Last month, several news services in France reported on the latest immigration statistics from the French government, which showed that nearly 100,000 UK nationals had been granted a Brexit (WARP) residence permit in 2021.
This figure was in addition to the 7,896 who were given a permit in 2020, giving a total of around 108,000 granted a residence permit.
The French government stated the figures were provisional, as "some permits issued during the year are not yet registered in the national residence permit management database.”
Nevertheless, the figure is substantially below the latest census figures for 2017, which showed that there were 148,300 UK nationals resident in France.
As a result, we asked the British Embassy whether they were able to provide clarification on the disparity in the numbers.
Their own figures, based on information provided directly to them by the French Ministry of the Interior, show that up to the end of 2021 some 152,300 residence permits had been issued to UK nationals under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement.
Of this total, 105,600 were 10-year permanent residence permits and 46,700 were 5-year permits.
Interestingly, the report shows that 3,500 applications were refused, although some because they were duplicates.
In addition, 9,100 applications were either withdrawn or void.
Of course, even these figures will be out of date, as although the French government closed the on-line application process in October 2021, it is still possible for UK nationals in France to apply directly to their local prefecture for a residence permit. Those who do not now hold a residence permit are not legally resident.
What is also clear from our own internal property based statistics is that over the past few years there has been significant movement of British nationals between the UK and France, with a large number returning to the UK as a result of Brexit, but also significant numbers who relocated to France prior to 31st December 2020 in order to beat the Brexit deadline.
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