Disclaimer: This article is general information for foreign owners of French property, not immigration or legal advice. Visa rules, fees and consular practice change frequently and every application is assessed individually – no visa is ever guaranteed. Verify current requirements on france-visas.gouv.fr and take professional advice for your own situation. The English Investor accepts no liability for decisions taken on the basis of this article.
Last Updated: July 2026
There is a particular unfairness that every non-EU owner of a French home discovers sooner or later: you can own the house outright, pay its taxe foncière, know the boulanger by name – and on day 91, the Schengen clock still says leave. Ownership confers exactly zero right to stay. For post-Brexit British owners this arrived as a shock; Americans, Canadians and Australians have lived with it all along.
The good news is that France sells a perfectly serviceable solution: the long-stay visitor visa, which lets you live in your own house for up to a year at a time, legally, without working in France. It is paperwork-heavy, mildly expensive since the May 2026 fee rises, and entirely doable from your kitchen table. This guide covers the two versions of it, what the consulate actually wants to see, the real 2026 costs, and the two clocks – Schengen and tax – that owners most often get wrong.
The short version
If you want more than 90 days in every 180, you need a visa before you travel. For second-home owners the fit is the visiteur category, which comes in two flavours: the VLS-T, a temporary long-stay visa typically issued for four to six months, which you use and let expire; and the VLS-TS, issued for up to a year, which doubles as a residence permit once validated online and can be renewed into a carte de séjour if France starts becoming more than a holiday. Both require the same core file: money, health insurance, somewhere to live (you own it – that is the easy part), and a signed promise not to work in France.
The rule you are working around
Without a visa, non-EU visitors get 90 days in any rolling 180-day window, counted across the whole Schengen area, not just France. The window rolls continuously – it does not reset on 1 January, and it does not care that you own property. We dissected the arithmetic, the common miscounts and the penalties in our 90/180 guide for property owners; if you only ever want summers at the house, mastering that rule may be all you need. The visa is for everyone who wants more.
The “automatic visa for owners” that never happened
Worth clearing up, because the story still circulates in owner forums. In late 2023, the French Parliament passed an immigration law containing a Senate amendment that would have let British second-home owners visit visa-free beyond 90 days. It never took effect: on 25 January 2024 the Conseil constitutionnel struck the clause down – not on its merits, but as a legislative rider with no connection to the original bill (the classic cavalier législatif objection under article 45 of the Constitution). The censure is final, nothing has replaced it since, and as of mid-2026 no revival is on the table. British owners queue with everyone else, and the queue leads to the visitor visa below.
Two visas, one choice: VLS-T or VLS-TS
| VLS-T visiteur (temporary) | VLS-TS visiteur (residence-permit visa) | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical duration | 4 to 6 months | Up to 12 months |
| On arrival | Nothing to do – the visa itself covers the stay | Validate online within 3 months (€300 tax since May 2026) |
| Renewable? | No – leave at expiry, reapply from home next year | Yes – apply at the préfecture for a carte de séjour visiteur before it expires (€350 first issue) |
| Counts toward long-term residence? | No | Yes – it is legal residence |
| Fits | The seasonal owner: one long block at the house each year | The half-the-year owner, or anyone testing a future move |
The honest rule of thumb: if your pattern is “long summer, then home”, the VLS-T is the lighter tool – no arrival formalities, no French tax stamps, no préfecture. Its price is repetition: it cannot be renewed or converted from inside France, so each year means a fresh application from your country of residence. The VLS-TS costs more and adds the online validation step, but it makes you a legal French resident for its duration, opens the renewal path, and suits owners edging toward spending most of the year in France. Edging that far has tax consequences, which we come to below – the visa question and the tax question are cousins, not the same question.
What the consulate wants to see
The visitor visa file has four pillars. Resources: you must show stable means to live in France without working. France publishes no official figure for visitors; in practice consulates benchmark against the French net minimum wage – roughly €1,400 to €1,450 a month in 2026 – per applicant, assessed on bank statements, pensions and investment income, with healthy savings able to compensate for thinner monthly income. Couples apply individually but can rely on shared household resources. Health insurance: private cover for the full duration of the stay, including hospitalisation and repatriation – your EHIC/GHIC is not enough for a long stay, and travel-insurance-grade cover is routinely rejected. Accommodation: the one pillar where owners hold a royal flush – your attestation de propriété or a recent avis de taxe foncière proves it in one document. The undertaking not to work in France: a signed declaration (engagement à n’exercer aucune activité professionnelle en France). Note the careful wording in ours and every consulate’s practice: remote work for a foreign employer from your French sofa sits in a genuine grey zone that France has never formally resolved – consulates treat it inconsistently, and if that is your plan, take specific advice rather than assumptions.
The application, step by step
First, you apply from your country of residence – France does not allow you to arrive as a tourist and upgrade in-country, ever. Second, complete the online application on france-visas.gouv.fr, which generates your form and document checklist. Third, book and attend an appointment at the outsourced visa centre (TLScontact or VFS Global depending on country) to submit the file and biometrics; your passport stays with them. Fourth, wait – allow two to four weeks in normal times, longer before summer – then collect the passport with the visa. Fifth, if it is a VLS-TS, validate it online within three months of arrival and pay the €300 stamp. You can lodge the application up to three months before travel; owners who want June-to-November at the house should be filing in March.
What it costs in 2026
The visa application itself is €99 plus the visa centre’s service fee (typically €30 to €45). Since 1 May 2026, the downstream costs rose sharply: validating a VLS-TS now costs €300 (up from €200), a first carte de séjour costs €350 in tax stamps (up from €225), and renewals €250. Add certified translations if your documents are not in French, and the insurance premium – for a healthy applicant in their sixties, budget very roughly €1,500 to €3,000 a year for compliant cover, heavily dependent on age and conditions. Call it €500-odd all-in for a VLS-T season, and €1,000 to €1,500 for a VLS-TS year including validation, before insurance. Annoying, yes; against the running costs of the house itself, rarely decisive – see the full cost-of-ownership arithmetic.
The two clocks owners confuse
Clock one: Schengen. Days spent in France under a long-stay visa do not consume your 90/180 allowance – and while the visa is valid you separately keep 90/180 for the other Schengen countries. A VLS-TS holder can live in Provence and still take a fortnight in Italy. What you cannot do is use repeated visitor visas to daisy-chain into permanent de facto residence while claiming to be a visitor; the consulate sees your history.
Clock two: tax. The visa decides whether you may stay; French tax law decides, entirely separately, whether you have become tax-resident. Under article 4 B of the tax code, France claims you when your foyer (household home) is in France, when France is your principal place of stay (the classic 183-day yardstick), or when your economic interests centre there. A six-month VLS-T summer keeps you comfortably a non-resident who files, at most, the usual non-resident returns and keeps paying the second-home taxe d’habitation. A full VLS-TS year spent mostly in France can quietly tip you over the line into French tax residence – worldwide income, the works. If your visa ambitions are growing, have that conversation with a tax adviser before the préfecture, not after.
Three verdicts to steal
The couple who want every summer, May to October, at the house: VLS-T, applied for each March, no arrival admin, tax residence undisturbed. The retired owner who wants eight or nine months a year in France: VLS-TS, validated on arrival, renewed at the préfecture – and a tax adviser in the loop from year one, because that pattern usually is French tax residence. The owner testing a permanent move: VLS-TS as the first step of the residence ladder, with the carte de séjour renewal path ahead – at which point you have outgrown this article and become an immigrant, in the nicest sense.
Where are you on that spectrum – and did the consulate ask you for something we did not list? Tell us through the contact form: reader experiences (anonymised) directly improve this guide’s next update.
FAQ: long stays for second-home owners
Does owning French property give me any right to stay longer?
No. Ownership carries no immigration rights at all. The 2023 attempt to change that for British owners was struck down by the Conseil constitutionnel in January 2024 on procedural grounds, definitively. What ownership does give you is the easiest accommodation proof a visa file can have.
How much income do I need for a visitor visa?
There is no published statutory figure; consulates benchmark against the French net minimum wage, roughly €1,400 to €1,450 a month in 2026, per applicant. Pensions, investment income and substantial savings all count. The test is that you can live in France without working.
Can I work remotely for my home-country employer while on a visitor visa?
Honest answer: it is a grey zone. You sign an undertaking not to exercise professional activity in France, and French law has not clearly resolved whether foreign remote work breaches it. Consular practice varies. If remote work is central to your plan, get specific immigration advice rather than relying on forum consensus.
Do days on a long-stay visa count toward my 90/180 allowance?
No. Time in France under a long-stay visa sits outside the Schengen short-stay count, and while the visa is valid you retain a separate 90/180 allowance for the other Schengen states.
Can I apply for or renew the visa while I am in France?
You cannot apply from France, and a VLS-T cannot be renewed or converted at all – you leave and reapply from your country of residence. Only a VLS-TS can be extended from inside France, by applying to the préfecture for a carte de séjour before the visa expires.
Will a long-stay visa make me a French tax resident?
Not by itself – the visa and tax residence are separate tests. But the living pattern a VLS-TS enables (most of the year in France, household centred there) is exactly what triggers tax residence under article 4 B. A visa decision that changes where you mostly live should always be run past a tax adviser.
