Long stay visa help? Spain? France?

[Eric50]

I am giving you here below the weblinks from the official franch customs websites, related to sailing formalities, unfortunately in French, in the past they use to have an English version but seems to have disappear, apologies for it:

Generic procedures / formalities:

Articles > Formalités générales

Which entity / custom agency to be in touch with, depending on the issue you want to adress :

Plaisanciers : le bon interlocuteur pour vos démarches

usefull infos for leisure sailors :

Brochures et fiches d'information pour les plaisanciers

General informations and procedures for travellers to & from France :

Articles > Formalités générales

Free tax procedures :

Articles > Détaxe

I just found this one that is in English (finally!!!) and may be useful :

French Customs for business

In this last page you'll have others links for most of your questions.

Hope this will help.

[Eric50]

More links in English for French customs and formalities, contact details as well:

Articles > Customs clearance

Taxes :

Articles > Taxation and excise duties

Others than France European countries custom department contact details :

Les coordonnées des douanes européennes et d'autres organismes internationaux

Contact details of french customs in...USA ! :

Articles > French counselors in your country

More contact details for customs in France :

Articles > Contacts

Hope this will help.

[fieldtrip400]

Originally Posted by tgrimmett

Hello fieldtrip400. My wife and I are going through the French long stay visa process right now here in the U.S., before we depart this spring for a summer sail in the Med. We will let you know how it goes. There are a lot of steps and forms to complete, but so far I haven't seen any hurdles of Olympic proportions to overcome. My impression is that they are trying to make sure that (a) we have the means to travel for the length of the visa period, (b) we are not criminals (a mandatory criminal history report from the local police department took care of that), (c) that we promise we won't work while there (there's an affidavit form for this), (d) we can prove that we have accommodations - bill of sale or rental agreement (I'm not sure what they will accept from us on this one - ownership of the boat?) and (e) proof we have health insurance. The consulate also had paperwork for requesting a resident permit, but this seemed like a dicey approach, as my understanding is we would then be required to pay VAT on the boat. In the end, we are hoping they will look favorably on us, as we are buying a French boat!

And good luck on your family cruise plans. We took our young boys on a year long cruise awhile back, homeschooling along the way, and it was an incredible experience for all of us.

HI tgrimmett!

Good luck with the process keep me posted! When do you leave? Will be applying right after you then but I'm afraid it really needs to be Spain for us because that is where we are leaving from and will be in the canaries for a while and November dodging hurricane season waiting to go over with the arc. Can you send me your contact info in a private message? Would love to talk to you some more about that year trip you took with your boys! Looking forward to talking with you and hope to run into you in the med this summer :-)

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Eric50

I am giving you here below the weblinks from the official franch customs websites, related to sailing formalities, unfortunately in French, in the past they use to have an English version but seems to have disappear, apologies for it:

Generic procedures / formalities:

Articles > Formalités générales

Which entity / custom agency to be in touch with, depending on the issue you want to adress :

Plaisanciers : le bon interlocuteur pour vos démarches

usefull infos for leisure sailors :

Brochures et fiches d'information pour les plaisanciers

General informations and procedures for travellers to & from France :

Articles > Formalités générales

Free tax procedures :

Articles > Détaxe

I just found this one that is in English (finally!!!) and may be useful :

French Customs for business

In this last page you'll have others links for most of your questions.

Hope this will help.

They're just being petty over Brexit..

[fieldtrip400]

Thank you boatman61!

[hellosailor]

You can copy entire web pages into translate.google.com but if you have Google Chrome, it can be set to mangle, ergh, translate, all foreign language pages as it opens them.

Handy tool.

[Gpolar]

Anyone has experience have two different country passport. U exit one passport. And enter with another legit passport.

[john61ct]

Every jurisdiction I know of requires using the same passport for entry and exit.

And using the passport of that country if you have one.

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Every jurisdiction I know of requires using the same passport for entry and exit.

And using the passport of that country if you have one.

Yes but if you enter on one passport, enjoy your 90 days then leave on that same passport and re enter on your dual passport would you not be good for another 90 days?

[Anders]

Immigration is about you not your passport and suspect you can't legally do that and with all the information in the passports being the same I expect the chance of being caught is quite high.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Uncle Bob

Yes but if you enter on one passport, enjoy your 90 days then leave on that same passport and re enter on your dual passport would you not be good for another 90 days?

Once maybe.. but like driverless cars.. smart passports are taking the fun outa life..
Unless your an unfun person and like driverless cars.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

But yes, somehow the EU/Schengen schemes have decided that long-term casual tourists are now "repugnant pestilential foreign trash" to be kept out at all costs, rather than "visitors who might leave money with us".

A complete mis-characterization of the situation.

The simple fact is 99.9%+ of tourists never run afoul of the 90 day limit. Of the remaining less than 0.1%, most get a permanent house/apartment and qualify for a long term visa.

Europe has a population of 3/4 of a billion and I would be surprised if there are more than a few thousand boats at any one time that run into this limit.

We are doing something strange and unusual and have fallen thru the cracks. Given the tiny scale of the issue, it's just not a priority to fix the rules. They have much bigger issues to spend their time on.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Gpolar

Anyone has experience have two different country passport. U exit one passport. And enter with another legit passport.

20-30yrs ago, this probably would have worked because they likely wouldn't have been able to catch you.

I would be very surprised if their systems can't match you up and once they do, expect them to take a dim view of your plan.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

20-30yrs ago, this probably would have worked because they likely wouldn't have been able to catch you.

I would be very surprised if their systems can't match you up and once they do, expect them to take a dim view of your plan.

Yes I actually used to do this. Stopped working with even third world countries computerizing in the years after the millenium.

I got caught doing this in Thailand, fortunately was employed at a large respected International School at the time, had a full-time staffer for immigration issues who had to spend about 20 hours and som baksheesh getting me off the hook, said I was very lucky.

[Rimica]

We are Canadians and took delivery of our boat last May. In order to get around Schengen we applied for a French 1 year visa and got it no problem. It is renewable yearly for up to 3 years. The paper work is a thing of beauty to gather.

1) Passport
2) Birth certificate issued within 3 months
3) Proof of sufficient funds
4) Health insurance
5) A letter promising not to have multiple wives (I kid you not)
6) Proof of a place to stay. Our friends used their boat and were ok
7) A letter promising not to work
8) Absence of criminal record
9) A proof of residence where you are (phone bill, tax bill ...) less than 3 month old.

I may miss one or two

Then once you are here and have been issued the visa by the consulate nearest you in the USA or Canada, they will summond you to the OFFI office a month or two after arrival for a health check (prefunctary). Its tedious but doable.

The renewal process is hit and miss. The renewal is done at a prefecture which they have one in every town. The treatment of renewals is either very strict and profundly unfriendly in some town to manageable in others. I understand that the one in LaRochelle is quite reasonnable. By experience, the ones in the south of France are difficult to deal with. Do not be fooled you cannot choose the prefecture, they will assign one to you closest to the location of the European residence / Marina.

I was told that the Dutch visa is a lot simpler to get according to my daughter who is in the travel business. You may inquire that way as it is valisd across Europe.