Jomap

Hi,

I have a couple of questions and I am struggling to get clear information.

1. If my current boss in the UK has a business overseas in France and an opportunity has arisen for me to go and work there for a minimum of at least 2 years, will I be able to put in a long stay visa application and travel in the interim until it is granted as you can stay there for 90 days?

2. Will I need a work permit for the initial 3 months or do I apply for a long-stay resident permit straightaway?

3. Are all work permits granted or is it only for certain professions?

4. Would I be able to travel during the current travel ban for this reason?

EuroTrash

You can't work in France at all without a work permit. The visa-free 3 month travel arrangement is strictly for tourism and leisure only, you are not allowed to work while you're there.

An employer who wants to set somebody on to work in France, has to register that person as a worker with the authorities before the start date of their contract. Your employer won't be able to register you if you are a Brit unless you have a work permit. And you won't be able to apply for a work visa as an employee until you have a work permit.
If your employer has a business in France presumably they know how it works.
They are responsible for obtaining your work permit. All you have to do before you can travel to France is, once you get the work permit you apply for your visa. Once you get that you're good to go.
Your employer has quite a lot of formalities to complete - as well as getting the work permit he has to draw up a contract that conforms with French labour law, submit the déclaration d'embauche, arrange a health check for you, set up complementary health insurance for you, set up payroll to pay you and make payslip deductions, etc.
But the very first step is to apply for a work permit, which has to be done online https://www.service-public.fr/partic...sdroits/R58908
Then he needs to declare you as an employee, again I think it can all be done online https://www.service-public.fr/profes...l'embauche
or if your employer doesn't have a place of business in France https://www.urssaf.fr/portail/home/w...nce-while.html

It will take your employer a while to get everything sorted, and by that time this particular travel ban will no longer be in force. Hopefully things will have improved but you'll have to see what the situation is once you have your work permit. But in previous lockdowns when travel wasn't allowed, France stopped issuing visas until the restrictions were due to be lifted.

Hope this helps, good luck with it all.

Jomap

Firstly, thank you so much for the detailed response which is making things clearer. It seems like there is a lot to be done, just a few questions if you could please assist off the back of this information:

1. With the current travel ban (and no exact date of when it will be lifted) - would I be permitted to enter France for the 90 days with the reason being that I am looking to relocate and work there for a period of 2 years minimum?

2. Theoretically if you made the decision to move, would it be possible to get everything in order and move within one month?

3. How long would it take on average to get the work permit sorted?

EuroTrash

Irrespective of travel restrictions you would not be permitted to enter France on the 90 days Schengen visa free arrangement if your reason for travelling is that you are looking to relocate and work there for a period of 2 years minimum. This arrangement only allows you to visit as a tourist for 90 days maximum. For any other purpose you need the appropriate visa. So if you rock up at the border and say you intend to stay longer for than 90 days and/or work, and you do not have the correct visa, you will be refused entry.

You might just squeak the paperwork within a month if your employer is applying for a work permit on the basis of an inter company transfer. With luck he might conceivably have the permit within one to two weeks, then you need to put in your visa application, attend your interview and receive a visa. The visa will have a start date and you can't enter the country before that date. Everything will depend on how busy the offices are, do they have a backlog, how many applications they are receiving at that time and how many staff are absent.
If for whatever reason you don't qualify for an inter company transfer you have no chance unless your employer has already advertised the job to EU applicants. I believe the job has to be advertised for at least four weeks, after which the employer has to summarise the applications he received from French/EU applicants and justify why none of them is suitable and what skills the foreign candidate has that they don't. As far as I know the only conditions for an ICT are that you've worked for the same company or group for a certain length of time in another country, and that your salary is above a certain threshold (could be around 30k) but you'll find all the info on google.

You will also need to have accommodation arranged ahead of your visa application because you will have to give the address to the visa authorities. Presumably your employer will arrange accommodation or you have something available, otherwise you would also have to sort that out quickly. Depending on where you are, airbnb might be your quickest solution.

dmu

I may be wrong, but I thought that, since the rental contracts with AirBnBs are limited in time (4 months in one year?), their addresses can't be used to justify accommodation for a long-term Visa?

Jomap

Once again, thank you for the info, very helpful.

So in this scenario - my boss over here has an independent estate agency who I work for. He also has a business over in France. However, it is not like a giant corporation with multiple offices in different parts of the world. So would that count as an ICT transfer?

Jomap

Once again, thank you for the info, very helpful.

So in this scenario - my boss over here has an independent estate agency who I work for. He also has a business over in France. However, it is not like a giant corporation with multiple offices in different parts of the world. So would that count as an ICT transfer?

EuroTrash

Sorry, I don't know the technicalities of ICT transfers, you would have to google it yourself or go through it with your boss.
I think it may depend how the two companies are set up. I am not sure that the fact of sharing a director, would be sufficient for them to be considered as the same company if they have in fact been set up as two separate stand alone entities.
The French are very fond of their organigrammes alias organisational charts - usually set out like a kind of family tree, showing the various companies and stakeholders how they relate to each other. They may ask for one of those and they would be looking to see the relationship between the UK branch you currently work for and the French branch you would be transferred to.

Estate agency does raise a bit of a flag. As you probably know, being an estate agent is a regulated profession in France and you have to be properly qualified and licensed. If your boss is already operating in France he presumably is licensed, and if you are not yet operating in France you are presumably not licensed. Depending on what your function would be, as defined in your employment contract, this may or may not be an issue. A lot of Brits get confused over this and say they are working as an agent immobilier = estate agent, whereas in fact they are working as an agent commercial immobilier = estate agent's sales rep. The difference is that the agent commercial is not licensed in their own right, they are working under their boss's license, and they are restricted in what they can do. So for instance, if your boss's idea is to send you to France to run the French operation yourself, this may not work because without qualifications and a license you wouldn't be able to handle everything yourself. Hopefully you and your boss know far more about this than I do, but it's something to bear in mind because the application for the work permit will have to state exactly what your role and responsibilities will be.
Also, agents commerciaux in France commonly work on a freelance basis where most of their earnings come from commission, and this would likely cause problems with the work permit issue. Ideally you'll be on a proper 35-hour a week employment contract with the appropriate salary.

Hope this helps.

EuroTrash

I don't think it's actually such an issue for work visas.
For self supporting visas I think they partly want to know where you'll be living for the duration of your visa so that they can assess whether your resources are sufficient for your presumed lifestyle for that duration. Eg if you live in Paris or on the Riviera or you've bought a chateau somewhere they'll consider you need more money to last you a year than if you live in a modest house in rural Normandy. But if you're moving to go to a job rather than for the lifestyle, you're presumably going to be living near your place of work and they assume you will find somewhere in line with your salary. So as long as you have an initial address where they can find you if they need you, and you inform the préfecture when you move, I think that is adequate. Maybe I'm wrong but that's the impression I have.

Jomap

Thank you very much, yes very helpful. A lot of detail to go through but incredibly useful and much appreciated.

fringlish

Topics like this annoy me.

1. If the employer wants the employee to come to France he should sort it out.
2. We should not be asked to advise on something that most of us know nothing about.
3. if the OP feels that he should become involved in trying to find a solution, he should search government websites for information before asking on a public forum.

Sorry if I sound unhelpful. I'll always help a blind person to cross the road, then ask them if they wanted to afterwards!

dmu

1. True
2. ET is a reliable fount of knowledge on all things Administrative/Legal/Social/Fiscal/Commercial (and others....)
3. Since No. 1 is applicable, the OP can but increase his knowledge by asking for advice on a forum, where some one might have been in the same position and give first-hand experience....

dmu

OK, my bad!
All useful to know....

Jomap

Exactly - and no end of appreciation for ET because he has made the information a whole lot clearer. There is no harm or anything wrong in asking an actual person for advice/support/help as well as researching online (which has already been done too).

EuroTrash

There's always going to be threads on any forum that are of no interest to some members. I frequent a motorhome forum and I have no interest in the many technical discussions about how to fix specific problems that commonly arise in a model that I don't have. But it doesn't annoy me, I ignore those threads and join in or watch other threads that do interest me.

When I first moved to France, internet forums were a relatively new thing and I got some very useful information and advice, and since then I've tried to repay that by helping others. As it happens my working life here involved translating various documents and correspondence relating to tax investigations, alleged breaches of labour law etc, during the course of which I picked up no end of random and sometimes astonishing and interesting information and insights, and I'm happy to share what I remember of this (memory fast fading unfortunately), and if it helps others then so much the better. There's lots of thread asking advice on best banks, insurance, places to buy stuff etc and I can't contribute much to these because I've never been very good at shopping around or remembering what I actually pay for things, so it's good that other posters know about this stuff and I can learn from them. I'd never even heard of the EKO account that fringlish mentioned but I happened to look at the thread and read about it, and it was good to discover something new, and looking at the blurb about the account again I can see that actually it does have attractions for people looking for a low cost solution. So I think it's always good to ask questions no matter what they're about, and share info even though not all threads will interest every poster, that's what forums are about isn't it?