Appeals against Refusal of a Visa or Residence Permit

What is the appeal process if your application for an entry visa to France or residence permit is refused?

Anyone who is aged 18 or over and who is not a European national is required to apply for a visa to stay in France for more than three months.

There are different types of visa, granted for different durations, up to a year.

The application for an entry visa is made to the local French consulate in the country where you live.

If your visa application is successful, you can later make application to your local prefecture in France for a residence permit, called a carte de séjour.

As with entry visas, there are different types of residence permits, granted for different durations.

In each case there are also a range of criteria to fulfil, notably health insurance and adequate income or funds.

An approval means the applicant is allowed to stay in France for the duration of the visa they are given. A refusal may mean the applicant cannot enter France or must leave the country if they are already here.

A refusal may be explicit or implicit. In the latter case it occurs if you do not hear from the authorities after two months of submitting your application. However, in exceptional cases (notably from certain countries) it is possible for the consulate to extend this period to up to 4 months and even 8 months if they consider there are matters that require substantive investigation. If they wish to extend the two-month deadline, they must inform you in writing.

In the case of an implicit refusal, you would need to write to the authorities and expressly request the reason(s) for refusal. The authorities are obliged in law to give a reason.

Not all refusals are due to substantive reasons; an application may be refused due to it being incomplete or incorrect, in which case submission of the information or correct documents required or a fresh application should be all that is necessary.

Where the application is refused for a substantive reason then a formal appeal process exists. A criminal record is by no means a ground for refusal, as you would need to be considered a threat to public order. The submission of false documentation would also result in a refusal. Likewise, the lack of adequate health cover or a lack of 'sufficient resources', although where you are already resident in France an exceptional change in circumstances may be grounds for a successful appeal, eg major illness or death of spouse.

Refusal of a Visa Application

If your French visa application is refused there are multiple ways to appeal the decision with government authorities and later in court if you believe the decision is inaccurate or unfair.

The appeals process has three stages:

Recours gracieux - meaning an appeal to the consulate or prefecture;
Recours hiérarcherique - meaning an appeal to the interior and foreign ministries, or;
Recours contentieux - to an administrative court in France.

Recours Gracieux

The first step means questioning the refusal directly with the consulate or prefecture who handled the application.

A refusal is explicit if you receive a letter of refusal and implicit if within two months of submitting your application you have heard nothing.

Appeals should be lodged within two months of a decision of refusal, or at the end of the two-month period if the decision is implicit. In effect, therefore, if you do not get a decision within two months, you have another two months to appeal, or two months from the date you did get an explicit refusal.

Given the backlog in dealing with visa and residence permit applications, an implicit refusal is not unusual, so you should not assume that because two months has expired your application has been refused. In many cases, they may simply not have dealt with it.

You can appeal either online or by sending a recorded delivery letter to the consulate/prefecture giving details of why the application should have been approved, referencing specific items in the original application. You need to check on-line with the consulate or prefecture the procedure to use.

You should include a copy of your letter of rejection and original application. It must be in French.

Reasons given when appealing a refusal could include proof that you have the right to receive a visa (such as proof of employment or student status), proof of humanitarian factors such as danger of returning to another country or a family situation that means you have the right to stay in France.

If the appeal is unsuccessful, this itself can be appealed through a judicial court in France in a process called recours excès de pouvoir.

Recours hiérarcherique

If your application is refused, you can make a recours hiérarcherique at the same time as a recours gracieux, or after an unsuccessful recours gracieux appeal.

Making such an appeal means sending it to the foreign and interior ministries in France at Commission de Recours contre les Décisions de Refus de Visa, (CRRV). BP 83609 44036 Nantes CEDEX 1.

To do this you should send a recorded delivery letter (in French) within two months of your refusal.

Again, if the appeal is unsuccessful you can initiate a recours excès de pouvoir.

Recours Contentieux

If the recours hiérarcherique is refused, or no response is received within two months, you can then appeal the decision via the French courts, for which you would need to engage an avocat.

Appeals can be lodged online via a recorded delivery letter with the Tribunal administratif de Nantes, which handles visa disputes.

The courts do allow a large degree of discretion to the authorities to refuse a vise or residence permit, so you need to be sure you have strong grounds to make an appeal. The process is also likely to take perhaps a year or more, although in urgent cases it is possible to get an early hearing.

A recours contentieux is also the only way to contest an Obligation de Quitter la Territoire Francais (OQTF) order which specifies the recipient must leave France within 30 days (or in some cases, immediately) or potentially be deported.

OQTFs are not automatically given to people who have their visas refused. See our article Migration Controls and Enforcement in France.

In urgent cases the judge can be asked for a suspension of the visa refusal, to be returned within 48 hours to allow an appeal to go ahead in court.

During the process you will be invited to a hearing during which you will have the right to present your case, normally with a avocat present.

Following the hearing, the judge will approve a visa application if there has been a 'clear error'.

This could include being able to prove that your reasons for coming to France correspond exactly to the visa you applied for and that you did not intend to use the visa for other purposes (for example, you applied for a student visa and had a place on a university course).

It could also include being able to prove that the refusal of the visa violates your fundamental rights as defined by an international convention recognised in France, such as the EU Convention on Human Rights.

Related Reading: