French Tech Visa 2026 for Founders

What you actually get with the French Tech Visa

The French Tech Visa, officially the Talent — Porteur de Projet residence permit under Article L.421-16, 2° CESEDA, is a 4-year multi-year card with full work and business rights for you, your spouse, and your minor children. The legal frame was rewritten by Decree 2025-539 of 13 June 2025, in force since 16 June 2025, which retired the old "Passeport Talent" label, consolidated more than ten subcategories into two, and kept the founder/entrepreneur route as its own dedicated track.

Your spouse receives a paired Talent — Famille permit with open work rights from day one, no separate sponsor, no employer tie. The card counts toward French naturalisation at the standard 5-year clock, which France did not lengthen. Talent holders are also exempt from the A2 French language requirement that, since 1 January 2026, applies to most other multi-year permits. That single exemption is one of the most underrated parts of the program.

Who Relovisa actually files for

Most agencies split this market into separate funnels: a "founder" page, a "co-founder" page, a "talent" page. We don't, because the residence permit doesn't. The Porteur de Projet track admits anyone DRIEETS recognises as economically useful to an innovative French project, and that definition is wider than the word "founder" suggests.

We file for three profiles under the same roof. Founders with their own project, the textbook case. Senior specialists and domain experts — product leads, data and ML engineers, CTOs, researchers, growth operators — who join an existing French Tech startup as a key hire or advisor. And experienced operators without a specific project — entrepreneurs who want to advise or co-found but don't yet have a company in mind, whom we match to an existing French Tech project. Our team-tier files for up to three co-founders on a single shared business case.

That last group is where Relovisa is genuinely different. If you don't have a project, we match you with French Tech ecosystem startups actively looking for a co-founder, advisor, or technical specialist, then we build the residence case around that match. You don't need to arrive with an idea. You need to arrive with a track record we can package.

What Relovisa does, and what you do

The work splits cleanly. We author the business plan in the format DRIEETS expects, build the pitch deck, identify and approach the right French Tech-accredited incubator, secure the recognition letter or the two ecosystem letters (depending on route), assemble the full DRIEETS dossier under Article L.421-16, 2° CESEDA, file it, manage the back-and-forth, prepare the consular file for your country of residence, and run the Talent — Famille paperwork for your spouse and children in parallel so the family lands on the same timeline.

You provide a CV, proof of accommodation in France (we can guide you to short-term solutions that satisfy the consulate), a bank statement showing the savings threshold, and your passport scans. That's it. From you, we need maybe five documents. We produce the other fifty.

This is the part founders consistently underestimate. The DRIEETS file alone runs 40 to 60 pages once business plan, financial projections, founder CVs, market analysis, and supporting letters are bound together. Doing it yourself isn't impossible. Doing it well, on the first attempt, while running your existing job or company, is.

DRIEETS recognition: the gating step we handle

DRIEETS Île-de-France is the central evaluator for every Porteur de Projet file in the country, regardless of where in France your project will actually be based. That centralisation, set in 2021, is the part most applicants get wrong. They prepare a regional file. The file goes to Paris. The file gets returned.

Two routes lead through DRIEETS. Route A: a single recognition letter from a French Tech-accredited incubator. Route B: two letters of support from recognised ecosystem actors, typically an established founder, a VC, a public innovation body, or a major accelerator. We pick the route that fits your profile, not the route that's easier for us. Clean dossiers typically clear DRIEETS in roughly 12 to 21 days. Messy dossiers can sit for months or come back rejected, which is the single biggest reason people end up calling us for a re-file.

The 2026 cost reality

Government fees from 1 May 2026 are €350 administrative + €99 visa = €449 per applicant. The financial means threshold is one SMIC, set at €22,404.20 annual as of 1 June 2026. We recommend showing roughly €23,900 in personal savings to leave a comfortable margin, plus €12,000 to €15,000 per accompanying family member. Incubator pass-through costs typically run around €300 per month per founder for 6 to 8 months.

Compare that against what you get. A 5-year path to French citizenship, with no extension on the horizon, against Portugal's new 10-year clock effective 19 May 2026. France is now the shorter route to an EU passport for the same effort, and the Porteur de Projet permit is the cleanest way in.

When you should call Relovisa

Five scenarios where this service pays for itself. You have an innovative project but no time to spend three months writing a DRIEETS file in French. You want EU residency and don't have a startup idea, so you need someone to match you to a French Tech company that does. You filed yourself or with another agency and were rejected, and you need a clean re-file with the right route. You want to move with your spouse and children and need the Talent — Famille permits running on the same timeline. Or you simply want the 5-year citizenship clock to start now, before any future legal tightening lands.

If any of those describes you, book a 30-minute consultation through the booking form on this page. We'll map the route, confirm eligibility, and quote the timeline before you commit to anything.