# Waiting time for visa vie familiale with online process



## endless.wander

My French wife and I were married last year and so this year, I applied for the visa vie familiale, "upgrading" from a visa visiteur. The instructions from the prefecture in Lille were to use the new administration-etrangers-en-france.interieur.gouv.fr website and to send the request 2 months before the expiration of my current visa.

So we filled out the formulaire on that website in July. It's now October and I haven't heard a single thing regarding my application except for a "confirmation de depot." My current visa is expired now.

We've tried communicating with both the prefecture and the website. By phone is impossible. The prefecture's phone line goes directly to a message saying everyone is busy and then hangs up.

By email, we've just had generic responses saying basically that someone will attend to my account when it reaches the front of the line. They seemed to confirm that I am okay to stay in France while I'm waiting (although I got no recepisse or official document) but if I leave Schengen, my confirmation de depot wouldn't be enough to re-enter.

Is this long of a wait normal? Any idea how long this will take? We were hoping to go to Canada to visit my family for Christmas, for example. Thank you for any advice anyone can give.


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## Bevdeforges

You get used to it after a while, but (particularly lately) it takes as long as it takes. Just a note on terminology here - you are not applying for a visa, but rather for a change in status to your residence permit (titre de séjour). Applying for a "spouse visa" from outside France (i.e. at a French embassy) is normally a pretty quick turnaround. But, by changing status to the "vie privée et familiale" category, you will have to go through the whole "megilla" of OFII visits, 3 or 4 classes and an evaluation of your French (i.e. to see if you need the French classes) in order to fulfill your contract of integration.

So basically, the change in status is going to take a bit longer than just getting a new visa - and given all the various bottlenecks in the system (Covid backlogs, new online system, staff shortages, etc.) it may take a while. Also, having filed it in July means that everything basically sat on someone's desk for two months until vacation period was over. But with the rentrée they should be pushing the pig through the python. 

Hang onto that confirmation de depot (even if it's just a print out of the email) and chances are you can probably still make Christmas with the family in Canada. On return, they would just stamp your passport with the 90 day "tourist" thing if by then you don't have the info from the prefecture (though chances are, you'll have things resolved by then).


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## endless.wander

Thank you for your reply, Bev. Very helpful to know, as suspected, that a long wait is quite normal.

We were hoping to have a rather long visit in Canada, for a month or two. I'm guessing if things are not resolved with the titre de sejour vie familale by then, it would make things difficult if I am in Canada when they finally get around to processing things? Or conversely, if they process my application in November, for example, I probably would need to be around in December/January to do the rest of the appointments, etc?


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## Bevdeforges

It's tricky to predict because we've had all sorts of reports from various members saying, in some cases, that when they are notified that a carte de séjour is available, they have a set amount of time (like 3 weeks) to come in to pick up the card. Others say that they never got any notification but booked an appointment with the prefecture just to find out where they were in the process, only to find that the prefecture has had the card ready and waiting for them for months. 

As far as the rest of the appointments (the classes mostly) are concerned, those get scheduled by the OFII, which tends to be a bit more "flexible" than the prefecture.


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## endless.wander

Thank you Bev. I thought I had responded but I think my message didn't save. I might try to book an appointment with the prefecture just to see if we can ask them questions directly. My understanding, though, is all the requests are going through the national administration-etrangers-en-france.interieur.gouv.fr website so I'm not even sure how the prefecture is involved anymore.


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## mohsel

this website is just a proxy to collect requests, then according to the location, it is transferred to the proper prefecture... hence the final processing is done at the prefecture.


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## endless.wander

Thanks, I appreciate the clarification. It's never clear to me what is actually happening.


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## Bevdeforges

One other factor may be when your initial titre de séjour was due to expire. What you're going for is a "change of statut" and not just a renewal of a regular titre de séjour. I know some folks have been advised that there is no point in applying for a change of statut until they are approaching the expiration date of their current residence permit. Again, that may vary by the prefecture you're dealing with.


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## endless.wander

That was the instruction we got -- to wait until 2 months before expiry. And then we went to do the renewal/change-of-statue 2 months before expiry and on the website, it said that a change of statute was not possible anymore because there was only 2 months before expiry. Classic.


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## endless.wander

Just to update this old post of mine in case anyone finds this needing info. Just got the confirmation of the renewal of my titre de sejour. It took them from mid-July until Dec 7 to process my request, and almost 2 months after the expiration of my original titre.

I received a notification via the administration-etrangers-en-france.interieur.gouv.fr website with a downloadable document that says I can now go outside of Schengen with that document plus my expired titre de sejour. My new titre de sejour is in the process of being made and then I'll be able to pick it up from the prefecture.

Took a long time with very little communication. The website never advised me, for example, that my request had advanced through other stages of the process. Lots of stress could have been avoided if they could just send out some automated reassurance now and then to say like "don't worry, we are still working on your request"

I also find it a bit suspicious that the administration-etrangers-en-france.interieur.gouv.fr website was completely offline for about 4 days. And today, the day after the site went back online, my approval arrives. I wonder if there was a website error preventing notifications from being sent out or something like that?


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## bhamham

endless.wander said:


> Just to update this old post of mine in case anyone finds this needing info. Just got the confirmation of the renewal of my titre de sejour. It took them from mid-July until Dec 7 to process my request, and almost 2 months after the expiration of my original titre.
> 
> I received a notification via the administration-etrangers-en-france.interieur.gouv.fr website with a downloadable document that says I can now go outside of Schengen with that document plus my expired titre de sejour. My new titre de sejour is in the process of being made and then I'll be able to pick it up from the prefecture.
> 
> Took a long time with very little communication. The website never advised me, for example, that my request had advanced through other stages of the process. Lots of stress could have been avoided if they could just send out some automated reassurance now and then to say like "don't worry, we are still working on your request"
> 
> I also find it a bit suspicious that the administration-etrangers-en-france.interieur.gouv.fr website was completely offline for about 4 days. And today, the day after the site went back online, my approval arrives. I wonder if there was a website error preventing notifications from being sent out or something like that?


I don't believe it's the national website that's the problem, it's your prefecture holding things up. I applied for my renewal last June to the website and was sent a favorable decision in less than two weeks. Then another email came a week later from my prefecture with a rdv to collect my carte de sejour in Sep a few days before the expiration date.


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## BackinFrance

There are those in France who have not been able to get an appointment for over 2 years. According to a report I saw yesterday, there are people or hackers going into the Préfecture sites and taking hundreds of appointments which they then sell to desperate people for between €400 and €4,000. According to that report the websites do not adequately verify the particulars of people making appointments 

It remains to be seen if the government will do anything to address these issues.


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