Two Codes Decide One Job: the CESEDA Gives the Card, the Code du Travail Gives Permission to Work
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of The Bahamas 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 The Bahamas to France · Residency through work
A foreigner coming to France to work needs two things and the CESEDA only supplies one of them. The card follows the contract: an open-ended contract gets the carte de séjour temporaire "salarié" under article L. 421-1, a fixed-term contract or a posting gets "travailleur temporaire" under article L. 421-3, and both say in their second sentence that issue depends on holding a work authorisation first, under articles L. 5221-2 and following of the code du travail. That authorisation is where the labour market enters. Article L. 414-13 makes the state of the employment market opposable to the applicant unless the code says otherwise, and the exception is a list of occupations and geographical areas with recruitment difficulties, drawn up and updated at least once a year. Above that sit the talent cards, four years each: talent-salarié qualifié for a master's-level graduate or a hire into an innovative company, talent-carte bleue européenne for a highly qualified job at a salary no lower than 1.5 times the average gross annual wage, talent-chercheur on a hosting agreement, and talent for a legal representative, an artist or someone of established renown. And the employer pays: article L. 436-10 charges a tax of 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.
At a glance
- Open-ended contract
- Carte de séjour temporaire "salarié", maximum one year
CESEDA article L. 421-1.
- Fixed-term contract or posting
- Carte de séjour temporaire "travailleur temporaire", maximum one year, issued for the length of the contract
CESEDA article L. 421-3, which also renews it for the length of the contract.
- Who decides whether you may work
- The work authorisation of the code du travail, which the CESEDA requires before it issues the card
CESEDA articles L. 421-1 and L. 421-3, second paragraph of each.
- Whether the labour market can be used against you
- Yes, unless the job and the area are on the shortage list
CESEDA article L. 414-13. The list is drawn up and updated at least once a year by the administration after consulting the representative employer and employee organisations.
- Losing the job on a salarié card
- The card is extended by one year; at the renewal after that, the stay is decided for as long as the unemployment benefit entitlement runs
CESEDA article L. 421-1, third paragraph, by way of exception to article L. 433-1.
- Highly qualified work
- Talent-carte bleue européenne, at a salary threshold that may not be set below 1.5 times the average gross annual wage
CESEDA article L. 421-11, for a job of six months or more with a three-year degree or five years' comparable experience.
- Qualified graduate or innovative company
- Talent-salarié qualifié, maximum four years
CESEDA article L. 421-9. The salary threshold is the average gross annual reference wage fixed by order of the minister responsible for immigration, under article R. 421-16 A.
- Moving from one year to four
- After a first year, a multi-year card bearing the same wording, on the integration conditions
CESEDA article L. 433-4: attendance at the prescribed training, a pass mark in the civic examination, and a stated level of French.
- What the employer pays
- 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
CESEDA article L. 436-10. Shorter hires are charged between 50 and 300 euros, and a seasonal hire 50 euros per month of work.
- An intra-company mission
- Talent-salarié qualifié after three months' seniority in the group abroad and a contract with the French entity
CESEDA article L. 421-9 3°.
Requirements
- A work authorisation under articles L. 5221-2 and following of the code du travail, before the card is issued
- A long-stay visa obtained abroad, unless the card is one of the exceptions in article L. 412-2
- An employment contract, a hosting agreement or a mission matching the card applied for
- For the talent cards, the salary threshold fixed by decree for that card
How the process runs
- Step 1
The employer obtains the work authorisation
The administration competent for work authorisations
The CESEDA makes the card conditional on it, and the conditions are in the code du travail. Where the job and the area are not on the shortage list, the state of the employment market may be raised against the application.
- Step 2
Apply for the long-stay visa
The French consulate with jurisdiction over your residence
A first card needs the long-stay visa of article L. 411-1. For the talent cards applied for from abroad, article R. 421-11 puts the decision itself with the consular authority.
- Step 3
Collect the card in France
The préfecture of the department of residence, or the préfecture de police in Paris
For a talent card decided abroad, the préfet of the department where you settle issues the card on presentation of the passport bearing the long-stay visa, and issues a six-month provisional authorisation in the meantime.
- Step 4
After a year, ask for the multi-year card
The préfecture
Article L. 433-4 turns a year on a temporary card into a multi-year card bearing the same wording, if the integration conditions are met.
In detail
One code renames a card and the others do not follow
The family of four-year cards for qualified work used to be called the passeport talent. Article L. 421-9 now issues a card bearing the words "talent-salarié qualifié", and article L. 421-11 one bearing "talent-carte bleue européenne". But article L. 412-4, which tells a préfet what to do when a consulate has issued the matching long-stay visa, still speaks of the "passeport talent"; so does article L. 433-1 on renewal, and so does article L. 421-22 on the family card. Both names are in force in the same consolidated text, and a reader searching one of them will miss provisions written with the other.
The shortage list is the whole of the exception
Article L. 414-13 states the labour-market test as the default: where the card depends on a work authorisation, the state of the employment market is opposable to the applicant unless the code says otherwise. The exception it then names is an occupation and a geographical area with recruitment difficulties, and the list of those is made and refreshed at least annually after consulting the representative employer and employee organisations. Article L. 421-4 adds the other case: a graduate at master's level or on a list fixed by decree, with a contract related to their training and a salary above a threshold set by decree. Everyone else is applying into a test that is about the labour market rather than about them.
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.
A foreigner admitted to stay in France for the first time who wants to remain durably enters a personalised republican integration pathway and signs a contract with the State undertaking to follow the training prescribed to them. Article L. 413-3 says what the pathway contains: civic training on the values, principles and institutions of the Republic and on the organisation, history and culture of French society; language training; professional orientation and support, which is itself conditioned on attendance and seriousness in the first two; and support adapted to the person's needs. The civic training ends in an examination, which may be retaken at any time if the mark falls below the thresholds. Those thresholds then decide residence. Article L. 433-4 makes the step from a one-year card to a multi-year one conditional on attendance, on a pass mark fixed by decree, and on a level of French described as understanding frequently used expressions, communicating in routine tasks and discussing immediate needs. Article L. 413-7 asks for more for the ten-year carte de résident: a higher examination result and a level of French described as understanding reasonably clear conversation, producing simple connected speech and setting out an idea briefly. And article 21-24 of the Code civil asks for more again for naturalisation. Three thresholds, three descriptions, three different moments.
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 The Bahamas
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
«L'étranger qui exerce une activité salariée sous contrat de travail à durée indéterminée se voit délivrer une carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention " salarié " d'une durée maximale d'un an. La délivrance de cette carte de séjour est subordonnée à la détention préalable d'une autorisation de travail, dans les conditions prévues par les articles L. 5221-2 et suivants du code du travail.»The ordinary employee card, and the sentence that hands the real decision to another code: the card depends on a work authorisation already held.
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.
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«Par dérogation aux dispositions de l'article L. 433-1, elle est prolongée d'un an si l'étranger se trouve involontairement privé d'emploi. Lors du renouvellement suivant, s'il est toujours privé d'emploi, il est statué sur son droit au séjour pour une durée équivalente à celle des droits qu'il a acquis à l'allocation d'assurance mentionnée à l'article L. 5422-1 du code du travail.»What happens when the job ends. One extra year, then a stay measured by the unemployment benefit entitlement - a provision that treats the card as attached to the person rather than to the employer.
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
«L'étranger qui exerce une activité salariée sous contrat de travail à durée déterminée ou qui fait l'objet d'un détachement conformément aux articles L. 1262-1, L. 1262-2 et L. 1262-2-1 du code du travail se voit délivrer une carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention " travailleur temporaire " d'une durée maximale d'un an. La délivrance de cette carte de séjour est subordonnée à la détention préalable d'une autorisation de travail, dans les conditions prévues par les articles L. 5221-2 et suivants du code du travail. Elle est délivrée pour une durée identique à celle du contrat de travail ou du détachement, dans la limite d'un an. Elle est renouvelée pour une durée identique à celle du contrat de travail ou du détachement.»The fixed-term and posting card. Its validity tracks the contract, which is the practical difference from the salarié card.
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
«Lorsque la délivrance du titre de séjour est subordonnée à la détention préalable de l'autorisation de travail prévue à l'article L. 5221-2 du code du travail, la situation du marché de l'emploi est opposable au demandeur sauf lorsque le présent code en dispose autrement, et notamment lorsque la demande de l'étranger concerne un métier et une zone géographique caractérisée par des difficultés de recrutement. La liste de ces métiers et zones géographiques est établie et actualisée au moins une fois par an par l'autorité administrative après consultation des organisations syndicales représentatives d'employeurs et de salariés.»The labour-market test, and its exception. The shortage list is a legal instrument with an annual rhythm and a consultation attached to 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
«Sous réserve de justifier du respect d'un seuil de rémunération fixé par décret en Conseil d'Etat, se voit délivrer une carte de séjour pluriannuelle portant la mention “ talent-salarié qualifié ” d'une durée maximale de quatre ans, l'étranger qui se trouve dans l'une des situations suivantes : 1° Il exerce une activité professionnelle salariée et a obtenu, dans un établissement d'enseignement supérieur habilité au plan national, un diplôme au moins équivalent au grade de master ou figurant sur une liste fixée par décret ;»The talent-salarié qualifié card and its first ground. Note the wording: the code now says "talent-salarié qualifié" where other articles still say "passeport talent".
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
«L'étranger qui occupe un emploi hautement qualifié pendant une durée égale ou supérieure à six mois et justifie d'un diplôme sanctionnant au moins trois années d'études supérieures ou d'une expérience professionnelle d'au moins cinq ans d'un niveau comparable ou qui a acquis, dans des conditions, tenant notamment à la profession concernée, déterminées par décret en Conseil d'Etat, au moins trois ans d'expérience professionnelle pertinente au cours des sept années précédant la demande se voit délivrer une carte de séjour pluriannuelle portant la mention “ talent-carte bleue européenne ” d'une durée égale à celle figurant sur le contrat de travail, dans la limite de quatre ans lorsque le contrat est conclu pour une durée d'au moins deux ans, sous réserve de justifier du respect d'un seuil de rémunération fixé par décret en Conseil d'Etat et dont le montant ne peut être inférieur à 1,5 fois le salaire annuel brut moyen.»The European Blue Card as France enacts it. The threshold is not in the article; what is in the article is a floor under the threshold - it may not be set below 1.5 times the average gross annual 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
«Pour l'application de l'article L. 421-9, le seuil de rémunération dont le respect doit être justifié correspond à une rémunération annuelle brute au moins égale au montant du salaire brut moyen annuel de référence fixé par arrêté du ministre en charge de l'immigration.»Where the talent-salarié qualifié threshold actually lives: an order of the minister, not the code. The code states the kind of figure and not the figure.
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
«Au terme d'une première année de séjour régulier en France accompli au titre d'un visa de long séjour tel que défini au 2° de l'article L. 411-1 ou, sous réserve des exceptions prévues à l'article L. 433-5, d'une carte de séjour temporaire, l'étranger bénéficie, à sa demande, d'une carte de séjour pluriannuelle dès lors que : 1° Il justifie de son assiduité, sous réserve de circonstances exceptionnelles, et du sérieux de sa participation aux formations prescrites par l'Etat dans le cadre du contrat d'intégration républicaine conclu en application de l'article L. 413-2 ; 2° Il a obtenu un résultat à l'examen mentionné au sixième alinéa de l'article L. 413-3 supérieur ou égal à un seuil fixé par décret ;»The step from a one-year card to a multi-year one, conditioned on the republican integration course and a pass mark in its examination.
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
«Lorsque l'embauche intervient pour une durée supérieure ou égale à douze mois, le montant de cette taxe est égal à 55 % du salaire brut mensuel versé à ce travailleur étranger, pris en compte dans la limite de 2,5 fois le salaire minimum de croissance brut mensuel.»The employer's tax, as a percentage of the salary with a cap expressed in minimum wages. It is charged on the first admission to stay for salaried work, not on the renewal.
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
«L'étranger qui exerce une activité non salariée, économiquement viable et dont il tire des moyens d'existence suffisants, dans le respect de la législation en vigueur, se voit délivrer une carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention " entrepreneur/ profession libérale " d'une durée maximale d'un an.»Self-employment, which is a different card and carries no work authorisation requirement - the test is that the activity is economically viable and yields sufficient means.
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 work authorisation itself was not read. Articles L. 5221-2 and following of the code du travail state its conditions, and Legifrance answered 403 to every attempt this project made to reach that code.
Three salary thresholds are named here and none is published as a figure: the talent-salarié qualifié threshold is an average gross annual reference wage fixed by ministerial order, the Blue Card threshold is fixed by decree with a floor of 1.5 times the average gross annual wage, and the employer's tax is capped at 2.5 times the gross monthly minimum wage. The orders and decrees were not read.
The shortage list is the part of this that moves. It is made by the administration rather than by the code, refreshed at least yearly, and is the difference between an application that is judged on the applicant and one that is judged on the market.
- 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