Is that comment helpful? Sounds like someone’s in an ivory tower somewhere.
We’re all stuck with this Maisyday.
It’s utterly ridiculous that I should have to keep saying in France yes you do accept my UK licence until it expires even though I live here in France. In fact I’ll be eligible to apply for permanent residence and will still be stuck with a UK licence for a few years after getting that.
It’a just that ANTS wasn’t coping anyway even before so many British drivers needed to formalise their residence rights in France after Brexit. So because of that (and not to help us out) British residents of France with an existing valid British licence are not allowed to swop it.
I’m sick and tired of having to explain to hire car people, insurance quotation systems, probably a local gendarme or two if I get stopped at a roadblock in the wrong place, and whichever dealer will be selling me a car that yes my licence is now non-UE so please don’t mess up your systems for this and please don’t let your system quote me a higher premium because my licence is non-EU…etc.
And this will go on for the best part of 10 years.
Probably because the UK wasn’t prepared to pay France the cost of a few extra people in ANTS to cope with Brits needing to exchange their licences for a French one after Brexit. Instead, we Brits have to spend our time for the next 10 years explaining the discrepancy in our licence address and our residence and hope to enter the right things into online systems so they won’t refuse to process us and hopefully won’t discriminate against us due to our non-EU licences that we’ve been stuck with. For administrative convenience.
However if you’re settled in France Maisyday I would suspect that trying to reverse that and ‘return’ to the UK, when France is clearly your ‘competent State’ as that’s where you last earned…Well if you think the driving licence thing is complicated then try spending the rest of your life trying to sort out that admin…
Well tbh especially as you prefer to live in France anyway, to decide to declare yourself non-resident in France and ‘return’ to the UK (and finding a way of then getting more than the 90 days maximum you would then be allowed to spend in France each year unless you regularly apply for a visa with a fee of about 300 Euros…)Well it would be an act of self-harm 
Hi Karen.
All the emails have been very informative. I now understand it. So thanks everyone really.
Brexit is a mess as we know
There is no evidence that it came down to the UK not prepared to cough up money for ANTS to employ more staff just to process the UK licenses.
The agreement regarding the license exchange also applies to French citizens living in the UK, it was obviously considered to be a positive agreement, not an administrative convenience.
90 days in 180, not 90 days a year.
I was just speculating PeterJ! It would have been perfectly reasonable for the UK to be asked to contribute something. Though we may be going a little too close to issues about who pays to police the French coastline if Britain is unhappy about illegals taking dinghies to the UK from there.
90 days in 180? Better. Still not as useable as being able to take 180 in one go, of course, but better.
I’m still thinking what a mess that will go on for years if a Brit national returned to UK once France was their competent state. OK for a permanent return or for a good reason, but otherwise I can’t see why anyone would want to put themselves through that.
We are all so different. What one person can’t imagine doing, another will barely break stride to achieve.
The ability for a Brit to live in either UK or France is there already … for all those who have the correct CdSejour for France (the one which even allows them to live out of that country for x years).
I’m looking forward to throwing a bag in the boot and heading off… somewhere… for a while… although it might not be UK… and certainly not just yet.
1 Like
The main reason that the licence saga has been such a mess is because it was one of the many issues that was completely overlooked and not included in the Brexit WA.The ANTS website being so poor and the fact that you can,t speak to anyone doesn,t help either.
I have 4 days until my UK licence expires! I applied in Aug last year!
Mine expired in 2020 so I was driving with it expired for nearly 18months. Don’t worry
Was your insurance company OK with that?
The photocard may be due to expire but your entitlement to drive does not disappear, unless you have any categories that require a periodic medical.
That is a very good point
I’m afraid I have to disagree there, @Badger . Since Mat is resident in France, the date at which he needs to exchange his licence is 4b on the front of the licence - the expiry of the photocard. That is the (very belated) agreement made between the interior ministry and the UK government as an addendum to the Withdrawal Agreement.
Exactly so.
However, my comment was about the entitlement to drive, not whether a bit of card was in date or not. In the event of a check then driving with an expired photocard is a lot less of an issue than driving without entitlement to drive.
I have been to the France Services office today - apparently there is a problem with my application - I applied 5 and half months ago, they suggested I should start my application again.
Oh the joy!
You mean they lost it?
No apparently not, just a form I submitted was put in the wrong section - rather than they just move it to the right section they suggest starting again.
It was the section where you submit a letter stating you are happy to lose parts C & D from licence - rather than take a medical.
No, EU nationals trying to swap their licences for French ones have problems too. ANTS are just rubbish.
Worst advice I have ever seen on SF.
and in what way does worrying help at all?