The Union Counts Ninety Days in Any 180; the French Code Says Three Months, and Asks Your Host to Sign for You
Whether a short visit needs a visa is decided by Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 and not by French law: Annex I nationals need one, Annex II nationals do not, and the exemption runs for 90 days in any 180-day period. The CESEDA opens by saying it applies subject to Union law and to international conventions, and then builds its own layer on top. Article L. 311-1 lists what every foreigner must carry to enter: the visas required by the Schengen Borders Code where they are not exempt, proof of accommodation where it is asked for, documents on the purpose and conditions of the stay, means of subsistence, medical and hospital cover taken out with an approved insurer, and guarantees of repatriation. Article L. 312-1 measures a short stay in a different unit from the Union: it speaks of a stay not exceeding three months, where the Regulation counts ninety days across a rolling window. And the proof of accommodation is a French institution of its own - the attestation d'accueil, signed by the person putting you up, validated by the mayor of the commune, and carrying the host's undertaking to pay your costs in France for the validity of the visa or for three months.
At a glance
- What decides whether you need a visa
- Your nationality, read against the Annexes to Regulation (EU) 2018/1806
CESEDA article L. 311-1 1° requires the visas demanded by the Schengen Borders Code; the Regulation is what says who is exempt.
- Length of a visa-free short stay
- 90 days in any 180-day period
Article 4(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1806. The figure is the Union's.
- What the French code calls a short stay
- A stay not exceeding three months
CESEDA article L. 312-1. Three months and ninety days are not the same measure, and the article states no rolling window.
- Proof of accommodation for a family or private visit
- An attestation d'accueil signed by your host
CESEDA article L. 313-1, which identifies it as the document the 1990 Schengen convention requires for this kind of visit.
- Who validates it
- The mayor of the commune where you will be housed, acting as an agent of the State
CESEDA article L. 313-2; in Paris, Lyon and Marseille the mayor of the arrondissement.
- What your host undertakes
- To meet your costs of stay in France if you do not, for the validity of the visa or for three months from entry
CESEDA article L. 313-2, capped at the resources that would have been required of you had there been no attestation.
- Health cover at the border
- Medical and hospital cover, social assistance included, taken out with an approved insurer
CESEDA article L. 311-1 2°, which asks for it among the documents of entry rather than as a condition of a permit.
- A visa refused for reasons that are not about you
- A diplomatic or service passport holder may be refused where their State co-operates insufficiently on readmission
CESEDA article L. 312-1-1.
Requirements
- A visa where your nationality is in Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2018/1806
- Documents on the purpose and conditions of the stay and on your means of existence
- Medical and hospital cover taken out with an approved insurer, and guarantees of repatriation
- An attestation d'accueil validated by the mayor, where the visit is a family or private one
- No public-order objection, no Schengen alert against admission, no judicial or administrative ban in force
In detail
Three months, or ninety days?
Article L. 312-1 tells a traveller to ask for a short-stay visa when the stay will not exceed three months. Article 4(1) of the Regulation exempts Annex II nationals for stays of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period. Those are two different measures of the same thing: three months is a block of calendar time, while ninety days in any 180 is counted backwards from whatever day an officer picks, so three short visits can exhaust it where one long one would not. The French article does not state a window at all. The Union rule is the one that binds, because the code says in article L. 110-1 that it applies subject to Union law - but it is the French number a reader meets first.
The attestation d'accueil is not a formality
For a family or private visit, the proof of accommodation is a signed undertaking by the person housing you, validated by the mayor of their commune. The undertaking is financial: article L. 313-2 commits the host to pay your costs of stay in France, for the validity of the visa or for three months from your entry into the Schengen area, if you do not pay them yourself. The ceiling is the amount of resources you would have had to show at the border had you arrived without one. So the document a visitor treats as a letter of invitation is, on the French side of it, a liability.
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.
Exceptions by origin
No Visa, and Ninety Days Counted Backwards - But the Host's Signature Still Applies
A national of a state in Annex II to Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 needs no visa to enter France for a short stay. The exemption is for stays of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period, counted backwards from any day an officer chooses rather than forwards from arrival, so several short visits can use it up. What the exemption does not remove is the rest of article L. 311-1 of the CESEDA: documents on the purpose and conditions of the stay and on means of existence, medical and hospital cover with an approved insurer, guarantees of repatriation, and - for a family or private visit - the attestation d'accueil signed by the host and validated by the mayor of their commune. France's own article L. 312-1 describes a short stay as one not exceeding three months, which is a different measure from the Union's ninety days in 180 and is the one a reader meets first in the French text.
- A travel document valid for the stay
- Documents on the purpose and conditions of the stay and on means of existence
- Medical and hospital cover with an approved insurer, and guarantees of repatriation
- An attestation d'accueil validated by the mayor, for a family or private visit
A Visa Is Required, and the Code Adds Two Refusals That Are Not About the Trip
A national of a state in Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 must hold a visa to cross the external border. France's own code then adds grounds of refusal that have nothing to do with the purpose of the visit. Article L. 312-1 A refuses every visa in articles L. 312-1 to L. 312-4 to a foreigner who was ordered to leave French territory less than five years ago and cannot prove they left within the period they were given, unless humanitarian circumstances of the kind recognised elsewhere in the code are found on an individual examination. Article L. 312-1-1 allows a short-stay visa sought on a diplomatic or service passport to be refused to a national of a state that co-operates insufficiently on readmitting its own nationals, or that does not respect a bilateral or multilateral migration agreement. Everything in the general entry rule still applies on top: the documents on purpose and means, the insurance, the repatriation guarantees and the attestation d'accueil.
- A short-stay visa applied for at a French consulate
- No removal order from the last five years left unperformed
- The entry documents of article L. 311-1 on top of the visa
A Different Book of the Code Applies, and It Asks for Nothing for Three Months
A national of a Union member state, of Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway, or of Switzerland, does not arrive in France under the rules that govern other foreigners. Book II of the CESEDA governs their entry and stay, and article L. 110-4 says the other books reach them only as book II provides. Article L. 232-1 gives a stay of up to three months with no condition or formality beyond those for entry, so long as the person does not become an unreasonable burden on the social assistance system - and that right extends to family members accompanying or joining them, whatever those family members' own nationality. There is no visa, no attestation d'accueil, and no permit: article L. 231-1 says Union citizens are not required to hold one, though one is issued on request.
- Nationality of a Union member state, of Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway, or of Switzerland
- Not becoming an unreasonable burden on the social assistance system
What the law says
«Le présent code régit, sous réserve du droit de l'Union européenne et des conventions internationales, l'entrée, le séjour et l'éloignement des étrangers en France ainsi que l'exercice du droit d'asile.»Our translation - not official
This code governs, subject to the law of the European Union and to international conventions, the entry, stay and removal of foreigners in France as well as the exercise of the right of asylum.
The code's own reservation, and the mechanism that lets a bilateral agreement displace it. Union law and international conventions come first; everything below is subject to them.
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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«Pour entrer en France, tout étranger doit être muni : 1° Sauf s'il est exempté de cette obligation, des visas exigés par les conventions internationales et par l'article 6, paragraphe 1, points a et b, du règlement (UE) 2016/399 du Parlement européen et du Conseil du 9 mars 2016 concernant un code de l'Union relatif au régime de franchissement des frontières par les personnes (code frontières Schengen) ; 2° Sous réserve des conventions internationales, et de l'article 6, paragraphe 1, point c, du code frontières Schengen, du justificatif d'hébergement prévu à l'article L. 313-1, s'il est requis, et des autres documents prévus par décret en Conseil d'Etat relatifs à l'objet et aux conditions de son séjour et à ses moyens d'existence, à la prise en charge par un opérateur d'assurance agréé des dépenses médicales et hospitalières, y compris d'aide sociale, résultant de soins qu'il pourrait engager en France, ainsi qu'aux garanties de son rapatriement ; 3° Des documents nécessaires à l'exercice d'une activité professionnelle s'il se propose d'en exercer une.»Everything a foreigner must carry to enter, in one article. The visa duty is handed to the Schengen Borders Code; the rest - accommodation, purpose, means, insurance, repatriation - is French.
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
«Tout étranger souhaitant entrer en France en vue d'y séjourner pour une durée n'excédant pas trois mois doit solliciter auprès des autorités diplomatiques et consulaires françaises un visa de court séjour, dans les conditions prévues à l'article 6 du règlement 2016/399 du Parlement européen et du Conseil du 9 mars 2016.»The short-stay visa, measured in three months rather than in ninety days.
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
«Les demandes de visa de court séjour sont déposées et instruites dans les conditions prévues par les chapitres II et III du titre III du règlement n° 810/2009 du Parlement européen et du Conseil du 13 juillet 2009 établissant un code communautaire des visas.»And the procedure handed to the Union Visa Code. France decides the visa; the Union decides how it is applied for and examined.
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
«Un étranger ne satisfait pas aux conditions d'entrée sur le territoire français lorsqu'il se trouve dans les situations suivantes : 1° Sa présence en France constituerait une menace pour l'ordre public ; 2° Il fait l'objet d'un signalement aux fins de non-admission sur le territoire français introduit dans le système d'information Schengen, conformément au»The grounds on which entry conditions are not met. The quotation stops at the Schengen alert because the article's third limb falls on the other side of a page break in the published text.
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
«Tout étranger qui déclare vouloir séjourner en France pour une durée n'excédant pas trois mois dans le cadre d'une visite familiale ou privée doit présenter un justificatif d'hébergement qui prend la forme d'une attestation d'accueil, signée par la personne qui se propose d'assurer le logement de l'étranger, ou son représentant légal. Cette attestation est validée par l'autorité administrative, et constitue le document prévu par la convention signée à Schengen le 19 juin 1990 pour justifier les conditions de séjour dans le cas d'une visite familiale ou privée.»The attestation d'accueil. It is a document a resident of France signs about a visitor, and the code treats it as the Schengen convention's proof of the conditions of stay.
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
«Elle est accompagnée de l'engagement de l'hébergeant de prendre en charge, pendant toute la durée de validité du visa ou pendant une durée de trois mois à compter de l'entrée de l'étranger sur le territoire des Etats parties à la convention signée à Schengen le 19 juin 1990, et au cas où l'étranger accueilli n'y pourvoirait pas, les frais de séjour en France de celui-ci, limités au montant des ressources exigées de la part de l'étranger pour son entrée sur le territoire en l'absence d'une attestation d'accueil.»What the host is signing up to: the visitor's costs of stay, for the validity of the visa or for three months from entry into the Schengen area, capped at the resources the visitor would otherwise have had to show.
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
«Nationals of third countries listed in Annex II shall be exempt from the requirement set out in Article 3(1) for stays of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period.»The exemption and its measure. Ninety days in any 180-day period is a rolling window, not an allowance that resets on a date.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Union's legal database. Publishes each act as adopted in the Official Journal and, separately, a consolidated version carrying every amendment to a stated date, identified as 0YYYYRNNNN-YYYYMMDD. The consolidated text marks each amended passage with the instrument that changed it.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text is explicitly not authentic - EUR-Lex says so on the document - and only the Official Journal version has legal force. It also says nothing about how any member state applies the act: a regulation is directly applicable but the border practice, the evidence an officer may ask for and the national exceptions are in national law, which is published elsewhere.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Nationals of third countries listed in Annex I shall be required to be in possession of a visa when crossing the external borders of the Member States.»The visa requirement, stated as a list rather than as a test.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Union's legal database. Publishes each act as adopted in the Official Journal and, separately, a consolidated version carrying every amendment to a stated date, identified as 0YYYYRNNNN-YYYYMMDD. The consolidated text marks each amended passage with the instrument that changed it.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text is explicitly not authentic - EUR-Lex says so on the document - and only the Official Journal version has legal force. It also says nothing about how any member state applies the act: a regulation is directly applicable but the border practice, the evidence an officer may ask for and the national exceptions are in national law, which is published elsewhere.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
Exempt from a visa is not the same as admitted. The officer at the external border applies the Schengen Borders Code, which this record does not reach.
France's own code is thicker here than Austria's and thinner than Belgium's on the one point that matters most: Belgium writes the ninety days and their 180-day window into its own Act, Austria states no period at all, and France states three months.
Nothing here covers the overseas collectivities. Books VII and the outre-mer titles of the CESEDA adapt these rules for Saint-Barthelemy, Saint-Martin and the others, and they were not read.
- 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
- consolidatesRegulation (EU) 2018/1806, consolidated version
EUR-Lex, Publications Office of the European Union · consolidated to 2025-12-30
Known to be out of date. A consolidated text is not authentic. Only the Official Journal version of each amending regulation has legal force, and an annex can be amended between consolidations.
About this source
The Union's legal database. Publishes each act as adopted in the Official Journal and, separately, a consolidated version carrying every amendment to a stated date, identified as 0YYYYRNNNN-YYYYMMDD. The consolidated text marks each amended passage with the instrument that changed it.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text is explicitly not authentic - EUR-Lex says so on the document - and only the Official Journal version has legal force. It also says nothing about how any member state applies the act: a regulation is directly applicable but the border practice, the evidence an officer may ask for and the national exceptions are in national law, which is published elsewhere.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source