A European moving to France

Last updated: 13 March 2023

I hold no responsibility for the consequences of anybody following the following advice. Some people told me it was useful.

Bank account

Getting a bank account is arguably the most important thing after moving, since it will allow you to get paid and set up contracts for internet, a mobile phone and so on. Ideally, you can already get an appropriate bank account ahead of your move (one that provides you with a RIB, see below):

A quick hack if you already have a bank account in Europe (within SEPA): ask them if they can give you a document called a “RIB”. This is the sheet of paper HR needs to set up your salary payments. While you cannot be paid on a non-French bank account forever, if your foreign bank can provide you with this, the HR personnel might accept it as a temporary solution. This would make your bank search in France a little less stressful - and you can start looking for an apartment and apply for a social security card right away after arriving in France.

Alternatively, you can try opening a bank account online before you even move, if you are lucky this can speed up your moving and settling process significantly. Either you apply online with some of the traditional banks, or you try your luck with one of the French online banks like Fortuneo (see further below). You will need a proof of address and French phone number for this, but if you have at least one contact in France, they might be willing to let you use theirs for this.

A RIB, or ”relevé d’identité bancaire” (~ proof of bank identity document) is essentially a standardized way for French people to give their IBAN and BIC to someone else, it contains your name, the name and address of your bank and also the IBAN and BIC. It’s one of these useless paperwork things the French to and nobody knows why. Could you in principle provide this information to people without having it bundled on a RIB? Yup. Will the French accept it? Nope. The system makes no sense - welcome to France!

I recommend that the absolute first thing when you arrive in France is go to a bank and open a bank account. I am not kidding, the moment you land or get out of the train, see when the bank franchise you chose is open and go start this process. You will likely need a confirmation of housing for this, for which you can probably ask literally any person who owns an apartment or house in France to sign a sheet of paper saying they are accommodating you, and then you use their address to open the account. It doesn’t matter that this is not true, the problem is that without a bill to your own name (electricity, internet, gas, …), it will be impossible to open a bank account - unless you have such a confirmation of housing.

The real struggle about getting a bank account is that you need a proof of address in France and a French phone number to be able to open it. The easiest way to do this would be to use an address at which you can receive mail, since they will be sending you your activation codes and what not per mail initially - but you also need a proof of address, like an internet bill. Another way around this is to literally any person who owns an apartment or house in France to sign a sheet of paper saying they are accommodating you (”Attestation d’hébergement”), and then you use their address to open the account.

Same for the phone number - either you get a pre-paid SIM card that you use for your initial life setup, or you can ask a colleague whether you can use theirs initially.

French bank accounts are expensive compared to some of their European competitors. If you want to save some money, you can try opening a bank account with an online bank, or what the French call a “neobank”. Examples for this are Fortuneo and Boursorama. Beware that some of the higher-tier accounts with them require you to already have a French bank account, but the basic account usually does not.

Literally everything else depends on you having a bank account - you won’t be able to set up a normal phone plan without it. If you come from a EU country, it might be tempting to keep your old number, however this will prevent you from doing many things in France, as they are very backwards here and insist you give them an actual French mobile phone number for almost everything. Setting up an electricity/gas contract, of home wifi also depends on you having a bank account.

Social security and carte vitale

The second most important thing after moving to France is getting your social security number and card, the “carte vitale”.

This is a rough one, because there is only so much you can do to speed up the process. However, after the bank account, this is the one thing I really recommend to prioritize and push on as soon as you can since it is so important, and so many other things depend on you haveing a social security number/card.

French health insurance is usually made of two parts: the basic health insurance by your local CPAM (the general health insurance institution) and a complementary private insurance through your employer, a “mutuelle”.

The first thing is always to set up the basic health insurance, only then can you take care of your mutuelle. There is usually a phone number you can call with English-speaking assistance and they can tell you which documents you have to mail in so that they start the process of signing you up in their system. This usually involves your certificate of birth in one of the languages of the EU, your ID and work contract (at least). If you are a citizen of a EU country, you should be able to do all of this per mail, otherwise you might have to go see them in person, which is usually not fun. If you are lucky, you will get your green health insurance card in the mail only a month or two later, but most people have to wait for a couple of months. Do not fear, as soon as you officially start working you are covered, it is just that the reimbursements will be more complicated without the card, so definitely make sure to keep all your receipts if you need to see a doctor in the meantime. Also, dealing with any official entities is much more complicated when you don’t know your social security number, which can be very, very frustrating.

With your health insurance card also comes access to your online health insurance portal, ameli.fr. Health insurance is one of the things that are fairly well organized and also digitized in France, so you should be able to take it from there very easily. And once this is done, you can link your mutuelle contract with your standard health insurance online, so that they get taken into account at the same time when you have health expenses (where applicable). Your HR department usually sends you all the information about this.

Phone contract

If you are trying to get a French phone number fast, you need to get a pre-paid card at any of the mobile phone retailers (SFR, Bouygues, Orange). This can help you to get out of the vicious circle of address-phone-bank by at least having a phone number available.

If you want a mobile phone contract, which might be cheaper in the long term, you need need to first set up a bank account - for which you need a phone number 😬

Many people who already have a European phone contract will try to just keep it and do life in France with that. Do this at your own risk - there are still many online forms (if not most) that will only accept French phone numbers, so your life would simply be easier if you get a French mobile phone contract.

Housing

Housing in France. Is. An effing pain.

The thing is that as a renter in France, you don’t just take a renting offer, usually you have to “apply” for it. This means that they will ask you for something like a small presentation doc of yourself which includes a couple of documents, including a copy of your ID, your RIB (here we go again with the RIB), and in most cases the ID of a warrant (”garant”). Why a warrant? Landlords and their agencies are freaking out about people not being able to pay their rent, so they require their tenants to have an income at least X times the monthly rent, or, they need to have a warrant who has that and who is willing to sign your housing contract with you. In case you default on your payments, they will be held accountable.

French people usually use their parents for this, but of course such a warrant needs to be a resident of France. French researchers know this is an issue for internationals, so you could ask your supervisor to take this role on. If they refuse, which is their good right because they have to guarantee with their own funds that you will always pay rent, there is a thing called “Visale” that you can sign up for that will do the guarantorship for you, but not every landlord or agency will accept it.

In any case, the thing about getting accepted by a landlord or agency is also a little bit about selling yourself and making yourself look like you stand well in life (again, they are mostly filtering for payment safety). While lying is obviously a no-go (and you need to send them your documents anyway, like for example your last three paychecks), do not hesitate to mention if you work for a well-known name (CNES for example, it is their national space agency after all), or that you are an astrophysicist. It won’t turn a head by 180 degrees, but it can help overall.

Tax ID number

People will tell you that for online tax filing you need a tax ID number, and you can get this number if you have filed taxes previously. Hence, what new residents in France are told to do is to file a paper return in their first year (Godspeed). With this first return, the tax authorities will assign you your new tax ID number that you can then use in subsequent years for online filing.

This is not entirely tru.

You can very easily apply for a tax ID number online the moment you move to France - if you have a social security number/card. The reason is that once you have received your carte vitale, you gain access to your personal account on ameli.fr. This is an official government account through which you can identify yourself online. You can use your ameli.fr access to create an account on the government tax website, impots.gouv.fr, which is where you can request a tax ID number without having filed taxes previously. In this way, you can file your very first tax return online immediately which is so, so much easier. But of course it depends on the time of your arrival in Frances, and whether you had enough time to receive your carte vitale. If you are pressed for time, you will still have to file your very first tax return in paper format.