France employee card or temporary worker card: the contract decides

In France the employment contract, not the occupation, fixes the residence permit. A permanent contract (CDI) leads to the residence card marked salarié. A fixed term contract (CDD) leads to the card marked travailleur temporaire. Both start with the same prior work authorisation filed by the employer.

The rule set by the CESEDA

Articles L.421-1 and L.421-3 of the CESEDA, the French code on entry, residence and asylum, split the two markings according to the contract filed with the application, as the official justice.fr guidance states. An employer hiring a bricklayer on a permanent contract and an employer hiring the same bricklayer on a nine month fixed term contract file the same work authorisation dossier, and the prefecture then issues two different documents.

Validity follows the same logic. The salarié card runs for one year and is renewable. The travailleur temporaire card is cut to the working time left to run under the fixed term contract and cannot exceed one year, again per justice.fr. A seven month contract does not produce a one year card: it produces a seven month card, and the contract end date becomes the end date of the right to stay.

In both cases the pay set in the contract must reach at least the SMIC, the French statutory minimum wage, for the working time the contract provides. Article R.5221-20 of the labour code makes this a condition reviewed at every work authorisation application, renewals included. A part time contract whose monthly pay falls under the matching threshold is refused on that ground alone, before the labour market situation is even examined.

Who handles what, in what time, at what cost

The work authorisation is examined by the interregional foreign labour platform (plateforme interrégionale de main-d'oeuvre étrangère) covering the department where the work is performed, through the employer service on the ANEF portal. The residence card itself is issued by the prefecture, after the favourable work decision. Two administrations, one sequence: the employer opens the file, the worker closes it.

Budget two blocks of time and one line of cost. Platform examination of the work authorisation runs in weeks, and silence kept for two months counts as an implicit refusal. Issuance of the card by the prefecture carries a tax and a stamp duty at the scale published on service-public.fr, 225 euros in total for a first salarié card in 2026, with the tax part payable by the employer. The employer filing itself is free on the portal. The full document by document procedure sits in the French worker introduction procedure.

Where the temporary card breaks continuity

Three events force a fresh work authorisation before the worker may start: a change of employer, a move from fixed term to permanent, and a renewal of the fixed term contract with the same employer. The filing party is the new employer, or the employer extending the contract. A worker already holding a travailleur temporaire card is not free to sign elsewhere on the strength of that card.

This is where the temporary marking becomes expensive to administer. Every extension reopens a work file and then a residence file, and the two clocks are not synchronised. The recurring case: a six month contract ends on 30 June, the employer files the renewal in late May, the platform examines it through July, and the worker sits without a valid permit between the end of the contract and the new decision. The post is empty, the client assignment slips, and restarting means another prefecture appointment. On a contract renewed twice, the company has paid for three examinations to fill one position.

After a year on the salarié card, the worker may apply for the four year multi year residence card. Since 1 January 2026 that application requires French at A2 level, a condition introduced by law 2024-42 of 26 January 2024 and written into the CESEDA. The exam is prepared during the first year, not at the counter on filing day: a missed session pushes the multi year card back and returns the worker to annual renewals. What the prefecture and the labour inspectorate check afterwards is set out in the French right to work check.

An employer filling a lasting need is better served by writing a permanent contract from the first signature, even where the sector habitually uses fixed term ones. The permit then tracks the post for a full year, the multi year card becomes reachable, and the number of files drops from three to one. Where the post appears on the shortage occupation list, the labour market situation cannot be raised against the application, as set out in the 2026 shortage occupations list, but that changes nothing about the marking: the contract still decides.

Before fixing a start date, read the contract you intend to sign, then read the end date it will impose on the residence card. Teams working French corridors will find the employer framing on the employers page.