What is the timeframe to renew a visa or a residence permit ?

Depending on the French legal status he/she is granted upon arrival in France, the foreign citizen is given to accomplish a certain amount of formalities. Integration curriculum, medical check-up, visa validation or going through the Préfecture, are as many possible options ; and the French Office for Immigration and Integration (OFII) is mainly, although less and less so, competent for the reception of newly arrived foreigners. But when it comes to visa expirations and subsequent residence permit applications, it is the Préfecture which processes all applications.

It is under all circumstances a prefectorial competence to receive, process and approve, or potentially refuse, the residence permit application. The Préfecture has all latitudes to self-organise any way it wishes to and decide the exact process for residence permit applications. This autonomy must obviously inscribe itself within a regulatory framework, which imposes a minimal timeframe for filing the residence permit application, that is 2 months prior to the expiration of the prior residence permit or visa.

Regulations also impose which process goes through the digitised application platform (Administration Numérique pour les Etrangers en France or ANEF). By going through the digitised platform, any given type of applications, regardless of the competent Préfecture, are unified at the national level. The application form and the required documents are the same anywhere in France, although the Préfecture regains its autonomy once the application is filed. It can, for instance, summon the applicant for an in person filing, with a complete file, or just a few specific documents. Here as well, there is a unified timeframe for filing the application : between 4 and 2 months prior to the expiration of the prior visa or residence permit.

There is certainly some irony in the dissonance between the ANEF and the non ANEF filing timeframe. One ends when the other starts, which can incurably confound the ill-informed user, or may be a cause for general mayhem when one process is move from one mode of filing to the other (it is worth reminding that in the long run the ANEF is poised to become the only platform for all types of residence permit applications).

What are the consequences of filing outside these timeframes ? For applications on the ANEF, they are very concrete : outside the legal timeframe, barring a computer bug, the platform does not allow renewal applications. The applicant will therefore have to contact the Préfecture directly for an exceptional filing. He/she will lose the benefit of being granted an ANEF attestation, which constitutes an official proof of filing which has certain rights attached to it. He/she will slide into the non ANEF applicant category.

For applications outside of the ANEF, the consequences are less clear. A formal error does not allow to sanction the application on its merits, and the most concrete consequence will be the loss of social rights (most importantly the right to work) the moment the residence document expires. Some residence permits are allowed a prorogation of 3 months upon expiration for these rights as long as the renewal application has been filed. Other residence permits lose those rights automatically after their expiration, regardless of whether a renewal application has been filed or not.

Therefore, the sanction for late filings outside of the ANEF does not really exist as such : it is the expiration of the visa or residence permit which is detrimental, which is not a rarity in the current context where applications frequently take 6 to 12 months to be processed, whether or not the application has been filed in time. In the most complex cases, the applicant must remember that he or she has a 6 months timeframe following the expiration of the residence permit to file the renewal in Préfecture before the application must be rejected and a new entry visa will be required (CESEDA article R431-8).