Immigration

If you are not a European Union (EU) citizen, you must obtain a French student visa in your home country or country of residence before you arrive in France. A European citizen is an individual who holds a passport or national identity card from an EU member country. Even if you hold a residence permit from an EU member country, you may still need to obtain a French student visa before you arrive, depending on the type of residence permit you have.

You will be contacted several weeks after accepting your offer of admission to Parsons Paris by Academic Programs International (API). API guides pre-enrolled students through immigration in their home countries or countries of residence. 

You should not arrive in France or the Schengen Zone before the validity start date of your visa. Do not confuse the validity start date with the date of issue when reading your visa. 

When you arrive, make sure that your passport, with your French student visa, is stamped by border control. You will need to use this stamp later in your immigration journey; failure to get a stamp can cause complications. If, for some reason, your passport is not stamped at border control, be sure to ask for a stamp before leaving the airport. If you arrive before the start date of your visa, you must leave the Schengen Zone in order to return either on or after the start date of your visa, so that you receive a corresponding stamp.

If you are not an EU citizen and do not obtain a French student visa, your ability to sign up for the French healthcare system (signing up is free) and to intern in France will be affected.

Most students will receive a VLS-TS (Visa Long-Séjour Valant Titre de Séjour) type D visa. This visa can be renewed.

Please note that your passport must be valid for more than six months for you to be eligible to receive a visa and travel to France.

People often use these three terms interchangeably, but there are differences.

A visa is a conditional authorization granted to a foreign student to legally enter, remain, and leave and come back to France. A visa is the stickerlike document placed in your passport that indicates your status. Most students are given a VLS-TS étudiant visa. A VLS-TS visa is one that is valid for more than four months. If you are not an EU citizen, meaning you do not have either a passport nor a national identity card from a member state of the EU, you need a French student visa to both legally stay and study in France for more than three months. 

A carte de séjour is a type of residence permit, or temporary identity card. It is the size of a debit or credit card. A carte de séjour also indicates your status. You will hold the status of student, because you are in France for more than three months in order to study. Other students and people you meet may have a carte with a different status, such as spouse, working, or refugee. Please be aware that you cannot pick up your first carte de séjour until after you renew your student visa for the first time, which takes several months. 

Students from an EU member country who hold a residence permit, rather than a passport or national identity card, may still need to obtain a student visa, depending on the type of residence permit they were granted. Please make sure to speak with Academic Programs International (API), which helps students obtain a student visa from their home country or country of residence before they arrive at Parsons Paris for their first semester. More information can be found under "What must I do before coming to Parsons Paris?"

Titre de séjour is the umbrella term for all types of French immigration documents, such as the carte de séjour, récépissé, or attestation de décision favorable. A visa is not a type of titre de séjour. Do not use the two terms interchangeably, as they refer to different types of authorizations. 

After you arrive, you must validate your VLS-TS visa. Validation of this visa is mandated by French law, so that you are registered as a legal French resident. Failing to validate your French student visa within the designated period:

• Will invalidate your French student visa
• May prevent you from being able to leave and reenter France freely
• Will make it impossible to renew your visa
• Will require you to return to your home country or country of residence and obtain a new visa

You must validate your French student visa within three months of arriving in France or the Schengen Zone. (You are permitted to freely leave and reenter France during the first three months after your arrival.)

Students who arrive with a visa mineur scolarisé do not need to validate their visa. 

To learn how to validate your visa, you can attend workshops hosted by Student Life at the beginning of each semester. You will be guided through the process by a member of Student Life. Workshop times and dates are announced through Canvas, so be sure to turn on notifications and enable emails from Canvas in your settings. We strongly recommend that you come for a workshop in case you encounter any complications.

You can also use our prepared self-guided manual to go through the process yourself or with a classmate. You will find the visa validation manual in "Frequently Asked Questions About Immigration," below. 

If you expect to apply for your visa to study at Parsons Paris before the age of 18, you will need to review the special information we assembled for you—whether you are an EU or a non-EU student. Please visit the Students Under 18 page to find details of immigration, insurance, and the process for opening a bank account and other essential information.

We understand that navigating the French immigration system as a student can be stressful. That is why we prepared a manual of frequently asked questions, broken down into process questions and document questions. Please refer to this manual to see if your question has already been answered. If it has not been answered, please contact Student Life at [email protected].

Mobility is a program that allows students in their junior year to study at the NYC campus of The New School for one or two semesters. If you are a U.S. citizen, meaning that you have either a U.S. passport or a U.S. residence permit, you do not need a visa to study there. If you are not a U.S. citizen, you must obtain a U.S. student visa before arriving in New York. 

Congratulations on completing your studies at Parsons Paris! 

We understand that you may want to remain in France after graduation or the PDPG. If you are a non-EU citizen, you will need to procure a French titre de séjour that is connected to your status. We have provided information about other types of titres de séjour (the list is not comprehensive), but bear in mind that it can be easier to obtain a student visa than one of these visas and that Parsons Paris cannot offer guidance on applying for these other types of titres de séjours. 

Having basic knowledge of the titre de séjour process in France, such as the difference between ANEF and the Préfecture or what an attestation de prolongation d'instruction is, will help if you want to stay in France after graduation. That information is provided above and in the manuals below. It is also explained in the workshops on immigration, which we strongly encourage you to attend.