News Digest: Important Changes for US Citizens Applying for a French Visa

I could probably start a separate newsletter devoted entirely to France’s latest strike news, but instead, I try to highlight only those that might impact frequent travellers and homeowners. Which brings me to the latest strike notice filed by Sud-Rail, the union that represents conductors on France’s high-speed TGV and Intercité trains. The strike notice concerns weekends between April 17th and June 2nd, encompassing both the French school holidays and the May public holiday weekends, when many French workers opt to “faire le pont” and enjoy a four-day weekend.

It’s unclear as of yet how much disruption this will cause to national trains, and there is, as always, a chance that they will be called off if their demands for a pay increase are met. We’ll keep you updated as we learn more, but for now, the best advice is to keep your travel plans as flexible as possible.

TLSContact, the third-party contractor that runs French visa centres in the UK, as well as in the Middle East, and Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa, will be expanding its operations to the United States as of April 2025. Currently, French visa applications in the US are handled by VFS Global, which operates visa centres in 10 cities across the US – Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC.

The application process for US citizens begins, as with all other French visa applications, online via the France Visas website, but applicants are then required to attend an in-person interview at one of the visa centres before a final approval (or denial) is made by the French Consulate in Washington. From April 17, 2025, these visa centres and the second half of the application process will be handled by TLSContact as they take over from VFS Global.

So, what changes? It’s important to stress that there will be no changes to the application process itself when TLSContact takes over the contract, and as TLSContact have plenty of experience handling French visa applications around the world, a smooth transition is expected. TLSContact will continue operating visa centres in the same 10 US cities; however, the locations will change – you can see a full list of the new addresses here. If you have a visa application underway with VFS Global that hasn’t yet been approved or denied prior to the handover date (April 17th), then you will report to the new TLSContact visa centres to pick up your passport and visa.

One final change is the visa processing fees – standard TLSContact fees are €45 for a short-stay visa and €220 for a long-stay visa, payable in US dollars.

Just a month ago, we were reporting on RyanAir’s threats to stop flights to France, but it seems that the low-cost airline has quietly had a change of plans. In fact, they’ve announced two new flight routes to France.

The first is a new route to Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne from London Stansted, which starts this weekend, March 30th. The second is a seasonal summer route (from May to October) between Bristol in the UK and Toulouse-Blagnac airport in the south of France.

The next FrenchEntrée webinar is this Thursday, 27^th March, and I’ll be putting YOUR QUESTIONS to our visa and relocation expert, Fabien Pelissier of Fab Expat.

Whether you’re a US, UK, or other citizen, if you have a question about French long-stay visas, carte de séjours, health insurance, and anything else related to visas and residency in France, then send me your questions at:  webinar@frenchentree.com.

Register now to secure your place on our free webinar next week!

How to get a French Visa in 2025

Thursday 27th March 2025, 4:00 pm London  / 5:00 pm Paris

It’s bad news for anyone who, like myself, was looking forward to une grasse matinée (a lie-in) this weekend, as we’ll all lose an hour of precious shuteye. Yes, the clocks will be going forward by one hour in France this Sunday, March 30th, and 2am will become the new 3am!