Good News on the Carte de Sejour

We've had to go back through the whole process again. Including getting new passports as the first step, since they were expiring.

Cost for the passports: $150

I made an appointment on-line with the French Consulate in LA then started collecting all the paperwork.

Free

We had to have photos taken. They are so cheap in France, they have booths on the street and in many metro stations to take passport photos, but here we had to go to a postal store. But, they look a little better than the ones from the booth, so that's some compensation.

4 photos $38

We had to get letters from the City of Manhattan Beach attesting to the fact that we have no police record.

Police clearance letters $270

Then, I had to compile tons of paperwork. Since we have a copier, I haven't included the cost, but I've made several hundred copies of the various required paperwork.

The requirement for copies differs with each item, so I made three of everything just to be safe.

We also need proof of health insurance in France. US health insurance and Medicare don't pay for medical costs in France. So I bought health insurance for the duration of our next trip, so we could have the proof of insurance.

Health Insurance $955

Then, we had the filing fee.

Filing fee for "dossier" $310

So, the cost to date for this little activity is $1723

We've learned our lesson, though and had every piece of paper ready. It seems like they always ask for something different. This time, they didn't want our birth certificates or marriage license.

Our only snag in the whole day was that some of the printouts from the on-line bank statements didn't have our name on them. We almost had to return with them the next day until I explained to the woman that there were enough statements with our names to make the financial guarantee. She seemed to buy this.

We were in the Consulate for two hours and had three appointments. With a lot of waiting time in between. I expected that they would send us away empty-handed, letting someone in a back office make the final determination at a later date (or after lunch), but on the third appointment, the man returned our passports with the new visas in them. So, we're set!

Look out Prefecture, here we come again!