Finding an apartment, moving in, and getting everything set up were the hardest parts of moving to France for us so far. By comparison, the rest of the process has been quite straightforward.
VLS-TS Visa Validation
French visas valid for 6-12 months require online validation. Presumably, this is to prevent these visas from being used as extended tourist stays by people wanting to remain longer than 90 days. So they require you to find a permanent home in France within the first three months and enter that address online.
Validating the visa is as simple as entering your new address online. There’s no requirement to provide proof of address at this stage, although that’s something you’ll need for most other bureaucratic steps in France. This is the address that the OFII summons will be mailed to, although in our case it arrived by email. So if you’re really in a pinch and haven’t been able to find an apartment yet or are still waiting to move into a new home, there may be some flexibility with the address you use.
The last step is to pay the stamp tax of €300 per visa. The payment is all online and they accept credit card.
Here’s a great video by Baguette Bound with a walkthrough of the whole process.
The OFII Medical Exam
After validating the visa, OFII should automatically schedule the medical exam soon after. We waited three months for our appointment and still hadn’t received it. Not wanting the bureaucracy to drag on longer, we tried calling our local office and asking to schedule the appointment. Well… their phone number isn’t even connected and they don’t answer emails. Ultimately we sent a request letter to OFII asking for the appointment. One week later, we received the email with the summons for an appointment in one month.
On the day of the appointment we arrived early with our passports, childhood vaccine records, and the printed convocation letter. Security checked our letter and we passed through a metal detector on the way in. Another security guard led us to a row of benches where five others were waiting.
Five minutes before our scheduled appointment, the security guard came back and had all of us line up outside the OFII section of the building. Right on time the doors opened and we were led to another waiting room, where a nurse handed us an English questionnaire with 22 yes/no questions about mental health and drug use.
After filling out the questionnaire, the nurse called us into her office. She asked height and weight, medical history, and about any allergies. She then stamped the paper we need to prove we went to the appointment. Finally, she offered a free and optional HIV and Hepatitis screening using a finger prick test. We opted in and it took about 10 extra minutes for her to perform both tests.
After finishing with the nurse, we wait briefly again to see the doctor. The doctor asked our age, occupation before coming to France, and about our vaccination history. She was specifically interested in our last Tetanus vaccine and Covid vaccine, and didn’t care to see our childhood vaccine record and didn’t recommend any additional vaccination for us. She stamped our papers from the nurse and sent us on our way.
And that was it. No need for a chest X-ray, no follow up questions to any of the questionnaire, and no interest in whether we had all of our childhood vaccines. All of the information seemed to be just a formality to check a bureaucratic box. No real medical advice was dispensed. Perhaps if we had a more complex medical history with preexisting conditions the doctor would have advised us on how to best navigate the healthcare system, but our visit was over quickly, done in under an hour.
The OFII Integration Course – Necessary for the VLS-TS Visitor Visa?
After hearing about signing the Republican Integration Contract (contrat d’intégration républicaine) from other expats, we were expecting a French test and a further four days of courses to be scheduled. But as we found out, the VLS-TS Visiteur visa doesn’t have this requirement. It’s primarily for other types of VLS-TS visas, like the spouse or salaried worker visa.
Language Requirements for the VLS-TS Visitor Visa
With no need to attend the four day Republican Integration course, there’s no official language test required for the VLS-TS Visiteur visa or for renewing it as a one year Carte de Séjour.
The Visitor visa does not qualify for a multi-year residency card, and therefore does not require an A2 level of French, but must instead be renewed for five consecutive years. After five years, all legal residents qualify for permanent residency, which does require a B1 level of French for applicants under 65.
Conclusion
The medical exam was the only big step we needed before being able to apply for our visa renewal in September 2025. It was quite painless and easy, only taking an hour. The only documents actually checked at the appointment were our passports with their visas.
Questions? Comments? We’d love to hear from you in the comment section or feel free to write us directly.
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