The Ministry of the Interior has not handed “digital nomad” proponents the clear-cut victory they have been expecting on the ability to work remotely in France.
On Tuesday, June 23, the Ministry of the Interior responded to a question about remote working that had been submitted by M. François Gernigon, representative of the Maine-et-Loire department in the Assemblée Nationale in December 2025. He had asked for clarification on the question of whether it was possible to work remotely on a visitor visa for a foreign employer or whether the signed statement of not exercising a professional activity in France made remote work impossible. Those who have been promoting the ability to work remotely were waiting for definitive confirmation that working while physically in France did not count if it was done for a foreign employer.
The phrasing of the question specified that consulates and préfectures sometimes allowed people to prove their financial resources with foreign payslips and work contracts (not usually true) and asked the administration to clarify the government’s position on whether it considered working remotely possible on the visitor status.
The answer is vague and unsatisfying, and it does not really explain in detail the tax implications of working remotely while on a visitor visa. It falls far short of making the visitor visa a “digital nomad” visa as some people have been quick to claim online. It also specifies that working remotely on a visitor visa is not ever possible if the professional activity is regulated, which would be the case for many professional licenses, including (but not limited to) medicine & telehealth, accounting, therapy, architecture, and more. Obviously, any service physically provided in France, such as tourism services, would also not qualify.
The answer identifies three important points. First, it states that someone is considered to be participating in the French labor market if they are working for a French employer on French territory. For most people on visitor visas, this is not the case. Then, it clarifies that a foreigner residing in France would also need to meet two additional conditions: that the salary is paid to a foreign bank account in the foreign country, and that the taxes are paid in the country of origin.
It’s the final condition that has been key all along: none of the existing tax treaties enable someone regularly and legally residing in France to pay taxes on earned income (salary, self-employment, & business income) in their home country instead of France if they are considered a tax resident of France. Someone living in France is not able to choose for themselves to report and tax their income in their home country first. Therefore, we come back to the question of, is it possible to live in France without being a tax resident?
The answer, in the vast majority of cases, is no. The French tax office will consider you a French tax resident if any number of criteria are met, and if you arrive in France with the intention to stay long-term, you become a tax resident responsible for reporting your world-wide income from Day 1, not after 183 days of residence during the tax year. Being a US citizen subject to worldwide reporting of your income does not exempt someone from also being considered a French tax resident. The number of days effectively spent in France is merely one possible tiebreaker when tax residence is uncertain. However, the CESEDA typically requires you to spend at least 9 out of 12 months residing in France to be eligible to hold and renew a visa or residence permit, and préfectures have refused renewals in some cases where the residence permit holder spent as little as 4 months outside of France.
Under very limited circumstances, you may have a renewable visa for France and seek an opinion from the tax office that your tax residence is undetermined because it is split between two countries. But the vast majority of people with a visitor status will indeed be considered tax residents of France. Therefore, you can speak to your tax advisor about criteria for tax residence and whether your circumstances would enable you to be considered a non-resident for French tax purposes. But in most cases, if you are physically in France, hold a titre de séjour, enroll in the French healthcare system, send your children to school here, and have a place of residence here, you should not consider working remotely in France on a visitor status. Doing so – and requesting to be considered a non-resident – will inhibit your ability to build a successful and sustainable long-term life in France.
Furthermore, the Préfecture in many departments has been scrutinizing where applicants’ money is coming from and what type of income it is when processing renewal files for visitors, particularly if those applicants are under retirement age. They are also then requesting both French and US tax declarations to demonstrate that the income was properly reported and taxed. Those requesting 10 year Résident EU Longue Durée cards are required to provide the previous 5 years of tax declarations, where the préfecture will examine whether you have fulfilled your tax obligations. Failing to report your salary or business income from abroad, claiming to not be a tax resident while requesting a long-term residence card, or not properly subjecting it to tax in France per the tax treaty, will undoubtedly result in your status not being renewed and the refusal of a 10 year card or naturalization.
At Your Franceformation, our position therefore remains that if you want to reside long-term in France and have a path to long-term residence or naturalization, then you need to have a visa that enables you to work (if you’d like to do so) and pay the appropriate social charges and taxes in France first, per the tax treaties. To us, this new response from the Ministry of the Interior would only grant the ability to work remotely on a visitor visa in the case of a non-renewable visa for someone who is not planning to reside long-term in France, in other words, a true digital nomad.
Recent Comments