France’s executive talent card has a pay floor but no investment floor

France issues a “talent” residence card of up to four years to a foreigner who becomes the legal representative of a company or establishment in France and has been an employee or officer of the same group for over three months.

The condition is pay: at least three times the annual full-time minimum wage, which the government’s guidance, verified on 1 June 2026, puts at €67,212.60 gross a year. The provisions governing the card specify no minimum investment.

What the card requires

Article L421-19 of the code on foreigners’ entry and residence (CESEDA), in its 2024 wording, covers a foreigner who holds the function of legal representative (“représentant légal”) of an establishment or company established in France, where that person is an employee or a corporate officer (“mandataire social”) of an establishment or company of the same group. The card allows the commercial activity that justified it.

Decree 2025-539, in force since 16 June 2025, set two regulatory conditions. Article R421-37 fixes the pay threshold at a gross annual amount of at least three times the annual full-time minimum wage (SMIC). Article R421-37-1 requires the applicant to show employee or corporate-officer status for more than three months in the same group.

What it does not ask

Neither Article L421-19, nor Articles R421-37 and R421-37-1, nor item 12 of Annex 10 to the code, which lists the documents for this card, sets an investment amount or a job-creation condition. The same texts do not say which company in the group must pay the salary.

That sets it apart from the investor limb of the neighbouring “talent-porteur de projet” card, under which the applicant invests, or commits to invest, at least €300,000 in fixed assets in France and creates or preserves jobs, or commits to do so, within four years of the investment.

Living abroad or coming to France

Service-public.fr’s page for entrepreneurs, verified on 1 June 2026, states that a foreigner can hold a corporate office in a French company without residing in France, but that effective and habitual exercise of that role in France requires an appropriate residence permit.

The same Service-public.fr page says the talent card for corporate officers is not an obligation for a foreigner who runs a company, and that the role can also be held under other residence permits.

For a stay of more than three months, the government’s guidance on the talent card describes two branches. For an intended stay of under a year, the consulate issues a long-stay visa that serves as a residence permit, validated online within three months of arrival. For a stay of a year or more, it issues a three-month “talent” visa, and the card is then requested online.

In Vietnam, the official pages of the French Embassy in Hanoi and the Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City direct visa requests to France-Visas: the application is completed online and the file is then lodged at the visa centre.

The official fee figures differ between pages. The talent-card page gives €350 in fiscal stamps on issue of the card.

The service’s page on running a company gives a €99 visa fee and, for an applicant already living in France, €225 for a residence-permit application. Both pages were verified on 1 June 2026.

Renewal and time spent in France

Article L433-1 makes renewal of a card depend on proof that the holder still meets the conditions for its issue. Item 12 of Annex 10 asks, at first application and at renewal alike, for proof of pay of at least three times the SMIC and of more than three months’ employee or officer status in the group.

The same article exempts the talent cards from the requirement, at renewal of a multi-year card, to prove habitual residence in France.

Under Article L433-3-1, habitual residence means having moved the centre of private and family interests to France and staying there at least six months in each calendar year during the three years before the application, or throughout the current card’s validity if shorter. The habitual-residence exemption concerns renewal only; the ten-year card described below has its own residence condition.

Family and the ten-year card

The spouse and minor children can come under the simplified “accompanying family” procedure, without family reunification. A spouse aged 18 or over receives a family card for the time left on the principal’s card; children of the couple who entered France as minors receive one, as a rule, in the year after their 18th birthday.

Under Article L426-17, a foreigner with at least five years’ uninterrupted regular residence in France on temporary or multi-year cards, stable and sufficient resources at least equal to the minimum wage, and health insurance is issued a ten-year “EU long-term resident” card. The card under Article L421-19 is not among the exclusions listed in Article L426-18.

Under Articles L426-19, L413-7 and R413-15, the ten-year EU long-term resident card also requires proof of French at level B1 or above and success in a civic examination; applicants over 65 are exempt from both.

Two other cards a group officer may meet

The “salarié détaché ICT” card under Article L421-26 is for a senior manager or expert seconded to a group entity in France with at least six months’ seniority in the group. It lasts for the secondment, up to three years, and cannot be renewed.

A founder outside a group can hold the “entrepreneur/profession libérale” card under Article L421-5, issued for up to one year after an opinion on the activity’s viability.

The Vietnamese side of the transaction

Under Vietnamese law, setting up a company abroad, or buying into one to take part in its management, is outward investment. Investment Law 143/2025/QH15, in force since 1 March 2026, gives the Ministry of Finance the power to issue the outward investment registration certificate.

Decree 103/2026/ND-CP, in force since 3 April 2026, requires the outward investment registration certificate for projects with outward investment capital of 7 billion dong or more, or in conditional sectors such as real-estate business, subject to the exemptions in its Article 18.

The Article 18 exemptions cover projects below 7 billion dong and outside the conditional sectors, and also certain large enterprises that invest their own foreign currency rather than borrowed funds and meet further conditions; an exempt investor registers the foreign-exchange transaction instead.