What's changed — and what it means for you.

New EU border checks (EES, and ETIAS to come) — and why they skip residents

The EU's Entry/Exit System is now live, swapping the old passport stamp for a digital record of entries and exits. A separate travel authorisation, ETIAS, is due to follow — pencilled in for late 2026, though it's been pushed back repeatedly and may slip into 2027. Both are aimed at non-EU visitors on short stays.

If you live here, neither is your problem: your carte de séjour is your entry authorisation and residents are explicitly exempt. It only matters for non-resident visitors — family coming to stay, or you, if you still cross on a UK passport without a French card. One warning worth passing on: there is no ETIAS site open yet, so anything asking you to "apply and pay" now is a scam.

The €100 fuel aid runs one more month — claim it before it lapses

The government's €100 fuel payment, brought in when pump prices jumped earlier in the year, was due to end on 31 July. It's been extended to 31 August to give people more time to apply.

If you drive for work or rely on the car rurally and haven't claimed, this is the deadline. A small thing, but free money you have to actually ask for — and the window shuts at the end of the month.

Taxe foncière bills start landing

If you own your home, the annual taxe foncière notice arrives across late summer, with payment due in the autumn. It's the owner's property tax — separate from the taxe d'habitation, which most main homes no longer pay.

Two things worth a glance when it arrives: whether the sum looks in line with last year (rates are set locally and can jump), and the payment date, since paying online usually buys you a little extra time over the paper deadline.

Residency and citizenship fees just went up — some of them a lot

The stamp duty on a first carte de séjour rose from €225 to €350, and validating a long-stay visa on arrival went from €200 to €300. The headline shock is citizenship: the naturalisation fee leapt from €55 to €255. The rate that applies is the one in force when your complete file is submitted, not when you collect the card — so a dossier filed before 1 May kept the old price.

Renewals barely moved — around €250, up from €225, because the flat timbre doubled from €25 to €50. So the real sting is for first-timers and anyone finally going for the passport, not people simply renewing what they've already got.

Swapping a foreign licence now costs €40

Exchanging a non-EU driving licence for a French one carries a €40 stamp duty for the first time, done through the ANTS portal. It was free until now.

Most Brits don't need to swap at all — a pre-2021 UK licence is fine to keep driving on. This only matters if you're actually going through the exchange (points, expiry, a lost card).

A new healthcare contribution — but probably not for you

A planned contribution for non-working residents (roughly €300–600/year) is working its way through; the decree that switches it on hasn't been published yet.

If you're on an S1 — most UK state pensioners are — you're exempt. In practice this mostly catches Americans and other non-Europeans, not Brits with an S1.

The daily hospital charge nudged up to €23

The forfait journalier — the flat daily rate you pay for a hospital stay, on top of what the Sécu covers — rose to €23 a day.

This is exactly what a decent mutuelle is for. If yours covers the forfait journalier, you'll never feel this. Worth a two-minute check of your contract.

Your tax bill (avis d'imposition) lands late July into August

The avis d'imposition arrives across late July and August. There's a correction window in mid-August if the figures look wrong.

Read it the day it arrives, not the day it's due. If something's off, the mid-August window is your one clean chance to fix it without a fight.

The carte Vitale is now an app

A digital carte Vitale is rolling out — your health card on your phone, usable at the pharmacy and the doctor's.

Small thing, useful thing. One less bit of plastic to leave at home on the day you actually need it. For Brits the good news is your French titre de séjour works to activate it — alongside a French ID card or passport. In practice the app can still be fussy for some other-EU passport holders, so if activation stalls, it's the app catching up, not you doing anything wrong.