France Student Visa Requirements for Indian Students in 2026-27

  • Last Updated on: September 24, 2026 by
  • Swapna Kanchikacherla
France Student Visa Requirements
France Student Visa Requirements

If your course in France runs longer than 90 days you need a long-stay student visa, and from 1 August 2026 your file has to show EUR 877.50 a month in living costs. That visa is the VLS-TS, and it becomes your residence permit once you arrive. Most France student visa requirements come back to money, and it isn’t one bill but four. Below: each charge, how the monthly funds figure moves, and the 30-day appeal route.

Written by
Swapna Kanchikacherla
Head of European Desk
Specialises in Germany and France student admissions and visa documentation, with a focus on Campus France, APS, blocked-account and proof-of-funds files.
9 Years, 1100 Visas
Reviewed by
Sridhar Kongara
Managing Director
Mr. Kongara Sridhar, Director of AOEC India, has over 12 years of experience in overseas education consulting, admissions, and student visa guidance.
Over 12 years Experience

Key Takeaways

  • Any programme over 90 days needs the long-stay VLS-TS; anything shorter takes a Schengen short-stay visa and skips the Etudes en France platform.
  • Show EUR 877.50 a month (about INR 95,920), roughly EUR 10,530 (about INR 11.51 lakh) a year, from 1 August 2026.
  • Four charges, about INR 47,900 in year one: EUR 50 visa fee (INR 5,466), INR 20,000 Etudes en France fee, EUR 100 arrival validation (INR 10,931), EUR 105 CVEC (INR 11,478).
  • There is no Campus France NOC: the automated email after your academic interview unlocks the VFS booking.
  • Refused? The CRRV appeal goes by post, in French, within 30 days, before any court.
Table of Contents
Which France Student Visa You Need, by Course Length Scroll here ↓ France Student Visa Documents for Indian Applicants Scroll here ↓ France Student Visa Fees in 2026-27: Four Separate Charges Scroll here ↓ How Much Money You Must Show for a France Student Visa Scroll here ↓ France Student Visa Timeline and What to Do If It Is Refused Scroll here ↓ Validating Your VLS-TS Within Three Months of Arrival Scroll here ↓ Frequently Asked Questions Scroll here ↓

Which France Student Visa You Need, by Course Length

A six-week summer school in Lyon and a two-year master’s in Toulouse need different visas, and only the second goes through Etudes en France (EEF, the online pre-application platform). Find your row:

  • Master’s or MBA over 90 days: VLS-TS. EEF file first, then VFS biometrics, at least three months before your intake.
  • Class 12 leaver, French-taught bachelor’s: VLS-TS plus the DAP dossier blanc, the separate paper route for a first-year place, which opens months earlier than the EEF one.
  • One-semester exchange: the VLS-T (visa long sejour temporaire), one letter short of the VLS-TS and a different visa. It never becomes a residence permit.
  • Summer school, or anything under 90 days: a Schengen short-stay study visa, no EEF file at all.
  • Entrance test or interview trip: the visa concours. Pass the test and you can apply for a one-year renewable residence permit from inside France, without flying home.

Most applicants land in the first row, on a VLS-TS issued for four months to a year. Course length alone decides your visa type, so get the exact end date onto your attestation d’inscription (enrolment certificate) before you book. Still comparing programmes? Start with our study in France guide.

France Student Visa Documents for Indian Applicants

One document is mandatory for everyone: the attestation d’inscription (enrolment certificate) from the institution that admitted you. The France-Visas visa wizard builds the rest of your list case by case, so there’s no single printable checklist.

The four gates every file passes are the France student visa requirements that decide it.

  • To validate the EEF file: that enrolment certificate, academic records from Class 10 onwards, CV and statement of purpose, all uploaded before the consulate sees anything.
  • To clear the academic interview: nothing new. The same study plan, defended out loud.
  • To book VFS: the automated email that lands once the interview is done. Applicants call this the NOC; no NOC exists or is issued.
  • At the VFS counter: passport, the France-Visas form, biometrics, funds evidence, and a temporary address for your first three months.

In the files we run, a weak study plan surfaces at the interview first. Be ready to say in one sentence why this programme and not the one down the road. Our Campus France application process walkthrough takes the portal stages in order.

France Student Visa Fees in 2026-27: Four Separate Charges

A French student visa costs about INR 47,900 in mandatory charges for year one, across four separate bills: a EUR 50 (INR 5,466) long-stay visa fee, the INR 20,000 Etudes en France fee, a EUR 100 (INR 10,931) arrival validation tax, and the EUR 105 (INR 11,478) CVEC. Tuition sits on top.

ChargeAmountWhen you payWho collects it
Long-stay student visa feeEUR 50 (INR 5,466)At the VFS appointmentFrance-Visas
Etudes en France procedure feeINR 20,000After EEF file validationCampus France India
VLS-TS arrival validation taxEUR 100 (INR 10,931)Within 3 months of landingANEF
CVEC 2026-2027EUR 105 (INR 11,478)Before final enrolmentCVEC portal
VFS Global service feeQuoted when you bookAt the VFS appointmentVFS Global

Only the first two charges leave India. The EUR 100 validation tax and the EUR 105 CVEC land in your first weeks there, so parents should keep that money back.

The EUR 50 is a floor: some cases are charged differently (France-Visas). The VFS Global service fee is a fifth charge, quoted when you book. Tuition and living costs are a separate budget, in our cost of studying in France breakdown.

How Much Money You Must Show for a France Student Visa

EUR 877.50 a month is the floor for applications filed from 1 August 2026, roughly EUR 10,530 (about INR 11.51 lakh) over a twelve-month course. The euro amount is not fixed in law: the decree of 22 June 2026 sets the threshold at 47% of France’s gross monthly minimum wage, so it moves when the wage moves.

The law names only the percentage, never a euro figure. France’s minimum wage, the SMIC, rose to EUR 1,867.02 a month on 1 June 2026, and 47% of that is EUR 877.50 – so when the wage rises, so does the amount you have to show. Plan to EUR 877.50 either way: the decree covers residence applications made inside France, and Campus France India applies the same figure to the visa. It covers one year, not your whole course, so you show it again when you renew.

From our counselling desk: across the 80 Campus France files we handled for the September 2025 intake from our Hyderabad and Tirupati offices, the weak link was almost never grades or language. It was funds: no paper trail for how the money was accumulated, and thin parental income proof. Education loan sanction letters went through; unexplained deposits beside them did not.

Tuition stacks on top: a public master’s costs EUR 3,950 a year for a non-EU student in 2026-2027, and the file must show that too. Our proof of funds breakdown sets out which accounts count and whose name they sit in.

France Student Visa Timeline and What to Do If It Is Refused

Apply three months out. No French authority publishes a processing time, and online estimates disagree because they merge two stages. Across the same 80 files, Campus France took 5 to 7 weeks and VFS 5 to 7 days from submission to decision. File as soon as your unconditional acceptance arrives (Campus France India). More stages in France student visa processing time.

One deadline is fixed in law: if the consulate hasn’t answered within two months, that silence is itself a refusal and your appeal clock starts. That is the legal outer limit, not the normal wait, so treat month two as a deadline.

  1. Appeal to the visa-refusal commission, the CRRV (Commission de recours contre les decisions de refus de visa), by post only, within 30 days.
  2. Write it in French, reasoned and signed, with supporting documents attached.
  3. If the CRRV turns you down, one court hears the next appeal: the tribunal administratif de Nantes, within two months.

The appeal is compulsory before any judge will look at your case. Reapply instead and the 30 days lapse, and the refusal reason is never tested. Match your file against the reasons consulates refuse students.

Validating Your VLS-TS Within Three Months of Arrival

The VLS-TS arrival validation tax is EUR 100 (about INR 10,931). It was EUR 50 until 1 May 2026, when the 2026 budget law doubled the student rate, which is why older pages still show the lower figure. You pay it through ANEF, the interior ministry's portal for foreign nationals, within three months of landing.

Three more France student visa requirements land in your first weeks:

  • CVEC paid before you complete enrolment.
  • Health cover: free and compulsory for every non-European student under 28. The EUR 30,000 minimum you may have read about is a short-stay Schengen rule.
  • Work: up to 964 hours a year, roughly 18 hours a week, with no separate work permit needed inside the cap. Degree internships don’t count against it.

No official page says which twelve months the 964 hours cover, so count yours from your permit date, not from January.

Since 1 July 2026 a non-EU student gets French housing assistance in three cases only: a social-criteria scholarship, paid employment, or an apprenticeship contract. If you are self-funded and not working you get nothing, so take rent aid out of your budget.

When the one-year visa runs out you move onto a carte de sejour pluriannuelle (multi-year residence permit) for the rest of your course. Indian master’s graduates can then stay on a temporary post-study permit, the APS: one year, renewable once under the France-India mobility treaty, so up to 24 months. Across those two years the job has to match your field and pay at least 1.5 times the minimum wage, about EUR 2,800 a month. More in our post-study work visa guide.

Get in Touch

Frequently Asked Questions

EUR 877.50 a month (about INR 95,920) for applications from 1 August 2026, roughly EUR 10,530 (about INR 11.51 lakh) over a twelve-month course, plus that year’s tuition. A public master’s adds EUR 3,950 (about INR 4.32 lakh) to the total.

No. Campus France India issues no NOC of any kind. After the academic interview you receive an automated email confirming the step is done, and that email lets you book your VFS Global appointment. If an agent charges you for an NOC, you are paying for a free email.

About INR 47,900 in mandatory charges for year one: EUR 50 (INR 5,466) visa fee, INR 20,000 Etudes en France fee, EUR 100 (INR 10,931) arrival validation, EUR 105 (INR 11,478) CVEC. The VFS Global service fee is extra and unpublished.

The visa itself asks for no language test. The consulate wants your enrolment certificate; the test behind it, IELTS, TOEFL or a French exam, is set by the institution admitting you. Check the programme page, not the visa rules, before you assume you are exempt.

At least three months before your intake date, and as soon as your unconditional acceptance letter arrives. No authority publishes one; in our files Campus France ran 5 to 7 weeks and VFS 5 to 7 days. If the consulate stays silent for two months, that counts as a refusal.

Ardent Overseas has counselled Indian students from its Hyderabad and Tirupati offices for over a decade. Our France desk builds the EEF file, the funds evidence and the interview prep as one set, the way a consulate reads them, rather than as three separate errands.

Sources

Official sources first, then reputable third-party.

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