Moving to France: A Relocation Guide for Expats
Leaving is planned for months. Coming back is often improvised, and that is why it goes wrong.
According to the Expat Communication barometer, 56% of expatriates find the return harder than the departure. Housing is the reason more often than anything else: 36% of families name it as their main concern, and 33% cite the shortage of available properties.
This guide is about the move itself: choosing where to live, finding a home from several thousand miles away, and the first months on the ground. If your question is the purchase mechanics rather than the relocation, see buying property in France as a foreigner.
Why coming back is harder than leaving
For years France was the country of holidays and short visits. It becomes daily life again, and most people underestimate that shift.
You left a market you understood and you return to one that has changed, in a city you may have left a decade ago or never lived in at all. Meanwhile the administrative reflexes have gone: the paperwork, the rental expectations, the unwritten rules of a viewing.
One principle organises everything else: a property can be renovated, rearranged and redecorated, but its surroundings cannot be changed. The walk to school, the noise of the street, the transport links and the character of the neighbourhood are fixed on the day you sign. That is why the city and the neighbourhood come before the property, never the other way round.
Step 1: choosing the region, the city, the neighbourhood
France has opened up. Remote work and the rail network mean you can live in a mid-sized city, by the sea, in the mountains or in the countryside and remain connected to a major employment area. There is no ideal destination, only one that fits your situation.
Start with the questions, not the listings. What environment lets you thrive: the centre of a large city or a residential area? How much do nature, leisure and cultural life matter? Does your work allow flexibility? Do you need fast access to a station or an airport?
Four criteria then separate neighbourhoods: schools, usually the starting point for families; transport and real door-to-door times rather than map distances; the neighbourhood itself, its atmosphere and its nuisances; and the budget, which is not only the rent or the price but the service charges, the commuting and the daily cost of living there.
One piece of advice runs through every city profile we write: never choose where you live on the school alone. The right balance between schooling, commute, housing and quality of life is what makes a move work.
If your timing allows it, a scouting trip before the move changes everything. A few days are usually enough to walk several neighbourhoods, visit schools and test journeys at the hours you will actually travel. Our ranking of the best places to live in France is a reasonable starting shortlist.
Step 2: finding a home from abroad
The first surprise for anyone arriving from an English-speaking country: France has no single database of available properties. There is no MLS. Listings are spread across independent agencies, national networks, notaires and private sellers, the same property can appear in several places at different prices, and a meaningful part of the market never appears online at all.
In sought-after areas, properties go quickly. Listings are thin and tell you nothing about light, orientation, noise, the state of the building or how the rooms connect. A viewing remains essential, which is precisely the problem at eight thousand kilometres.
A remote viewing should not be a highlight reel. It has to let you discover the property as if you were standing in it, defects included. Before the visit the work is to check the address, the surroundings, the works voted or planned by the building, the likely nuisances and the real journey times to work, school and transport. That first pass alone often eliminates a property before anyone travels.
Rent first, or buy straight away?
Renting first is usually right if you are discovering a city, if your professional or family situation may still change, if your financing is not finalised, or if you simply need to be installed quickly. A few months of renting teaches you the neighbourhoods and the rhythm of the city in a way no amount of research does.
Be warned that the French rental market is demanding. Landlords ask for extensive guarantees, particularly when income comes from abroad. And a detail that catches almost everyone: signing a residential lease in France carries no general cooling-off period. Once it is signed, both parties are committed.
Buying straight away makes sense when the move is long-term, your professional situation is stable, your financing is validated, and you either know the city already or have someone representing you there. It avoids two moves and puts the money into an asset rather than into rent.
Financing as a non-resident
This is the most structuring advice we give. A non-resident buyer can obtain a French mortgage, but banks assess the file against stricter criteria than for a French tax resident: the stability of the employment, the nature and currency of the income, the size of the deposit.
The figure an online simulator produces can be far from what a French bank will actually grant. Speaking to a broker who handles international profiles before you start viewing avoids visiting properties that could never be financed, and it makes your offer credible to a seller. What is realistic for an American buyer is set out in French mortgages for Americans.
Step 3: the first months
Finding somewhere to live is one thing. Feeling at home is another. The weeks after the keys change hands have their own checklist.
The home: take meter readings, open or transfer the energy contracts, set up internet and phone, take out home insurance, check that the equipment works, and keep every document in one accessible file.
Rights and formalities: complete your affiliation to Assurance Maladie, choose a complementary health insurer, open or reactivate a bank account, check your entitlements with the CAF, notify the tax authority of your return, update the vehicle registration, register on the electoral roll and update your address everywhere it matters.
Family and health: finalise school or nursery enrolment, take out school insurance, find the after-school activities, declare a médecin traitant and identify the health professionals in your neighbourhood.
Where we come in
We search, visit and negotiate on behalf of people who are not in the country. That means walking the neighbourhood before recommending it, filming a property honestly rather than flatteringly, and telling you when something is not worth a flight.
It also means someone is finally on your side of the table. In France the estate agent is instructed and paid by the seller, a distinction we explain in buyer’s agent versus estate agent in France.
Our teams cover fifteen areas of France, from Paris and Lyon to the Normandy coast and the Basque Country. If Paris is your destination, our Paris market overview is the place to start.
Figures on the expatriate return are from the Expat Communication barometer, as cited in our French-language relocation guide.
