We arrived December as I may have mentioned before. Wife holds an Irish passport and we bought a house in Bouches du Rhone. I applied December 16 for my Carte as a spouse. Got notified June that it was approved but only for one year and they backdated it to date we arrived so it expires December 16 2026. Just received the come and pick it up email and its not until September, so I will be picking up and applying for a renewal immediately as its within the three month window.
Curious is this common, but more whats the process for documentation for the renewal as not a lot has changed ( can’t get a driving license or carte vitale until have residency) - my wife is more established, and we did an initial tax return but almost everything else is the same. lastly any idea how long the renewal takes as its really stopped us from visiting son and his now fiancee in USA as my travel has been restricted to Schengen and a trip to UK with my British passport (hold US and UK)
Nothing surprises me with the bureaucracy but just curious, thanks
Not at all. They’re supposed to issue EU family Carte de séjour (CdS) for 5 years under the EU regulation, but France (occasionally) issues them for shorter 1 or 2 year periods, particularly (as far as we can tell) if they are not convinced about the income/resources being sufficient to cover the full 5 years.
I suspect (and this seems to have happened for one or two other people on SF) that they may extend/update your existing CdS to take its validity up to the remaining 4 years that they should have given you originally. Obviously you will need to show that your wife as the EU citizen, not you (!), has access to sufficient resources to ensure you are not a burden on the French taxpayer for the remainder of the initial 5 year period. I would therefore suggest you provide similar information to your original application, hopefully with more luck than previously. They are supposed to have a deadline of 6 months for renewal but as yours is really part of the initial 5 year first application, they should process it rather more quickly than that. I’d hope it wouldn’t take more than a month/six weeks, assuming your Prefecture is averagely efficient. You will still need to apply via the ANEF online portal, albeit your Prefecture does the work behind the scenes.