Hello!
I recently moved to Lille on a long-stay visa, which does not permit me to work.
Since I don’t have income and am not a student, I’m having a difficult time finding an apartment to rent. And without a permanent address, I can’t open a bank account. It’s a bit of a catch-22.
I’m looking into working with a guarantor.
Has anyone worked with guarantor agencies, like Garantme.fr? Any feedback on them or recommendations for other agencies?
Thanks!
Darlene
Guarantme is the best known.
Have you anybody who could provide you with a cautionnement? i.e.stand surety for you? As that is common with students and presumably equally acceptable for non-students
Hi Jane -
I don’t have family or close friends in France, so that’s not an option for me. I will likely go with Garantme but wanted to comparison shop 
There doesn’t appear to be many of these types of agencies out there however.
Thanks for the info!
Darlene
There are also Smart Garant and Cautioneo. The former is a bit cheaper. I have never executed a contract with any of them, but I did get garant certs from all.
Could you rent a “holiday let” such as AirBnB for a few months, just long enough to get a bank account set up, and then find a proper place to rent?
That seems to be a valid tactic for folks wanting to settle in France who need a French address for their visa application but not wanting to take on a long-term property commitment until they know they will get a visa?
It is possible to open a bank account without a permanent address. Our Airbnb hosts gave us an attestation d’hébergement, and that worked. You might have to try more than one bank; BNP let us open an account. We also worked with Garantme, and got a certificate, but ultimately our landlords didn’t want to work with them (which saves us money, so yay). I think that it helped that we had the certificate though. It took me weeks to find a house to rent. If you’re interested, I can detail what worked for us - it’ll be a rather long post, so I’m not going to detail it unless you want me to.
ChrisMann, it may be possible, but I think that it’s quite difficult to open a French bank account before you have a visa. Do you know anyone who’s done it?
It is easier for British people as Credit Agricole have set up the Normandy Britline branch specifically for them. I guess you are possibly American?
Wow, that’s really nice for British people. Yes, American, and it’s almost impossible for us to get an account before a visa. I think that there’s one bank that will, that has ties to the US, but I can’t remember which one.
If it’s a matter of paying for things, maybe you can use an international multi-currency account like Wise or Revolut for the time being?
You could (for example) open a Wise account with a US address, then use it to convert money into Euros, and use the Wise VISA debit card to pay for things or withdraw cash from an ATM.
You can also set up direct debits from a Wise account.
Thanks Nunthewiser! I will check them out.
Yes, I’m an American.
In order to secure the visa, I rented an AirBnb. I visited several banks (BNP, Credit Agricole, CCF) and none will allow me to open an account without a permanent address.
As well, I can’t open the equivalent of a US Post Office box with La Poste - apparently, this service is only for commercial purposes.
So, yah, the guarantor is my last resort
@ChrisMann - I use Wise.
Thanks All!
If you wouldn’t mind detailing your process, that would be amazing actually. I’m in the thick of it, so I might glean a few tips and tricks from your experience. Thanks for the offer!
@fogggin , no problem. It’s very stressful. This is our story, I’m not sure how well it will align with yours, but…
We came on a 3-month Airbnb rental. Our hosts gave us an attestation d’hébergement (including their ID, IIRC, and an electric bill), which allowed us to open a bank account with BNP. Have you tried them? They seem to be a bit more friendly to Americans. It took 5 weeks, but that was mainly because we did everything on line and our banker was on vacation several times. We got rent receipts from our hosts as well. Before our three months were up, I found another short-term rental on rentaplaceinfrance.com. The owners were also American, and they didn’t ask for anything, it was just a handshake deal. Living there for 5 months, we also got rent receipts from them, as well as another attestation. It was all so easy that when we decided to move on, I stupidly gave notice, and they had another renter lined up, so we HAD to move out. I went the Garantme route and got a certificate. After several weeks of trying agencies, with no luck whatsoever, I decided to search for particuliers only on the various websites. With my very first inquiry/contact, I sent the following: copies of passports, copies of visas, Friench bank RIB, social security benefits letters, rent receipts for all of the previous months, our Garantme certificate, and a copy of the previous year’s US tax return. As an American, I felt really strange providing our US tax returns, but we hadn’t filed French taxes yet, so that was all I had. Within about a week, I had two owners offer to show their property. We changed our mind on one (I had searched pretty far from where we wanted to be, and then decided that we didn’t really want to live there), so we had one shot. Luckily, the house worked for us, and we are still here 7 months later. However, I’m pretty confident that had we not wanted that house, we would have had other opportunities.
I feel that sending everything up front was really beneficial. Owners got back to me very quickly, and I felt that if they were willing to show us the property, they would be willing to rent to us, as they had all of our information already.
Hopefully some of this will be beneficial to you. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. Good luck to you!
I’m American, too and this very closely resembles what we did. Shotgun technique with full "“ópen Kimono” financials. The only small difference is that we dumped all our data into Dossier Facile which may have lent a bit of credibility to it. We still got plenty of rejection but eventually found some decent offers to rent. That was 2 years ago and we want to move on. So we tried again recently with a better dossier (2 years of proven rent payments, French tax declarations, much more income) and had a lot better success rate, but now we can’t find a property that we really want to rent .
@Motherrobyn Thanks so much for taking the time to share your journey. This helps a lot and I now have a new short-term rental search resource. For banking, I did try BNP (amongst others) but the branch(es) wouldn’t accept an Airbnb as proof of address.
@Nunthewiser Thanks for the Dossier Facile tip. With both of your stores, my takeaway is to over prepare documentation.
One complexity of my situation is that I’m not working. Since I’m here on the long-stay visa, I can’t work for a French company, though I have been looking for remote work in other countries (or even hybrid gig in Belgium).
So, I don’t have a source of monthly income (I don’t qualify for social security for a few more years) - only my investments and savings, which are more than adequate to prove my “creditworthiness”, for lack of a better term, but I’m not sure if it will suffice. Will find out soon…
I’ll let you all know how it turns out.
@fogggin , you are quite welcome, and good luck to you. It’s too bad that BNP wouldn’t open an account for you - as with most things in France, it depends on who you work with. We were still in our first Airbnb when we opened our account with them. We did have the attestation d’hébergement, which was I think key.
You are correct, overpreparing is really helpful. As a friend of mine who’s been here a couple of years longer than we have says, you want to make their job as easy as possible for them. Again, good luck - I know how stressful it can be.
Even tho’ some commentators say this is acceptable, France doesn’t have a digital nomad visa for people who work remotely so most say that remote working is not possible. If you are physically in France you have to pay into French system.
Didn’t you have to provide an attestation that you would do no work? I certainly did.
From what you’ve posted, I understand that you have recently arrived in France, having gained a long-stay-Visa which does not permit you to work.
You had to show you have enough investments and savings to cover the length of this (non-working) Visa.
It seems you are already concerned that your funds will be insufficient and are looking into possibly working remotely (you’ve yet to confirm if this would be legal)
I do feel your experiences (both good and bad) are surely valuable for other would-be Applicants for similar Visas.
If your funds are not actually sufficient, will you have to cut-short your stay here in France and return to wherever you are from??
This must be a very worrying time for you… hope it all gets sorted 