Whether you are about to complete your Masters’s degree in France or are thinking of applying for your higher studies, you might be wondering what the stay-back period is like post-graduation and what is the work visa situation here. Let’s break this French bureaucratic mystery down.
If you have completed your higher French studies, then you may be eligible to get an APS visa (Autorisation provisoire de séjour). The APS visa is a stay-back visa allowing you to search for jobs, start working in a company or a lab and start the procedure of converting your status from student to salaried in France. This visa is only accessible to international students from a country that concluded a bilateral agreement with France (regarding professional migration). If you are from India, you will automatically be eligible to get the work visa if you meet the other criteria which we shall discuss below.
How long is an APS visa valid for?
An APS visa is valid for 1 year for all nationalities and if you have an Indian passport, then lucky for you, it can be extended for another year in your case if you do not manage to secure a job by then.
How can I get this APS visa?
This APS visa can be obtained from your local Prefecture (the governing body of your region) when you present to them your Masters’s degree attestation (likely you won’t have the actual certificate by then) and address proof. The APS visa is granted on spot after a short interaction with the officer at the prefecture. In some regions, it can take about 2-3 weeks to get it.
How much does this APS visa cost?
An APS visa can be applied for free at the local prefecture. The conversion of the student status to salaried however needs to be sponsored by your employer. You cannot self sponsor a work visa.
Can I work with an APS visa?
Yes, you can start working with an APS visa BUT, you MUST start the process of converting your student status to salaried as soon as you start working. Once the conversion is approved, you will get a salaried residence card/visa.
What kind of salaried residence permit/visa will I get and what is the conversion process from APS?
Depending on your salary, you might be eligible for a Passport Talent visa. Check the eligible salary from your local prefecture website. A Passport Talent is quicker to get and is what you should aim at getting. It requires less documentation from the company though, the only catch is that you should meet the minimum salary criteria. This visa is valid for 4 years and is renewable.
The other option is to go through the longer route if your salary doesn’t meet the Passport Talent criteria. You can get a regular salaried visa in this case which is valid for 1 year only, but renewable the next year and this time you will get the visa for 4 years. There are some other drawbacks to this visa, the main one being that your dependant spouse will not have working rights if you have this regular visa. Another demerit is that your company will have to provide quite a lot of documentation and the overall procedure for this one is quite long (can even be 4-5 months in some regions).
Another category of visa is the Passport Talent Blue Card and this has a significantly high salary criteria. If you manage to get this visa, then Europe will be your oyster and you will have multiple advantages such as the ability to work from anywhere in Europe after the first 18 months of work from France. It is also valid for 4 years and renewable.
Can all Masters’s graduates get an APS and then a work visa?
To get an APS visa, it is very important that your school/university in France is RNCP certified. It is a certification that your institute (almost all good institutes) has and this is key to being eligible for an APS. If you are applying for Masters in France now, please do verify this.
Additionally, you will ONLY be able to get a work visa (i.e. able to convert your student visa to a work visa) if your job is LINKED to what you have studied.
How can we know more about this process?
Get in touch with our team of course 🙂 You’ll find the Contact Us form on the website.