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DRIVING

Is it illegal to drive on a foreign licence if you live in France?

If you live in France you should usually swap your driving licence for a French one after a certain period of residence - but is it actually illegal to drive on your old licence? And what are the penalties?

Published: 23 August 2023 12:03 CEST
Is it illegal to drive on a foreign licence if you live in France?
Photo by Damien MEYER / AFP

If you’re coming to France on holiday there is no problem with driving on the licence of your home country, whether you’re bringing your own car or renting one once you arrive.

If you live in France, however, it’s a different story and after a certain period of residency (usually one year, although there is a slightly different system for UK licences) you will usually need to swap your licence for a French one.

Conditions vary depending on where your licence was issued – full details here.

But it’s also fair to say that not everybody follows these rules.

Swapping your licence is a time-consuming bureaucratic process and for many people it simply feels like too much hassle – especially if you don’t actually own a car and just occasionally drive a rented car or a friend’s vehicle.

READ ALSO Can you be fined for having a foreign-registered car in France?

This is especially the case for people who have a driving licence from a country (or certain states of the USA) that doesn’t have a reciprocal agreement with France, as they have to take a French driving test in order to get a licence in France. 

But what do you risk if you carry on driving on driving on your old licence?

The French government is pretty clear on this one: “The exchange for a French licence is compulsory in order to be able to drive in the long-term in France.”

Driving while not having a valid licence carries a maximum penalty of a €15,000 fine and a one-year prison sentence. Since 2014 there exists a fast-track system in which people who meet certain criteria (first offence, not involved in any other traffic offences) can immediately plead guilty and take a €800 fine. 

If you are a non-EU citizen your visa or residency permit provides clear proof that you live in France, so in most cases it’s unambiguous that you should have swapped your licence if you are stopped by police. There are a couple of exceptions including students (more on them below). 

And don’t even think about using a fake licence – that carries a maximum penalty of a €75,000 fine, confiscation of the vehicle, a driving ban and (for non-EU citizens) a 10-year ban on entering any EU country. 

Insurance

But even if you manage to avoid the attention of the police there is another issue to think about – insurance.

As discussed, driving with a foreign licence when you should have swapped it is illegal so this also invalidates your insurance.

If you have an accident while driving, even if it’s not your fault, you will need to contact your insurance and if you’re showing a French address and a non-French licence it’s likely that questions will be asked. Listing an address that’s not your actual place of residency counts as lying to your insurers, which is also likely to result in the refusal of your claim is you are caught, and can lead to prosecution. 

Students 

If you’re studying in France on a student visa/residency card you can continue to drive on your old licence during your studies. If you decide to stay in France after graduating, you should swap your licence for a French one within one year of receiving your non-student residency card.

Diplomats can also carry on driving on their original licence, as can people who hold refugee status in certain cases. 

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TRAVEL NEWS

What’s the deal with passport stamping in France?

There are clear guidelines in place about who should have their passport stamped when they enter or leave France - but the letter of the law doesn't always seem to be applied on the ground. Here's what you need to know.

Published: 17 May 2024 14:24 CEST
What's the deal with passport stamping in France?

When you pass through a French border control post, officers will check your passport and – in some cases – stamp the date of your entry or exit of the country onto one of the blank pages in the booklet.

Although the system should be clear and simple, it becomes complicated when conflicting information is given on the ground.

Here’s what the rules say, and whether it’s really a problem if your passport is incorrectly stamped.

Who should be stamped?

The purpose of the date stamps for entry and exit is to calculate how long you have been in France, and therefore whether you have overstayed your allowed time – whether that is the time allowed by a short-stay Schengen visa or the visa-free 90-day allowance that certain non-EU nationals benefit from. 

Those people who are exempt from 90-day restrictions should therefore not have their passports stamped.

EU passport – people who have an EU passport should not have it stamped, because they have the right to unlimited stays due to EU freedom of movement.

Dual nationals – people who have passports of both EU and non-EU countries should not be stamped when they are travelling on their EU passport. However, because the passports of dual nationals are not ‘linked’, those travelling on their non-EU passports will be stamped, unless they have other proof of residency.

READ ALSO What are the rules for dual-nationals travelling in France?

French residents – the passports of non-EU citizens who have a residency permit in France (carte de séjour) should not be stamped, because they have the right to stay in France for as long as their permit is valid.

Visa holders – people who have a long-stay visa or a short-stay visitor visa should not be stamped, because they have the right to stay in France for as long as their visa is valid. 

Tourists/visitors – people making short visits to France who do not have a visa should be stamped, with the stamps keeping track of their 90-day allowance. Visitors from nationalities who do not benefit from the 90-day rule (eg Indians) are also stamped.

Travel practicalities

When crossing a French border, you should present your passport along with other documents – visa or carte de séjour – if relevant. Don’t wait for border guards to ask whether you are a resident.

It should be noted that the carte de séjour is not a travel document and cannot be used to cross borders, not even internal Schengen zone borders. The only valid travel documents for entering France are a passport or national ID card. Any other forms of ID – driving licence, residency card etc – cannot be used for travel purposes.

Border problems

While the rules on stamping are simple in theory, many readers of The Local have reported having their passports incorrectly stamped at the border, and this seems to be a particular problem for non-EU nationals who are resident in France.

Travellers are also often given incorrect information by border guards – for example being told that only holders of the post-Brexit Article 50 TUE carte de séjour are exempt from stamping, that all non-EU nationals must have their passports stamped or that only being married to a French national exempts you from stamping.

None of these are correct.

It’s also sometimes the case that people whose passports should be stamped – tourists, visitors and second-home owners who don’t have a visa – do not receive the stamp. For frequent visitors this can be a problem because it looks as though they have had a long stay in France, due to their exit not being recorded.

The system of stamping itself is also a bit haphazard with stamps scattered throughout the passport book in random order, so border guards sometimes make mistakes and miss an entry or exit stamp and therefore think that people have overstayed when they haven’t.

So how much of a problem actually is it if your passport is wrongly stamped?

It’s one thing to know the rules yourself, it’s quite another to have an argument with a border guard, in French, when a long queue is building behind you. Numerous Local readers have reported feeling that they had no choice but to accept a stamp when an implacable guard insisted upon it.

But is this really a problem?

One thing is clear – if you are a resident of France then you have the right to re-enter, and your proof of residency (visa or carte de séjour) takes precedence over any passport stamps. So it’s not a question of being barred from the country – it can, however, be inconvenient as it might lead to delays at the border while your passport record is queried.

Meanwhile people who did not receive correct exit stamps can be incorrectly told that they have over-stayed and even be liable for a fine. 

Will the new EES passport control system improve this?

Theoretically, the EU’s new Entry & Exit System – which does away with the manual stamping of passports – should get rid of these problems.

However, as we have seen, theory and what actually happens on the ground are two different things.

The EES system, due to come into effect later this year, brings in two main changes – it makes passport checks more secure by adding diometric data such as fingerprints and facial scans and it does away with manual stamping of passports and replaces it with scans which automatically calculate how long people have been in France.

You can read full details of how it works HERE. 

So that should eliminate the problems of unclear stamps, stamps being read wrongly or passports not getting the stamps they need.

Residents in France – carte de séjour and visa holders – are not required to complete EES checks and should have a separate system at ports, airports and railway terminals.

However, at present it’s pretty common for border guards to give incorrect information to non-EU residents who are resident in the EU – let’s hope that they are properly briefed before EES is deployed.

Have you had problems with passports being incorrectly stamped? Please share your experiences in the comments section below

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