order: annulment of the refusal (annulation), an order directing the prefect to issue the card (injonction de délivrance) within a stated time, as the Paris court granted the British claimant with a two-month injunction, and, where delay would hurt, a daily penalty for non-compliance (astreinte, a fine per day of delay). Frame each ground precisely: misreading of the five-year calculation, error over which permits count, resources judged on the wrong date or the wrong definition, language evidence ignored, mayor’s silence treated as negative, or a public-order finding built on reports without convictions. The September 2026 Paris annulment shows a court correcting a prefect who demanded five unbroken years above the minimum wage when the statute requires the floor only at the decision date; the August 2026 Conseil d’État decision shows the same courts upholding a refusal where earnings were persistently irregular. Your pleadings should place your file on the right side of that line with exhibits, not adjectives.
Renewal of the ten-year card itself is rarely refused, but the statute keeps two weapons for the administration. Article L. 432-3 provides that “Le renouvellement de la carte de résident peut être refusé à tout étranger lorsque : 1° Sa présence constitue une menace grave pour l’ordre public ; 2° Il ne peut prouver qu’il a établi en France sa résidence habituelle dans les conditions prévues à l’article L. 433-3-1, sauf pour les détenteurs d’une carte de résident en application des articles L. 424-1 et L. 424-3.” Renewal can be refused for a serious threat to public order or for failure to prove habitual residence in France. Long absences are therefore the holder’s main danger: extended years back in Britain without maintaining French habitual residence can cost the card at renewal, a point British second-home owners turned permanent emigrants should weigh before drifting away. And beyond the ten-year card lies the final upgrade: the permanent resident card (carte de résident permanent), valid indefinitely, which Article L. 426-4 makes available on request where presence is no threat to public order and integration conditions are met, adding that “La délivrance de la carte de résident permanent est de droit dès le deuxième renouvellement d’une carte de résident”. From the second renewal of a resident card, the permanent card is yours as of right. Each stage rewards the same discipline: continuous lawful presence, declared income, health cover, French learned and proven, and a file kept complete year after year.
Conclusion
The ten-year card is not a reward for time served but the legal recognition of a life genuinely established in France: five unbroken years under permits that count, income at or above the minimum wage that is stable enough to read as a pattern, current health cover, French at intermediate level with a civic pass, and a record that survives the mayor’s scrutiny and the prefect’s arithmetic. The two 2026 rulings examined here fix the boundaries of that arithmetic with unusual clarity: a temporary, explained dip does not sink you, but chronic irregularity does, and a last-minute contract does not rewrite five years. File inside the correct window with the full five-year bundle, keep every receipt, and treat a refusal as the start of a procedure with short, hard deadlines rather than the end of the road. The British claimant who won his permanent Withdrawal Agreement card with a two-month injunction, and the teaching assistant whose Covid-hit income was vindicated on appeal, both won for the same reason: their files proved, document by document, that the statute’s conditions were met on the day the administration had to decide.