Thank you Jane. That will help in keeping a bunch of dermatalogues in the field as I try to find one with an RdV not sometime in '24 or, in one case, in May '26!
I’ve come across something else that I don’t understand and can’t fathom, despite much delving - CAF number. It seems to be relevant to families and associated situations like unemployment or child issues.
Does everyone have one? Are they allocated, like a S.S. number? It’s the first entry on the C.S.S. form.
CAF is caisse d’allocations familiales which provides help for families, disabled people etc. You have to apply. If you don’t get help from CAF then just ignore this.
I have been an allocataire for CAF (RSA and CMU-C now CSS) since 2012 so know all the info you have to forward and each year for the CSS etc. I have now stopped the RSA and primes they awarded as I receive my pensions but am still entitled to the CSS and have had to use it extensively this past three years and again to come for two feet proceedures next month. For a complimentaire, the CSS application gives you a list you must choose from and then they contact you seperately with paperwork. To get CAF benefits it has to be approved by your prefecture after the initial application and is renewed yearly. I have actually just repaid back some payments that kept coming after my official retirement kicked in and for the RSA you have to file an obligatory three month declaration online. The CSS application is also very interested in all your income and family members etc. The CAF also is the body who pays the equivalent of family allowance in France and to which, according to your income, most families receive plus other help - all is means tested and I got it very fast when we moved back in early 90’s and stopped the UK payment for my children.
Hi John,
I’ve read your post from a while ago. I understood that if you get a pension from the EU country you live in then they are the competent state - there is adding up of all the pensions to determine which state, though that kicks in when one doesn’t get a pension from the resident state…
e.g. one gets a full UK state pension and a £10 / month France pension and lives in France - France is the competent state. Live in belgium and UK is the competent state.
I should go and read up again on the rules, you must obviously be right however I don’t know how, so it seems to me like you ‘dodged a bullet’.
Where I live doesn’t seem to have been a factor. I have a small pension from France and a slightly larger one from the UK and probably a 90% one (I’d need a load more stamps to get 100%, it wasn’t worth buying them) from Ireland, which was also the last EU country I worked in (which may be a relevant factor) Ireland was deemed my competent state. Which seems fair as Ireland pays for my S1, France having to pick up the tab based on my small French pension would seem unfair. I’m not sure if there are any other implications to being the competent state other than the S1?
I agree, it’s normally the country where you last worked.
Which has come as a bit of a shock to some British pensioners. There was a “new life in the sun” sort of period where pre-retirement British people moved here and opened up a gîte under an AE banner that earned very little, so they only paid tiny cotisations but that entitled them to health care. If they did manage to build up trimestres that will now stopped them getting an S1 and the reduction in social charges,
(The loophole for low earning AEs has now been closed for non-europeans/british.)
Yes, being denied an S1 could cause a few problems alright. What are health charges, 10%?
Here’s an interesting one - how about if you started an AE but never actually earnt anything. Would that still entitle you to an S1?
6.5% over €20,000k earned income until retirement. But also full social charges 17.2% on pensions rather than 7.5%.
You’d mean that’s the rate on investments / interest / capital gains? 7.5% being the solidarity tax which S1 holders pay.
France property has following rates:
Pensions 9.1% / 7.4% /4.3% depending on pension amount without S1 and 0% with S1
They are also showing 9.7% for income - maybe there’s a rebate, some of the CSG is tax deductible!
Having the S1 exemption is partly what makes France very attractive to (UK) retirees - that and the cheese 
I went on to my AMELI pages because the 6th month ‘anniversary’ of my CSS is 28/03.
In a couple of clicks I found I’d updated the CSS from today [28/03/24] to 28/03/2025 - " as long as your circumstances do not change" [words to that effect]
It there anything needed to be done to confirm all is as before or only if there has been any change?
Did you mean 28/2 rather than 28/3 or was it giving you a month’s leeway?
Yes. I meant that it ran from today - 28th Feb '24 to 28th Feb '25.
Do I have to prove I am still b’rasic lint?
???
Skint 
Type of plaster = Borassic lint = skint. But why is lost in mists of time…
Normally shortened to “brassic”
Just Cockney rhyming slang. They could have chosen 'stocks n shares’ but went with 'apples n pears’ for stairs, 'X City’ but went with 'Bristol City’ …
I was actually born within the sound of Bow Bells!
They will ask for a copy of your avis if they need it. Don’t forget to update your card.