France Start-up Visa

Founders travel on the talent-porteur de projet card, and the card has two doors for business founders with different money conditions. Service-Public, the French administrative information portal, sets the two doors out separately.

The innovative economic project door is the door of the French Tech Visa for founders. It sets no minimum investment; the conditions are that the project is recognised as innovative by the ministry responsible for the economy, and that the applicant has resources at least equal to the full-time minimum wage, EUR 22,404.20 gross a year.

The business creation door requires money. The project must be financed with at least EUR 30,000, from own or borrowed funds, and the applicant must hold a degree at least equivalent to a master's or have five years of experience at a comparable level, plus the same level of resources as the other door.

Under the business creation door, the project must be real and serious; the company may be commercial, artisanal or industrial. Exceptionally, acquiring a stake that results in control of an undertaking may be treated as a business creation project, depending on the nature of the project.

What is granted is the multi-year talent-porteur de projet residence card, valid for up to four years. It allows the holder to stay in France and to carry on a commercial activity linked to the approved project.

Before applying for the visa, the applicant must obtain the opinion of the ministry responsible for the economy. Under the business creation door, the ministry assesses whether the project is real and serious; under the innovative project door, it assesses the innovative character of the project.

A first application also needs a criminal record extract from the country of nationality and a signed commitment to respect the principles of the Republic. Where the activity is regulated, proof of the relevant authorisation to practise must be added.

An applicant living abroad files at the consulate. For a stay of under twelve months, the long-stay visa serves as a residence permit and must be validated online within three months of arrival; for a stay of a year or more, the consulate issues a three-month visa and the residence card is applied for online after arrival.

If the prefecture has not answered within 60 days, the silence is an implicit refusal. The applicant then has two months to appeal to the prefect or the Minister of the Interior, or to bring a claim before the administrative court.

"Passeport talent" is not a single programme but a family of permits, and its economic branch has four separate routes with four separate thresholds. The business creation route requires EUR 30,000.

The direct economic investment route requires an investment giving a lasting interest in the recipient company, covering equity investment of over 10%, real estate investment and capital increase, reinvested earnings, or inter-affiliate loans between the investor and the companies invested in.

The innovative economic project route requires the project to be recognised in advance by a public body, plus proof of means of subsistence at least equal to the full-time minimum legal wage in France. The corporate appointment route requires a salary at least three times the full-time minimum legal wage

The same route produces two quite different outcomes after arrival in France, and the dividing line is twelve months.

Where the intended stay exceeds twelve months, the applicant receives a long-stay visa bearing the words "passeport talent" together with "créateur d'entreprise", and within two months of arriving in France must apply for a multi-year residence permit whose maximum period of validity is four years.

Where the stay is shorter than twelve months, the applicant receives only a long-stay visa equivalent to a residence permit, known as a VLS/TS, bearing "passeport talent" with no further wording, and what must be done is to validate that visa within three months of arrival in France.

Two different procedures, two different clocks, and a quick reading easily applies the wrong deadline. The multi-year permit is requested at the local police station for the place of residence, and both the applicant and the family must attend within the first three months to request the permit corresponding to their situation.

On the substance of residence, the permit is tied to the project: the créateur d'entreprise route requires a real and serious business creation project in France, and the company must be commercial, artisanal or industrial, each of the three subject to its own rules in French law.

One rarely mentioned exception: an acquisition of a stake resulting in control of an existing undertaking may be regarded as a business creation project, depending on the nature and characteristics of the project

Family members may accompany the holder and are issued multi-year residence permits. That permit authorises the spouse, and children entering their 18th year, to work.

The family travels under the simplified accompanying-family procedure, so it does not go through family reunification.

According to Service-Public, the accompanying family comprises the spouse and minor children. They may stay in France for as long as the card holder does, and each receives a multi-year talent-famille residence card.

Within the three months following arrival in France, the holder and the family must attend the local police station to request the multi-year residence permit matching their situation.

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the France passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a France passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the France passport reaches 203 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

The official page for this residence card says nothing about income tax:

The word for tax appears twice and both sit in the portal general navigation bar, while of the fifty-one occurrences of the word fiscal, fifty are duty stamps or fees and only one is a fiscal document evidencing young innovative enterprise status — and that belongs to a different category, not the project-holder route.

The only charge bearing the word is the card fee of EUR 350, comprising a EUR 50 duty stamp and a EUR 300 tax.

The programme has no tax regime of its own.

The regime for people relocating to France sits in Article 155 B of the General Tax Code, and the tax authority describes it thus: it is addressed to persons tax domiciled outside France during the five calendar years preceding the year they take up duties in the enterprise established in France that recruits them.

Only two recruitment routes are named: an employee called by an enterprise established in France within an intra-group mobility, or an employee called directly from abroad to occupy a post in an enterprise in France.

And here are two sentences on the same page pulling in opposite directions, both of which must be read. The first is the exclusion, in terms: Conversely, persons who came to work in France on their own initiative, or who had already established their domicile in France at the time of recruitment, cannot benefit from the inbound regime.

The second opens a counter-door: the regime may also benefit an employee or a company officer even where that person holds, directly or indirectly, all or part of the shares of the company that recruits them, provided the remuneration is taxable in the salaries and wages category.

The list of officers assimilated to employees sits in Article 80 ter(b)(1), (2) and (3):

In a société anonyme and a société par actions simplifiée, the chairman of the board, the chief executive, the delegated chief executive, the provisionally delegated administrator and members of the directoire; in a société à responsabilité limitée, only minority or equal-holding managers.

It follows from that list that a majority-holding manager of an SARL falls outside the regime.

One joining must be stated: connecting the situation of a person who comes to France on their own initiative to found a business with that exclusion is an inference placing two texts side by side, not the words of any source; and the tax authority page itself leaves the converse case open.

The content of the benefit, so the subject is clear: the regime runs until 31 December of the eighth calendar year following the year duties are taken up — taking up duties on 1 January 2025 gives relief until 31 December 2033. The items exempted:

Maintenance conditions: each year the person must have their foyer or principal place of residence in France under Article 4 B(1)(a) and (b) of the General Tax Code and carry on their main activity in France; and the regime ends if they leave the host enterprise early.

The card parameters themselves: three routes exist — business creation, innovative economic project, and direct economic investment.

The business creation route requires a qualification at least equivalent to a master or five years of comparable experience, a real and serious business creation project in France, means of subsistence of at least the annual minimum wage of EUR 22,404.20, and project financing of at least EUR 30,000.

The direct economic investment route requires investing personally or through a company one manages or in which one holds at least 30% of capital, creating or safeguarding employment, and investing tangible or intangible assets in France of at least EUR 300,000.

Read this cell within its scope: the issuing authority page covers conditions, procedure and fees and says nothing about income tax; the tax authority pages cover the Article 155 B regime and never mention the talent card, the talent passport or the provision under which it is issued.

The amount payable on top of the investment is EUR 350, and that figure has just been raised — it is no longer the EUR 225 that many places still copy.

The Service-Public guidance sheet is the administrative portal run by the Directorate for Legal and Administrative Information, in its version verified on 1 June 2026.

At step six of the procedure it states that where the residence card is granted the applicant must pay EUR 350 in fiscal stamps, being a stamp duty of EUR 50 plus a tax of EUR 300. Proof of payment is required at the moment the card is handed over at the prefecture.

The amount is identical across all eight talent-card routes the sheet lists, including the business-creator route and the innovative-economic-project route — none is cheaper or dearer. The fiscal stamps are bought online or at a tobacconist.

Two things should be said about scope: this sheet prices the residence-card stage, so it does not include the consular fee for the long-stay visa lodged abroad, and the sheet itself now calls the document the talent card rather than using the talent-passport name.