Reader Question: How soon can I get a French passport after gaining citizenship?

For many, visa-free travel and shorter passport queues are among their primary motivations for gaining French nationality, but to gain these travel advantages you need a French passport.

Luckily, you can request a French passport pretty quickly after receiving confirmation that you acquired nationality.

It can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months after you have gained French citizenship to get your passport.

Once you receive confirmation that your citizenship application was successful (either via the letter from the préfecture or through checking the Journal Officiel or electoral roll) you can begin.

It's a three step process - first you make the application online via the ANTS website here. 

Once you have filled in the online form you will be given a QR code, valid for 12 months. You use the code to make an appointment at your local mairie, where all your documents will be checked. The mairie then gives you another code and you use this to go back online and finish off the request.

Here are the steps;

Get your French birth certificate - First, you must get a copy of your new French birth certificate (yes, you have one of those now, even if you were not born in France). It will likely take a few weeks after being listed in either the Journal Officiel for your birth certificate to be ready, but once it is you can request it online. The procedure is free.

You can also request it by post to the following address: Service central d'état civil" 11, rue de la Maison Blanche, 44941, Nantes Cedex 09

For questions, you can call +33 1 41 86 42 47 from Monday to Friday, 9am to 12pm and 1pm to 4pm or send an email to [email protected]

Once you have the birth certificate, you can make a request for a passport on the ANTS (Agence nationale des titres) platform. 

Get your documents together

• Timbre fiscaux
• Passport photo less than 6 months old and compliant with standards
• Proof of address (justicatif de domicile)
• French full copy birth certificate (less than three months old)
• Proof of French nationality (this might be proof of your name in the Journal Officiel, also referred to as your 'décret de naturalisation', or a 'Certificat de nationalité Française')

Go online to ANTS 

You can log in using FranceConnect, or create an account if you have not previously used ANTS. You will need to register the reason for your application, your civil status, nationality, and address plus contact information.

You then make a 'pré-demande' for a passport, filling in the online form with all your personal details. 

At this step, you can pay for the timbre fiscal (€86 as of 2024), and once the process is complete you should receive your application number and/or a QR code, which you will need to present to the mairie when you go in for the appointment.

Make your appointment

You should be able to do this on the ANTS website - some smaller mairies do not have the adequate infrastructure yet to handle 'biometric' passport applications, so the website also allows you to search the nearest mairie to you that can deal with passport applications.

Go back online

Once you have had your appointment at the mairie - at which the originals of all your documents will be checked - you will be given a second application number. You use this to go back onto the ANTS website and complete the application.

How long?

The time taken to produce a passport depends on where the application is made and the level of demand at the moment you submitted - for example, things may slow down right before the summer holidays when many requests are made.

You can track the progress of your application on the ANTS website.

According to Capital.Fr, it usually takes between two weeks and a month to obtain a French passport, though sometimes it can end up taking more than just a month.

The QR code from the 'pré-demande' is valid for 12 months, so if you're really in a hurry you can make the pré-demande before your citizenship decision comes through, so that you can make the mairie appointment immediately. The online process is fairly quick though, so it's unlikely to save you a huge amount of time.

What about getting my French ID card?

You do not need your French ID card to apply for a passport, but you will likely want or need one for other aspects of life in France in the future.

To apply, the process will be similar to the passport. You will also need to do a 'pre-application' using the ANTS website. You will get a number and/or QR code. 

Then you will need to make an appointment and gather the same documents as above - a passport photo that is less than 6 months old; proof of address less than one year old; a birth certificate that is less than 3 months old; proof of French nationality.