École Polytechnique (l'X)

Work during study

A non-EU/EEA student holding a student residence card or a long-stay visa valid as a residence permit (VLS-TS) for study may work up to 964 hours per year — described as 60% of the statutory full-time annual working duration — without their employer needing to separately obtain a work authorisation. The 964-hour window runs for one year from the date the card was issued or the VLS-TS validated (an anniversary-based count, not the calendar year), and to work beyond that limit the employer must apply for and obtain a work authorisation before the student starts.

Post-study work visa

Carte de séjour or VLS-TS "recherche d'emploi/création d'entreprise" (the route commonly referred to in English as the APS, Autorisation Provisoire de Séjour) . Up to 1 year
Valid for exactly 1 year and cannot be renewed. Available to a non-EU/EEA graduate who held a student (or student-mobility-programme) residence card and who obtained, within the 12 months before applying, a licence professionnelle, a Mastère Spécialisé, a Master of Science labelled by the Conférence des Grandes Écoles, or another diploma at least equivalent to a master's degree. During its validity the holder may work as a salaried employee without their employer needing a separate work authorisation, provided the job is related to their field of study and pays a gross monthly salary of at least EUR 2,800.53 — the usual 964-hour/60% annual cap on student work does not apply during this card. One naming nuance worth flagging: service-public.fr uses 'carte de séjour ou VLS-TS recherche d'emploi/création d'entreprise' as the general name for this route, and reserves the specific term 'autorisation provisoire de séjour (APS)' on its own pages for a narrower case — nationals of a country that has signed a migration-flow-management agreement with France (a specific, named list of countries) applying for a first professional experience. In practice both are commonly called 'the APS' in English-language explainers, and StudyPath follows that common usage while disclosing the distinction here. This route does not apply to Algerian students, who are governed by a separate bilateral Franco-Algerian agreement not covered by this entry.

Route to permanent residence

The job-search card/VLS-TS does not itself count towards permanent residence, and neither, on the evidence of its own enumerated list, does an ordinary student residence card: service-public.fr's page on the 'carte de résident de longue durée-UE' (the standard route built on 5 years of regular residence) lists exactly which residence-permit types count toward that 5-year period — a long-stay visa valid as a residence permit, the temporary/multi-year 'visiteur' card, the private-and-family-life card, the salarié (employee) card, the entrepreneur/self-employed card, the 'talent' multi-year card, and the carte de résident itself — and a student or job-search card is not among them. In practice this means the clock towards permanent residence generally only starts once a graduate secures salaried work (or otherwise qualifies for one of the listed cards) after using the job-search card, not from when they first arrived to study. Once someone has held a qualifying card for 5 years of legal, uninterrupted residence in France (absences allowed up to 6 consecutive months and 10 months total), they may apply for the carte de résident de longue durée-UE, valid for 10 years and renewable, which also carries a French-language (B1) and civic-integration exam requirement.

Route to citizenship

French nationality by naturalisation (naturalisation par décret) is granted by decree of the Ministry of the Interior. The standard route requires a minimum of 5 years' habitual residence in France, but service-public.fr sets out several shorter tracks relevant to StudyPath’s readers: no minimum residence at all for a refugee, a francophone-native speaker, or someone from a francophone country schooled 5+ years in French; and — directly relevant to an international graduate — only 2 years' residence for someone who obtained a degree from a French higher-education institution after 2 years of study there, or who has an exceptional record of integration or important services rendered to France. Applicants must also live in France when the decree is signed, hold a valid residence permit, pass a civic knowledge exam and an interview at the prefecture, show spoken and written French to at least CEFR level B1, have stable and sufficient income, and have no disqualifying criminal record. France permits multiple nationality without requiring renunciation: service-public.fr states plainly that it is possible to hold several nationalities in France, and that someone who becomes French by naturalisation or declaration keeps whichever of their existing nationalities they wish to (voluntary renunciation is available but not compulsory).

What the government currently prioritises

When a graduate on the job-search card finds a job and applies to switch onto the standard 'salarié' (employee) residence card, French law normally applies a labour-market test (the 'opposabilité de la situation de l'emploi') that can block the switch — but that test is waived, regardless of salary, if the job is on the government's official list of occupations characterised by recruitment difficulties ('métiers en tension'), a list published by ministerial order (most recently the Arrêté du 21 mai 2025) and organised by occupation and geographic zone. The test is separately waived — without needing to be on that list — for a job that is related to the graduate's field of study and pays at least EUR 2,800.53 gross per month. Which occupations and regions appear on the métiers-en-tension list changes with each ministerial order and is not reproduced here.