France opened a ‘Talent Passport’ scheme in Nov 2016 to attract talent, innovative enterprises to make France a destination for investment and talent. France is an attractive destination for startups and also HNWI.
The Talent Passport residence permit covers ten categories, including employees of young innovative companies, highly qualified workers, recent graduates, artists, company creators, leaders of innovative project and investors.
The French long term residence permit known “Passeport Talent investisseur économique” (Skilled residence permit – Investor) issued for four years with further extensions
Between 2008 and 2016, France operated a golden visa scheme offering Economic Residence permit for investors having made an exceptional economic contribution of €10 million euros. This Economic residence scheme was closed and replaced with new Talent passport scheme in 2016 with reduced investment of condition of EUR 300,000. Some 13 such economic residence permits were issued before 2016 for high value investments.
According to latest statistics from Ministry of Interior, a total of 14,898 first time talent passport visas issued from Nov 1, 2016 to Jan 2019. Family members also received some 4,300 residence permits under this scheme.
| 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | Total | |
| Talent Passport visa | 962 | 6894 | 7042 | 14898 |
| Family | 354 | 1793 | 2229 | 4376 |
French Golden Visa
The Talent passport scheme is dubbed as the french golden visa scheme as this visa issued to foreign investors who invest in innovative enterprises creating jobs (not a passive investment).
- The investment threshold EUR 300,000
- The condition to create or maintain or commit at least 50 jobs within the four years following the investment in France (i.e. no specific targets for the amount of jobs created);
- The investor and his/her family are granted a four-year residency card with extensions
French Citizenship
France does not offer preferential treatment for french citizenship to talent passport card holders and have to follow the normal naturalization law in France which requires ten years of living without interruption, no criminal record, integration to language and society and culture.
