Visa/Work Permit for France

Hi,

It has been a couple of weeks since you posted this question, so maybe your problem has been solved by now.

If not, there is an easier and less expensive solution to renewing your 90-day tourist visa. Just go to the UK for the day and that will give you an exit and entry stamp in your passport, which will give you another 90 days.

France participates in the Schengen Treaty, which is comprised of all western European countries with the exception of Switzerland. So, your 90-day tourist visa on entry into France actually applies to 15 other countries. According to the Schengen Treaty, you can stay up to 90 days in western Europe, but then you must exit. You can immediately re-enter and stay another 90 days.

But, a strict reading of the law says you can stay no more than 180 days in a one-year period. In practice, this 180-day maximum is not enforce -- or so I was told by several French authorities.

I once stayed in France for eight months on a 90-day tourist visa. I didn't worry about it at the time because I knew dozens of Americans who had over-stayed their tourist visas. I was planning a trip to Istanbul, but I by chance and pure good luck I happened to be chatting with an immigration officer who told me that I was running the risk of being caught. This was the week after the London tube bombs and security was extra tight.

The friendly, very friendly indeed, immigration officer told me that a strict interpretation of the law could mean my immediate detention and expulsion from all Schengen Treaty countries for five years. He said he would forget my name and the fact that I was breaking French laws.

That caught my attention, so I cancelled the trip to Istanbul, and booked a trip back to the US through Switzerland. My intention was to finally apply for a carte de sejour, but the bureaucracy at the French consulate was more than I wanted to deal with. So, I'm now making sure that I go to the UK or eastern Europe within 90 days.

Why not Switzerland to get an exit and entry stamp? Well, my experience has been that the Swiss will stamp a passport sometimes, and sometimes they won't.