# EU Blue Card Renewal Conditions



## mikepensley

Hi everyone,

I hold a blue card as my company sponsored it and it is valid for 4 years from now.

However, the idea of having the legitimacy of your presence in France attachted to a single employer's mercy is highly perturbing, and the articles around the change of employer for blue card holders are very unclear in French sources.

Still, according to my researches so far, I see that blue card holders are allowed to change their employers by the end of 2 years without going through another sponsorship process, if the minimum salary threshold/blue card posession requirements are equivalenet to the initial application.

I have 3 questions in this regard:

1) What are my rights to stay/work in France if my contract is terminated before 2 years?

2) If I change a job after 2 years, do I still need to notify French authorities? Am I allowed to practice jobs that fall below the Blue Card requirements?

3) If I keep my current job/have another blue card class job by the end of 4 years, does my employer still have to sponsor me/pay sponsoring taxes for the renewal of my card?

I know I asked to many questions but there are no answers on the forum/elsewhere that answer them.

Thanks to anyone who tries to help in advance.


----------



## EuroTrash

mikepensley said:


> the idea of having the legitimacy of your presence in France attachted to a single employer's mercy is highly perturbing


I can't help I'm afraid, but might be worth just making the general comment that most of us immigrants have conditions attached to our first five years of residency in an EU country. 
It seems slightly odd to expect a visa/CdS that's been granted subject to certain conditions being met (employment, minimum income etc), to automatically allow you to stay even if you stop meeting those conditions, because what would be the point of imposing conditions in the first place. Even EU citizens can lose their residency rights if they can't demonstrate they have consistently met whatever conditions pertain to their status - working, self supporting or whatever.
So I think inevitably there can be a certain amount of uncertainty and folks have to keep this in mind and plan around it, should they want to change jobs or whatever.


----------



## Bevdeforges

Based on what I have seen on the employer's side of the whole passeport talent thing I'll try to answer your questions.



mikepensley said:


> 1) What are my rights to stay/work in France if my contract is terminated before 2 years?


Normally, if the contract was initially written for something less than 4 years, you may wind up only receiving a passeport talent for the duration of the contract. If the job was on a CDI and the job is terminated before 2 years, you can stick around to collect your unemployment for sure. However, you will be expected to find another job - and your new employer will have to follow the employer rules for hiring a foreigner and obtaining work authorization for you. (Passeport talent is one of the visa types specifically mentioned in the regulations for a French employer hiring a foreigner already in France.) The new job will have to meet the terms and conditions of the passeport talent program in terms of types of position and salary level.



> 2) If I change a job after 2 years, do I still need to notify French authorities? Am I allowed to practice jobs that fall below the Blue Card requirements?


See the answer to #1 above. A French employer can hire you under the terms and conditions of your passeport talent. But you can't switch to a job waiting tables or bartending if you are on a "high tech" passeport talent.



> 3) If I keep my current job/have another blue card class job by the end of 4 years, does my employer still have to sponsor me/pay sponsoring taxes for the renewal of my card?


I'm not sure there are any "sponsoring taxes" involved - though they may have to show that they have hired you for a job that qualifies under the passeport talent program. If you renew your passeport talent at the end of the 4 year validity period, it will cost you another 225€ (or whatever the going fees are at that time).

But to understand the employer's side of things, you may want to take a look at this site: Démarches - Ministère de l'Intérieur


----------



## mohsel

mikepensley said:


> 1) What are my rights to stay/work in France if my contract is terminated before 2 years?


your TDS is valid for 4 years, you have the right to continue until it expires, then you should renew based on you status by then.



mikepensley said:


> 2) If I change a job after 2 years, do I still need to notify French authorities? Am I allowed to practice jobs that fall below the Blue Card requirements?


No for the first part unless you want to re-apply for the TDS using your new employer info, for the second part, I have no idea but the TDS says you are allowed to work, it doesn't specify a limit ... true this authorization was obtained with conditions related to fulfilling blue card minimum salary and other approvals
So technically you can continue to work in any context as long as your TDS is valid but it will be your employer who will have to check if he can hire you with your status or not.



mikepensley said:


> 3) If I keep my current job/have another blue card class job by the end of 4 years, does my employer still have to sponsor me/pay sponsoring taxes for the renewal of my card?


There is no sponsoring taxes... renewal fees is your responsibility unless you have an agreement with your new employer.. other than that, when it comes to renewal with the new employer, it depends ... earlier, one had to apply with lots of supporting documents coming from the employer.. now it is all electronic, I should start my renewal phase in April, however I sneaked a peak to see what type of documents is needed as I anticipated the same documents from employer but to my surprise they need a single document that attests you have been working and paying your cotisation and this is obtained from one of the government websites that is being mentioned in the renewal site ... nothing else was listed as it seems all other info is already on the system ... so detailed answer for your question might be different when you come to renewing your TDS


----------

