300,000 Euros, Jobs Within Four Years, and the Card Is Withdrawn If Nothing Has Started After One
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Argentina on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
147 exceptions recorded across 54 countries · none match Argentina to France · Residency through investment
France's investor route is the third limb of one article. The carte de séjour pluriannuelle "talent-porteur de projet" of CESEDA article L. 421-16 is granted on any of three grounds: a master's-level graduate or someone with five years' comparable experience who has a real and serious economic project and creates a business in France; an innovative economic project recognised by a public body; or a direct economic investment in France. The legislative article sets no amount for any of them. The amounts are in the regulatory part of the same code. Article R. 421-35 says when a foreigner may be regarded as making a direct economic investment: personally or through a company they run or hold at least 30 % of, they must create or save jobs, or undertake to, within the four years following the investment, and must invest or undertake to invest at least 300,000 euros in tangible or intangible fixed assets. The two conditions are cumulative. Article R. 421-36 then withdraws the card if the operation has not begun within a year of its issue, or if the money is shown to come from unlawful activity. The business-creation limb is cheaper and narrower: article R. 421-33-2 asks for project financing of at least 30,000 euros, and article R. 421-33-1 asks the applicant to support themselves and their family at the full-time gross annual minimum wage.
At a glance
- The card
- Carte de séjour pluriannuelle "talent-porteur de projet", maximum four years
CESEDA article L. 421-16; article R. 421-13 sets the actual duration against the purpose of the stay and the project, within that limit.
- How much to invest
- At least 300,000 euros in tangible or intangible fixed assets
CESEDA article R. 421-35 2°, which accepts an undertaking to invest as well as an investment made.
- What else the investment must do
- Create or save jobs in France within the four years following the investment
CESEDA article R. 421-35 1°. The article says the conditions are cumulative.
- Holding it through a company
- Permitted, where you run the company or hold at least 30 % of its capital
CESEDA article R. 421-35.
- Where the amount is not
- Nowhere in article L. 421-16, which states the three grounds and no figure
The whole of article L. 421-16 was read. The amounts are in articles R. 421-33-2 and R. 421-35 of the regulatory part of the same code.
- Creating a business instead
- Project financing of at least 30,000 euros
CESEDA article R. 421-33-2, for the first limb of article L. 421-16.
- Money you must live on while doing it
- At least the full-time gross annual salaire minimum de croissance, for you and your family
CESEDA article R. 421-33-1, for the business-creation limb.
- Losing the card
- Withdrawn if the operation has not started within one year of issue, or if the funds come from unlawful activity
CESEDA article R. 421-36. Article R. 421-37-5 then withdraws the family card as well.
- What the card lets you do
- A commercial activity connected with the economic project that justified it
CESEDA article L. 421-16, last sentence. It is not a general work permit.
- A route by buying property or government bonds
- None in article L. 421-16 or in articles R. 421-33 to R. 421-36
Those articles were read in full. What they require is fixed assets and jobs, and nothing in them is satisfied by a purchase alone.
Requirements
- For the investment limb: at least 300,000 euros invested, or undertaken, in tangible or intangible fixed assets in France
- For the investment limb: creating or saving jobs in France within four years of the investment, or an undertaking to
- Investing personally or through a company you run or hold at least 30 % of
- For the business-creation limb: project financing of at least 30,000 euros and resources at the full-time gross annual minimum wage
In detail
The number is real and it is not in the Act
Article L. 421-16 is the provision a reader is sent to, and it contains no amount at all - only the words "Il procède à un investissement économique direct en France". Everything that makes the route operable is one book further on, in the regulatory part of the same code: 300,000 euros of tangible or intangible fixed assets, a jobs condition running four years from the investment, a 30 % shareholding test for investing through a company, a one-year deadline to begin and a withdrawal if the funds turn out to be unlawful. A citation to the legislative article alone tells a reader almost nothing about whether they qualify.
Country-level policy
The CESEDA does not claim to be the whole of French immigration law and says so in its first article. Article L. 110-1 states that the code governs entry, stay and removal subject to Union law and to international conventions. Article L. 411-1, which lists the residence documents a foreigner needs for a stay over three months, opens with the same reservation - subject to France's international engagements or to book II. Article L. 412-1, which makes a first card conditional on a long-stay visa, opens with it again. And article L. 436-6 extends the residence-permit taxes to titles provided for by treaties or agreements "sauf stipulations contraires prévues par ces traités ou accords". That is the mechanism by which a bilateral agreement can govern a nationality instead of the code: it is not an exception the administration grants, it is a reservation the code makes about itself, repeated at each of the points where the code would otherwise bite.
Article L. 412-1 of the CESEDA makes the first issue of a temporary or multi-year card conditional on producing the long-stay visa of article L. 411-1 - so the ordinary route into France is a consulate abroad, not a préfecture. The visa itself may not last more than a year, and article L. 312-2 lets it carry the rights of a temporary or multi-year card, which is what makes a single document serve as both entry title and residence permit for the first year. The exceptions are many and they are listed rather than reasoned: article L. 412-2 exempts twelve categories outright, including the private and family life cards, the cards issued on exceptional admission under articles L. 435-1 to L. 435-3, the European Blue Card issued on intra-Union mobility and the talent family card; article L. 412-3 lets the administration grant three more without the visa, including the student card. Several individual articles say the same thing in their own text - article L. 423-2 for a marriage celebrated in France, article L. 423-7 for the parent of a French child, article L. 425-9 for a seriously ill foreigner. And article L. 412-4 closes the loop: where a consulate has issued the long-stay visa matching a talent card, the préfet issues the corresponding card.
French residence documents form a ladder and the code states each rung's length in one article. Under article L. 411-3 a long-stay visa and a carte de séjour temporaire each last at most a year, a carte de séjour pluriannuelle at most four, and a carte de résident ten. Article L. 433-4 is the step from the first to the second: a year of lawful stay, attendance at the integration training, a pass mark and a level of French produce a multi-year card bearing the same wording. The ten-year rung is reached either through a family or personal route - articles L. 423-6, L. 423-10 to L. 423-12, L. 423-16, L. 426-1 to L. 426-3 and L. 426-10 among them - or through time, under article L. 426-17, which gives the résident de longue durée-UE card after five years of lawful uninterrupted residence on resources at least equal to the minimum wage and with sickness insurance. Above all of them sits article L. 426-4: a carte de résident permanent of indefinite duration, granted on request at the expiry of a carte de résident and granted as of right at the second renewal of one - and issued to a holder over sixty even if they do not ask for it. The ladder also has a trapdoor: article L. 411-5 expires a carte de résident after three consecutive years abroad.
The CESEDA prices residence in its own text rather than in a schedule. Article L. 436-1 charges 300 euros on the first issue of a residence title and 200 euros on renewal, reduced to 100 and 50 for a listed group that includes the student cards, the seasonal worker card, the family reunification cards and the work-accident card; a provisional residence authorisation costs 100 euros. Some titles are outside it entirely - the retraité card of articles L. 426-8 and L. 426-9, the refugee and subsidiary protection cards, and the card for a seriously ill foreigner under article L. 425-9. Two further charges fall on people whose papers slipped: article L. 436-4 charges a regularisation visa fee of 300 euros, of which 100 is taken non-refundably at the moment of applying, on someone who entered without the required documents or stayed past three months without a card; article L. 436-5 charges 180 euros for a renewal asked for late. A stamp duty of 50 euros sits on top under article L. 436-7. And the employer pays separately: article L. 436-10 charges 55 % of the worker's gross monthly salary, counted up to 2.5 times the gross monthly minimum wage, on a hire of twelve months or more.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Argentina
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«Se voit délivrer une carte de séjour pluriannuelle portant la mention “ talent-porteur de projet ” d'une durée maximale de quatre ans, l'étranger qui se trouve dans l'une des situations suivantes : 1° Ayant obtenu un diplôme équivalent au grade de master ou pouvant attester d'une expérience professionnelle d'au moins cinq ans d'un niveau comparable, il justifie d'un projet économique réel et sérieux et crée une entreprise en France ; 2° Il justifie d'un projet économique innovant, reconnu par un organisme public ; 3° Il procède à un investissement économique direct en France. Cette carte permet l'exercice d'une activité commerciale en lien avec le projet économique ayant justifié sa délivrance.»The three grounds and the limit of the card. No amount appears anywhere in the article, and the third limb - a direct economic investment in France - is four words long.
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The official consolidated text of French codes and statutes. Each code has a stable address built from a LEGITEXT identifier, and the page offers the whole code as a PDF under 'Telecharger le code', which is the only form that carries the text of the articles.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The domain is behind a bot challenge and answers 403 to every request this project makes, including to the PDF endpoint its own page links to - so every reading here was downloaded by a person in a browser and stored as `manual-read`, and cannot be refreshed by running a command. A browser is not reliable either: one page saved by hand came back as the challenge itself, 5,883 bytes titled 'Just a moment...'. The code page at /codes/texte_lc/ carries only the plan, article numbers in a list with no text, so a reader following a citation to it will not find the quoted words there and has to take the PDF. The PDF states its own two dates on the last line, the last modification and the day it was generated, and the cut-off recorded against a quotation is the first of those. What is not here at all is practice: French immigration decisions rest heavily on circulaires and on prefectural discretion, and neither is published in the code.
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«L'étranger qui sollicite la délivrance de la carte de séjour pluriannuelle portant la mention " talent-porteur de projet " prévue au 3° de l'article L. 421-16 peut être regardé comme procédant à un investissement économique direct au sens du même article lorsque, personnellement ou par l'intermédiaire d'une société qu'il dirige ou dont il détient au moins 30 % du capital, il remplit les conditions cumulatives suivantes : 1° Créer ou sauvegarder ou s'engager à créer ou sauvegarder de l'emploi dans les quatre années qui suivent l'investissement sur le territoire français ; 2° Effectuer ou s'engager à effectuer sur le territoire français un investissement en immobilisations corporelles ou incorporelles d'au moins 300 000 euros.»What a direct economic investment means in practice: a shareholding or control test, a jobs test over four years, and 300,000 euros of fixed assets. The conditions are cumulative on the face of the article.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The official consolidated text of French codes and statutes. Each code has a stable address built from a LEGITEXT identifier, and the page offers the whole code as a PDF under 'Telecharger le code', which is the only form that carries the text of the articles.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The domain is behind a bot challenge and answers 403 to every request this project makes, including to the PDF endpoint its own page links to - so every reading here was downloaded by a person in a browser and stored as `manual-read`, and cannot be refreshed by running a command. A browser is not reliable either: one page saved by hand came back as the challenge itself, 5,883 bytes titled 'Just a moment...'. The code page at /codes/texte_lc/ carries only the plan, article numbers in a list with no text, so a reader following a citation to it will not find the quoted words there and has to take the PDF. The PDF states its own two dates on the last line, the last modification and the day it was generated, and the cut-off recorded against a quotation is the first of those. What is not here at all is practice: French immigration decisions rest heavily on circulaires and on prefectural discretion, and neither is published in the code.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Le carte de séjour pluriannuelle portant la mention " talent-porteur de projet " prévue au 3° de l'article L. 421-16 est retirée dans les situations suivantes : 1° L'opération ou l'engagement mentionné à l'article R. 421-35 ayant motivé sa délivrance ne connaît aucun début d'exécution dans un délai d'un an suivant la date de délivrance de cette carte ; 2° Il est établi que les fonds nécessaires à l'opération mentionnée à l'article R. 421-35 proviennent d'activités illicites.»The two ways the card is lost, including a one-year deadline to begin. The article opens with the publisher's own slip - "Le carte" - which is kept as printed.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The official consolidated text of French codes and statutes. Each code has a stable address built from a LEGITEXT identifier, and the page offers the whole code as a PDF under 'Telecharger le code', which is the only form that carries the text of the articles.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The domain is behind a bot challenge and answers 403 to every request this project makes, including to the PDF endpoint its own page links to - so every reading here was downloaded by a person in a browser and stored as `manual-read`, and cannot be refreshed by running a command. A browser is not reliable either: one page saved by hand came back as the challenge itself, 5,883 bytes titled 'Just a moment...'. The code page at /codes/texte_lc/ carries only the plan, article numbers in a list with no text, so a reader following a citation to it will not find the quoted words there and has to take the PDF. The PDF states its own two dates on the last line, the last modification and the day it was generated, and the cut-off recorded against a quotation is the first of those. What is not here at all is practice: French immigration decisions rest heavily on circulaires and on prefectural discretion, and neither is published in the code.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Pour la délivrance de la carte de séjour pluriannuelle portant la mention " talent-porteur de projet " prévue au 1° de l'article L. 421-16, l'étranger doit justifier d'un financement du projet d'entreprise au moins égal à 30 000 euros.»The business-creation limb, an order of magnitude below the investment limb.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The official consolidated text of French codes and statutes. Each code has a stable address built from a LEGITEXT identifier, and the page offers the whole code as a PDF under 'Telecharger le code', which is the only form that carries the text of the articles.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The domain is behind a bot challenge and answers 403 to every request this project makes, including to the PDF endpoint its own page links to - so every reading here was downloaded by a person in a browser and stored as `manual-read`, and cannot be refreshed by running a command. A browser is not reliable either: one page saved by hand came back as the challenge itself, 5,883 bytes titled 'Just a moment...'. The code page at /codes/texte_lc/ carries only the plan, article numbers in a list with no text, so a reader following a citation to it will not find the quoted words there and has to take the PDF. The PDF states its own two dates on the last line, the last modification and the day it was generated, and the cut-off recorded against a quotation is the first of those. What is not here at all is practice: French immigration decisions rest heavily on circulaires and on prefectural discretion, and neither is published in the code.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Pour la délivrance de la carte de séjour pluriannuelle portant la mention “ " talent-porteur de projet " prévue au 1° de l'article L. 421-16, l'étranger doit justifier de ressources suffisantes pour subvenir à ses propres besoins et ceux des membres de sa famille au moins égales au salaire minimum de croissance brut annuel à temps plein.»What the founder must live on while the project runs, measured against the full-time gross annual minimum wage.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The official consolidated text of French codes and statutes. Each code has a stable address built from a LEGITEXT identifier, and the page offers the whole code as a PDF under 'Telecharger le code', which is the only form that carries the text of the articles.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The domain is behind a bot challenge and answers 403 to every request this project makes, including to the PDF endpoint its own page links to - so every reading here was downloaded by a person in a browser and stored as `manual-read`, and cannot be refreshed by running a command. A browser is not reliable either: one page saved by hand came back as the challenge itself, 5,883 bytes titled 'Just a moment...'. The code page at /codes/texte_lc/ carries only the plan, article numbers in a list with no text, so a reader following a citation to it will not find the quoted words there and has to take the PDF. The PDF states its own two dates on the last line, the last modification and the day it was generated, and the cut-off recorded against a quotation is the first of those. What is not here at all is practice: French immigration decisions rest heavily on circulaires and on prefectural discretion, and neither is published in the code.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«La durée de validité de la carte de séjour pluriannuelle portant la mention " talent-porteur de projet " ou " talent " prévue aux articles L. 421-16, L. 421-19, L. 421-20 ou L. 421-21 est déterminée au regard des motifs du séjour et du projet de l'étranger, dans la limite d'une durée de quatre ans.»The four years are a ceiling, not an entitlement: the actual duration is set against the purpose of the stay and the project.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The official consolidated text of French codes and statutes. Each code has a stable address built from a LEGITEXT identifier, and the page offers the whole code as a PDF under 'Telecharger le code', which is the only form that carries the text of the articles.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The domain is behind a bot challenge and answers 403 to every request this project makes, including to the PDF endpoint its own page links to - so every reading here was downloaded by a person in a browser and stored as `manual-read`, and cannot be refreshed by running a command. A browser is not reliable either: one page saved by hand came back as the challenge itself, 5,883 bytes titled 'Just a moment...'. The code page at /codes/texte_lc/ carries only the plan, article numbers in a list with no text, so a reader following a citation to it will not find the quoted words there and has to take the PDF. The PDF states its own two dates on the last line, the last modification and the day it was generated, and the cut-off recorded against a quotation is the first of those. What is not here at all is practice: French immigration decisions rest heavily on circulaires and on prefectural discretion, and neither is published in the code.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«La carte de séjour pluriannuelle portant la mention " talent (famille) " prévue aux articles L. 421-22 ou L. 421-23 est retirée au conjoint et aux enfants de l'étranger titulaire de la carte de séjour pluriannuelle portant la mention " talent-porteur de projet " prévue au 3° de l'article L. 421-16 qui se la voit retirer en application de l'article R. 421-36.»The family card falls with the investor's. Withdrawal under article R. 421-36 carries the spouse and the children with it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The official consolidated text of French codes and statutes. Each code has a stable address built from a LEGITEXT identifier, and the page offers the whole code as a PDF under 'Telecharger le code', which is the only form that carries the text of the articles.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The domain is behind a bot challenge and answers 403 to every request this project makes, including to the PDF endpoint its own page links to - so every reading here was downloaded by a person in a browser and stored as `manual-read`, and cannot be refreshed by running a command. A browser is not reliable either: one page saved by hand came back as the challenge itself, 5,883 bytes titled 'Just a moment...'. The code page at /codes/texte_lc/ carries only the plan, article numbers in a list with no text, so a reader following a citation to it will not find the quoted words there and has to take the PDF. The PDF states its own two dates on the last line, the last modification and the day it was generated, and the cut-off recorded against a quotation is the first of those. What is not here at all is practice: French immigration decisions rest heavily on circulaires and on prefectural discretion, and neither is published in the code.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The 300,000 euros is a figure the code states in euros, so it does not drift with an index - it drifts only when the decree is amended. The 30,000 euros of the business-creation limb is the same kind of figure. The resources condition is not: it is pinned to the full-time gross annual minimum wage, which moves on its own and is fixed in the code du travail, which was not read.
The statement that there is no route by purchase alone is bounded by articles L. 421-16 and R. 421-33 to R. 421-36, which were read in full. France's other economic routes - the self-employed card of article L. 421-5 and the legal-representative card of article L. 421-19 - are different tests and are recorded elsewhere on this site.
- consolidatesCode de l'entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d'asile, consolidated text last modified 27 August 2026
Legifrance, Direction de l'information legale et administrative · consolidated to 2026-08-27
Known to be out of date. The address cited is the code's plan: it lists article numbers without their text, so a reader following it will not find the quoted words on that page and has to take the whole-code PDF offered under "Telecharger le code". Legifrance answers 403 to every request this project can make, including to that PDF, so the reading behind these quotations was downloaded by a person in a browser and cannot be refreshed by running a command. The PDF prints its own two dates on its last line - last modified and generated - and the cut-off recorded here is the first of them.
About this source
The official consolidated text of French codes and statutes. Each code has a stable address built from a LEGITEXT identifier, and the page offers the whole code as a PDF under 'Telecharger le code', which is the only form that carries the text of the articles.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The domain is behind a bot challenge and answers 403 to every request this project makes, including to the PDF endpoint its own page links to - so every reading here was downloaded by a person in a browser and stored as `manual-read`, and cannot be refreshed by running a command. A browser is not reliable either: one page saved by hand came back as the challenge itself, 5,883 bytes titled 'Just a moment...'. The code page at /codes/texte_lc/ carries only the plan, article numbers in a list with no text, so a reader following a citation to it will not find the quoted words there and has to take the PDF. The PDF states its own two dates on the last line, the last modification and the day it was generated, and the cut-off recorded against a quotation is the first of those. What is not here at all is practice: French immigration decisions rest heavily on circulaires and on prefectural discretion, and neither is published in the code.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source