Living in France: pros and cons of moving in 2026

Life in France suits people who are willing to learn French and want a European passport. You can apply for citizenship after 5 years of residence, the state health system refunds most of your medical costs, nursery school from age 3 is free, and life expectancy in 2025 stood at 85.9 years for women and 80.3 years for men, according to INSEE. The downsides can be measured too. Eurostat puts French prices 6.4% above the EU average for 2025, and rent in Paris is twice what it is in Toulouse. From 2026, most multi-year residence cards require French, and red tape and strikes remain part of everyday life. Below are the pros and cons of living in France, based on official data: money, healthcare, schools, language, cities and safety.

Pros and cons of living in France

The table only includes what official sources confirm or what is self-evident without numbers. We left out anything subjective, such as “great food” or “rude Parisians”.

If you are choosing between France and Spain, our comparison of visas, citizenship timelines, tax regimes and prices is in the article Spain or France. This article covers France itself in detail.

Cost of living in France

French official statistics do not publish a household “spending basket” in euros. An honest picture comes from three pieces: what people earn, what housing costs, and how prices compare with other EU countries.

Salaries: minimum, average and median

The SMIC figures come from service-public.gouv.fr, where the net amount is given as an estimate. Average and median salaries are from an INSEE study of 2024 published on 23 October 2025. The median is 19.9% below the average: high earners pull the average up, so the median is the more honest basis for a budget. In 2024, women earned 13.0% less than men for the same volume of work. The publication gives no separate figures for Paris.

The gap between gross and net pay is made up of employee social contributions. At SMIC level it comes to €389.09 a month, around 21%. Income tax is calculated separately on a progressive scale: in 2026, for 2025 income, the first €11,600 per tax share is tax-free, followed by rates of 11%, 30%, 41% and 45%. The number of shares depends on household composition, so a family with children usually pays less than a single person on the same income. How this works and what reliefs newcomers can claim is explained in personal income tax in France.

Renting: Paris and other cities

Rent is a newcomer’s biggest expense. The only official source with figures for every commune is the rent map (carte des loyers) from the Ministry of Housing and the national housing agency ANIL. It is built from leboncoin and SeLoger listings and shows the asking rent, including service charges, for unfurnished flats advertised in Q3 2025. The benchmark flat is 52 m². These are advertised prices rather than rents under existing leases, and the authors themselves describe the indicators as experimental.

What this means for your budget: a 52 m² flat in the most affordable part of Paris costs around €1,440 a month, roughly 66% of the median net salary and almost all of the SMIC take-home pay. In Toulouse, the same flat costs half as much. That is why the question “how much does it cost to live in France?” nearly always comes down to “in which city?”.

• Don’t transfer any money before viewing the flat and signing the lease. According to the French Interior Ministry, fraud rose by 7% in 2025, and more than half of cases were linked to the internet.
• Compare rents including service charges. The rent map already includes them, but listings sometimes show them separately.
• Look at suburbs and neighbouring communes. The map gives a rate for every commune, and the difference from the centre can be significant.

Prices compared with the EU and Spain

Eurostat compares price levels across EU countries, with 100% as the EU average. In 2025, the overall consumer price level was 106.4% in France and 91.1% in Spain. But the picture is uneven:

• Housing, water, electricity and gas: 120.7% in France versus 98.1% in Spain, the main category where France is more expensive.
• Restaurants and hotels: 116.0% versus 85.4%.
• Transport: 108.2% versus 88.1%.
• Food and non-alcoholic drinks: 106.8% versus 95.3%.
• Medical goods and services: 94.3% versus 94.2%, almost identical.
• Telecoms: 89.7% versus 97.4%, where France is cheaper.

Salaries in France are higher, so for people working on the local job market the price gap is partly offset. If you live on income from another country, the prices themselves matter more.

Healthcare in France: how to get into the system

Healthcare in France is not free, but most costs are refunded by the state health insurance fund (Assurance Maladie). Entitlement comes through universal health cover, PUMa (protection universelle maladie). A non-EU national needs legal status to qualify: a residence permit or a visa that serves as one.

When newcomers get access

• You work in France. Your healthcare costs are covered from your first hour of work. Your employer files a declaration of hiring, but you have to register with the fund where you live yourself. Family members who live with you in France for more than 3 months are covered too.
• You don’t work, for example if you live in France on a visiteur card. Your rights open after 3 months of residence and are kept as long as you live in France for at least 6 months a year. Until then you need private insurance: health insurance for the entire stay is a mandatory condition of the visiteur card.
• New in 2026. The Social Security Financing Act of 30 December 2025 introduces a financial contribution for non-working PUMa beneficiaries who do not pay CSG and CRDS contributions. The amount will be set by decree, which had not been published at the time of checking.

Carte Vitale, médecin traitant and mutuelle

1. Apply to open your rights at the health insurance fund where you live (CPAM).
2. Open a personal account on ameli.fr once the fund has given you a social security number.
3. Order your carte Vitale, the health insurance card, through your account. It arrives within 2 weeks. Until then, show your doctor a certificate of entitlement (attestation de droits), which you can download from the same account.
4. Choose a registered GP (médecin traitant). This is required from age 16 if you want full reimbursement. You fill in the declaration together with the doctor and send it to the fund. You can see a dentist directly, and children under 16 are reimbursed normally without a médecin traitant.
5. Take out top-up insurance (mutuelle). It pays what the fund does not refund. If you are employed, your employer must pay at least 50% of the premium for a group mutuelle.

How much you get back

Of the €30 for a visit to your own GP, the fund refunds €19. If your mutuelle covers the remaining 30% of the fee, that is €9, you are left paying €2, the flat-rate contribution (participation forfaitaire). There is also a deductible (franchise): €1 per pack of medicine, €1 per procedure by a nurse or physiotherapist, and €4 for medical transport. Each of these two deductions is capped at €50 a year per person, and the franchise does not apply to under-18s. Procedures and transport also have daily limits: no more than €4 and €8 a day respectively.

Life expectancy in France

According to the latest INSEE data, published on 13 January 2026, life expectancy in France in 2025 was 85.9 years for women and 80.3 years for men. Both figures rose by 0.1 years and reached an all-time high. The data is provisional and covers all of France, including the overseas departments. In metropolitan France alone, men live 80.4 years on average and women the same 85.9.

• The gender gap is narrowing. In 2025, women outlive men by 5.6 years; in 2005 the gap was 7.1 years, and in 1995, 8.1.
• The 2020 dip has been recovered. In 2020, life expectancy fell to 85.1 and 79.1 years. By 2023 it had returned to the 2019 level for women and exceeded it for men.
• At 60, there is plenty of life ahead. A Frenchwoman who turned 60 in 2025 can expect another 27.9 years on average, a Frenchman another 23.9 years.
• Deaths rose in 2025 by 1.5%, to 651,000, partly because of a severe winter flu epidemic. Life expectancy still edged up.

There are noticeable differences within the country. According to INSEE data for 2025, people in the departments of the largest cities live longer than the French average:

• Paris: 82.4 years for men and 87.1 years for women;
• Rhône (Lyon): 81.9 and 87.1 years;
• Haute-Garonne (Toulouse): 82.1 and 86.4 years;
• Gironde (Bordeaux): 81.3 and 86.4 years;
• Alpes-Maritimes (Nice): 81.1 and 86.5 years;
• Bouches-du-Rhône (Marseille): 81.0 and 86.0 years.

Life expectancy is lowest in Mayotte: 73.0 years for men and 76.4 years for women.

Life expectancy at birth is a calculated indicator: how long a generation would live on average if mortality at every age stayed as it was in a given year. It is not a forecast for any individual, but it is a good way to compare countries and years.

Retirement in France

The average pension from a retiree’s own contributions (droit direct) for pensioners living in France was €1,666 gross a month in 2023: €1,306 for women and €2,089 for men. These are the latest figures INSEE publishes, based on a study by DREES, the statistics office of the Ministry of Health.

For a retiree moving to France, something else matters more: you will not receive the French minimum pension, ASPA. From 1 January 2026, it is paid from age 65 to a person living alone with income below €1,043.59 gross a month, but a Russian national must first have lived in France for at least 10 consecutive years with a residence permit that allows work. So a retiree from Russia can move on a visiteur card and live on their own income. From 1 June 2026, that means at least €1,477.93 net a month for one person, and the card does not allow you to work. Conditions and documents are covered in the French visitor visa.

Schools and nursery schools

• Schooling is compulsory from age 3. A child must be enrolled in école maternelle from the start of the school year in the calendar year they turn 3. The obligation lasts until 16, through collège and lycée.
• State maternelle is free. A child can be admitted from age 2 if they are ready and places are available.
• Enrolment starts at the town hall and is then completed at the school. You need the child’s birth certificate or passport, recent proof of address and a record of the vaccinations compulsory for their age.
• The fine for not enrolling a child is up to €1,500. Home schooling is only allowed with permission from the departmental director of education (Dasen).
• Teaching in state schools is in French. A child without the language will need time to adapt, and parents without French will find it hard to communicate with teachers.

Can you live in France without French?

You can, but it is hard, and from 2026 it affects your residence status, not just daily life.

• Documents. Since 1 January 2026, the first multi-year card requires French at A2 and a civics exam, and the first resident card requires B1. Residence permits outside the republican integration contract (CIR) are exempt from the A2 requirement: the Talent Passport (passeport talent) and its family card, and the student card. The visiteur card has no multi-year version at all: it is issued for a year and renewed annually. For naturalisation, since 1 January 2026 you need spoken and written French at B2 and a passed civics exam.
• Public services. The health insurance fund, tax office, town hall and prefecture all operate in French. So do letters, document requests and online accounts.
• Renting. The lease, the inventory and correspondence with the landlord are all in French, and a mistake in a lease costs more than in any other document.
• Doctors. Don’t count on a GP or nurse speaking English, especially outside Paris.
• Work. On the local job market and when dealing with clients, French is almost always required.

The practical takeaway: if you don’t speak French yet, choose a status that doesn’t require it at the start, such as the Talent Passport, and learn the language alongside it, in time for the resident card and citizenship.

Best cities to live in France

There is no official ranking of the best French cities to live in, so we are not inventing one. Below are the six largest cities with what can be verified: INSEE population figures as at 1 January 2023 (these figures apply from 1 January 2026) and rents from the rent map for Q3 2025.

• Paris: 2,103,778 residents. The capital, home to ministries, headquarters and the widest choice of jobs, but also the highest rents, from €27.70 to €37.89 per m². From 2017 to 2023 its population shrank by 0.65% a year, the second-steepest decline among cities of more than 100,000 people.
• Marseille: 886,040 residents, the second-largest city and a Mediterranean port. Rent ranges from €14.31 to €18.41 per m² depending on the arrondissement; the population is growing by 0.43% a year.
• Lyon: 519,127 residents, a major city in the south-east, not far from the Alps. Rent ranges from €15.78 to €17.66 per m², a narrower spread across arrondissements than in Paris and Marseille.
• Toulouse: 514,819 residents, the hub of the aerospace industry. It has the lowest rent among the ten largest cities, €13.98 per m², and its population is growing by 1.19% a year.
• Nice: 357,737 residents, on the Côte d’Azur. Rent is €20.43 per m², the highest among the ten largest cities after Paris.
• Bordeaux: 267,991 residents, in the south-west, close to the Atlantic. Rent is €15.99 per m², and the population is growing by 0.87% a year.

The fastest-growing of the ten largest cities is Montpellier, at 1.42% a year, with 310,240 residents and rent of €15.49 per m². Nantes is growing by 0.97% a year, with rent at €14.50 per m².

Russians in France

INSEE does not count people by native language, so official statistics have no figure for “Russian speakers in France”. There is data by country of birth:

• 77,000 immigrants born in Russia were living in France at the start of 2023 (provisional estimate). The figure for those born in Ukraine was 81,000.
• Between 2021 and 2022, the number of arriving immigrants born in Russia more than doubled, compared with an average increase of 1.3 times across all countries.
• Immigrants from European countries outside the EU, like immigrants in general, are more likely to live in Île-de-France, the Paris region.
• In total, in 2025 France had 8.0 million immigrants, 11.6% of the population; a third of them, 2.6 million, have already acquired French citizenship.

Because the statistics count by country of birth, the figure of 77,000 excludes Russian speakers from other countries and the French-born children of those who moved. France allows dual citizenship: when you naturalise, you state which nationalities you are keeping. How to acquire French citizenship and keep your Russian one is explained in French citizenship.

Safety in France

Official crime statistics are compiled by SSMSI, the statistics office of the French Interior Ministry. Its report for 2025 came out on 9 July 2026 and counts offences recorded by the police and gendarmerie across France.

These figures show trends, not the risk in any particular neighbourhood. The Interior Ministry itself warns that many victims do not report crimes, so recorded crime understates the real level. There is no official comparison of safety in French and Spanish cities, and we don’t offer one. For a newcomer, the most practical lesson from the statistics is to be careful with online listings and money transfers: fraud is rising fastest.

Who France suits, and who it doesn’t

France suits you if:

• you want a European passport within a foreseeable timeframe: naturalisation is possible after 5 years of residence, and dual citizenship is allowed;
• you are a skilled professional, founder or investor and may qualify for the Talent Passport, a card of up to 4 years with no A2 requirement at the start and family cards for your close relatives;
• you have children: free nursery school from age 3 and healthcare that refunds most costs;
• you are ready to learn French and live outside Paris, where rent is half the price.

France doesn’t suit you if:

• you don’t plan to learn the language: from 2026, you cannot get to a resident card or citizenship without it;
• you want to live in Paris on around the median salary: a 52 m² flat would take about two-thirds of your budget;
• you work remotely and are looking for a digital nomad visa: France doesn’t have one;
• bureaucracy in French and strikes are a deal-breaker for you.

The shortest route to living in France with a path to citizenship is the Talent Passport: all its categories, thresholds and timelines are covered in the French Talent Passport, and the other grounds in our overview of French residence permits. If you are not sure whether you fit one of the categories, or which option works best for your family, tell us about your situation and we will assess, free of charge, which route is realistic and where to start.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average life expectancy in France?

According to INSEE data for 2025, it is 85.9 years for women and 80.3 years for men. These are provisional figures for all of France, published on 13 January 2026, and an all-time high. Women outlive men by 5.6 years.

What are the downsides of living in France?

The main downsides are the language, prices and bureaucracy. From 2026, most multi-year residence cards require French at A2. The price level is 106.4% of the EU average, and rent in Paris ranges from €27.70 to €37.89 per m² a month. Income tax is progressive up to 45%, and on top of that there are strikes and paperwork in French.

How much does it cost to live in France per month?

There is no official figure for a household: it all depends on the city. Advertised rent for a 52 m² flat in Q3 2025, including service charges, was around €727 in Toulouse, around €831 in Bordeaux and from €1,440 in Paris. For comparison, the minimum take-home wage from 1 June 2026 is €1,477.93, and the median salary in 2024 was €2,190.

Is healthcare in France free?

No, you pay and are reimbursed. A GP visit costs €30 in 2026, and the fund refunds €19 if it is your registered GP, or €8.40 if not. The rest is covered by a top-up mutuelle. A newcomer in work is entitled to reimbursement from their first hour of work; one who doesn’t work, after 3 months of residence.

What is the average salary in France?

In the private sector in 2024, it was €2,733 net and €3,602 gross a month for full-time work, according to INSEE. The median salary is €2,190 net. The minimum wage (SMIC) from 1 June 2026 is €1,867.02 gross, around €1,477.93 take-home.

What are the best cities to live in France?

There is no official ranking. Among the ten largest cities, Toulouse has the lowest rent at €13.98 per m², and Montpellier is growing fastest, at 1.42% a year. Paris offers the most jobs, but rent there is twice as high. The choice depends on work, budget and climate.

What is life like for retirees in France?

The average pension for retirees living in France was €1,666 gross a month in 2023. A retiree moving from Russia will not receive the French minimum pension, ASPA, straight away: it requires 10 consecutive years with a residence permit that allows work. You can move on a visiteur card with income of at least €1,477.93 net a month per person.

How many Russians live in France?

According to INSEE estimates, 77,000 immigrants born in Russia were living in France at the start of 2023. INSEE does not publish data on Russian speakers. In 2022, arrivals of people born in Russia more than doubled compared with 2021.

Official sources

• Demographic report 2025: life expectancy — INSEE
• Life expectancy in 2025 by department — INSEE
• Private-sector salaries in 2024 — INSEE
• Minimum wage (SMIC) — service-public.gouv.fr
• Income tax scale — service-public.gouv.fr
• Rent map 2025 by commune — data.gouv.fr
• Rent map — Ministry of Ecological Transition and Housing
• Price level indices, 2025 — Eurostat
• Universal health cover (PUMa) — service-public.gouv.fr
• Health insurance for foreign nationals moving to France — service-public.gouv.fr
• Consultation fees and reimbursement — ameli.fr
• Registered GP and the coordinated care pathway — ameli.fr
• How to get a carte Vitale — ameli.fr
• The €2 flat-rate contribution — ameli.fr
• Medical deductible (franchise) — ameli.fr
• Employer group mutuelle — service-public.gouv.fr
• Average gross pensions — INSEE
• Minimum pension (ASPA) — service-public.gouv.fr
• Visiteur card — service-public.gouv.fr
• Compulsory schooling from age 3 — service-public.gouv.fr
• Enrolling in école maternelle — service-public.gouv.fr
• French language requirements for multi-year and resident cards — service-public.gouv.fr
• Republican integration contract — service-public.gouv.fr
• Naturalisation — service-public.gouv.fr
• B2 French for citizenship — service-public.gouv.fr
• Talent card — service-public.gouv.fr
• Population of communes as at 1 January 2023 — INSEE
• Immigrants and foreign nationals: key figures — INSEE
• Immigrants born in Europe, 2023 — INSEE
• Migration flows — INSEE
• Crime in 2025: statistical report — SSMSI, French Interior Ministry