Buying Property in France: Does It Give You Residency - and Which Visa Does?

You have bought, or are about to buy, a property on the French Riviera, and you are wondering whether it entitles you to live here? You have been told that owning a home in France gives you a visa, or at least helps? You are already spending time in your French house and are no longer sure how many days you are allowed? These questions arrive at our office every week, usually from buyers who have completed the purchase first and asked the immigration question second.

The Cabinet Lou Bessis-Osty, a law firm practising in immigration and administrative law in Nice, advises in English and in French, and acts before the administrative courts where a refusal has to be challenged.

The short answer: property does not give residency

France has no golden visa. Unlike Portugal, Greece or Spain in earlier years, French law attaches no right of residence to the purchase of real estate, at any price. A villa in Cap Ferrat gives you exactly the same immigration status as no property at all.

The confusion is understandable. Buying requires a French bank account, a tax number and a notaire, and the process feels official enough to look like a step towards residency. It is not. Ownership and immigration status are governed by two entirely separate bodies of law, and nothing in the deed of sale speaks to the second.

What follows is what actually does give you the right to stay - and what your property is genuinely worth in those applications.

If you only want to visit: the 90/180 rule, now counted automatically

As a non-resident third-country national, you may stay in the Schengen area for up to 90 days in any rolling 180-day period. The count is not per country and not per calendar year: a week in Italy or Spain consumes the same allowance as a week in your own French house.

What has changed is the enforcement. The European Entry/Exit System has been fully operational since 10 April 2026. Entries and exits are now registered biometrically and the days are counted automatically across all member states. The era of estimating from passport stamps is over, and an overstay that once passed unnoticed is now visible at your next crossing.

⚠️ If your pattern of use regularly approaches 90 days, the honest conclusion is usually that you need a long-stay visa rather than better arithmetic. Overstays are recorded, and they surface later - precisely when you apply for the residence permit you eventually want.

If you want to live here without working: the visitor route

This is the route most property buyers actually need - retirees, people living on investment income, and those relocating without a French occupation. It leads to the visitor residence permit, governed by article L. 426-20 of the Code de l'entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d'asile. It is applied for as a long-stay visa at the French consulate before you move, and three conditions must be met.

• Sufficient resources for the whole period of stay. The figure currently applied for a single person is around €1,478 net per month, that is roughly €17,735 for the year. Family allowances are not counted.
• Private health insurance covering the entire period, evidenced by a certificate.
• A written undertaking not to work in France - in any capacity: employment, trade, self-employment, craft or professional practice. A sworn statement is required.

The permit is issued for one year at most and is renewable. The renewal is filed online, at the earliest four months and at the latest two months before expiry, and it carries a fee of €250 in tax stamps.

⚠️ One question comes up constantly and has no comfortable answer: may you work remotely for an employer outside France while holding a visitor permit? The official guidance does not address it, and the undertaking you sign refers to activity in France without defining it. Anyone whose plan depends on working remotely from their French home should have that examined before applying rather than after - a visitor permit obtained on a declaration that proves inaccurate is a fragile foundation.

If you intend to invest or run a business: the talent card

Buyers who are also business owners or investors often fall into a different and far more favourable category. Note the terminology first: the talent residence permit is what was known until recently as the passeport talent - the law of 26 January 2024 renamed it, and official guidance now uses “talent” alone. It is a multi-year permit, which alone makes it worth more than the annual visitor cycle.

Talent - project holder

Three distinct routes sit under this heading:

• Setting up a business: requires a master's-level qualification or five years of comparable professional experience, a genuine and serious business project in France, resources at least equal to the annual full-time minimum wage (currently about €22,404), and project funding of at least €30,000.
• Innovative economic project: recognised as such by the ministry responsible for the economy, with the same resource threshold. No qualification is required.
• Direct economic investment: investing personally or through a company you manage or in which you hold at least 30 % of the capital, creating or safeguarding jobs, with capital investment in France of at least €300,000.

Talent - company officer

For those appointed as legal representative of a French establishment or company, subject to at least three months' standing as an employee or officer within the same group, and gross annual remuneration of at least three times the minimum wage - currently about €67,213.

⚠️ These thresholds are indexed to the French minimum wage and are revised each year. Figures quoted in articles written even twelve months ago are already out of date, and an application built on a stale figure is an application built short.

So what is your property actually worth in an application?

Not nothing - but never on its own. Ownership of a French home serves as supporting evidence in two respects. It establishes stable accommodation, which every long-stay application requires and which is otherwise awkward to prove from abroad. And it contributes to the picture of your means, alongside the income evidence that remains the decisive element.

What it never does is substitute for a condition. A property worth several million euros does not replace proof of regular income for a visitor application, and it does not count as the capital investment required for the talent route unless it genuinely meets that route's own conditions. Consulates are familiar with applications built on the assumption that the house will carry the file, and they are not persuaded by them.

Residency and tax residency are different questions

Holding a French residence permit and being treated as a French tax resident are decided under separate rules, and either can occur without the other. You can hold a visitor permit and remain taxable elsewhere; you can equally become a French tax resident through time spent here while holding no permit at all.

The tax analysis depends on the applicable double taxation treaty and on your personal circumstances, and it should be taken from a tax adviser rather than inferred from your immigration position. The point to retain here is simply that solving one does not solve the other, and that the two decisions are best taken together rather than in sequence.

If your visa is refused

A consular refusal is not the end of the matter, but it follows its own procedure, which differs from the ordinary rules. A refusal of a long-stay visa must first be challenged before the commission for appeals against visa refusals, within two months of notification. That preliminary step is a condition of admissibility: going straight to court without it results in dismissal. Only afterwards may the matter be brought before the administrative court of Nantes, which has exclusive jurisdiction over visa refusals wherever the consulate is located.

Refusals of this kind frequently rest on resources considered insufficient or irregularly evidenced, on an insurance certificate that does not cover the whole period, or on doubt as to the genuineness of the plan. All three are matters of evidence, which is to say all three can be answered - provided the two-month window has not closed.

Our firm at your side on the French Riviera

On these questions, the Cabinet Lou Bessis-Osty can:

• establish which route genuinely fits your situation before you commit to a purchase or a move;
• prepare a visitor or talent application, and assemble the resource and insurance evidence in the form consulates expect;
• advise on how your French property can properly support the application, and on what it cannot do;
• examine a plan that depends on remote work before the undertaking is signed;
• lodge an appeal before the visa appeals commission and, where necessary, before the administrative court of Nantes;
• handle a refusal of renewal or any decision taken by the prefecture once you are here.

The firm works in English and in French, from Nice. If you are considering a purchase, or have received a refusal you do not understand, you may contact the office for an initial review of your situation.