Our Big Move

Deciding on, applying for, and acquiring our visas

Just over 3 weeks from our departure date, we had both of our visas in-hand. We were relieved; other actions to make the move happen were irreversibly in motion, so the legal process to fully open that door really needed to work out. Turns out, it was actually a much smoother process than we’d feared.

We had a pretty good idea of what visa would be most appropriate for us based on France’s government website, but it helped to get confirmation from a connection we were given through a family friend; we told our story to Jean Taquet, who specializes in helping Americans move to France. He affirmed our plans in a way that was confidence-inspiring, so we could attempt to relax into an overall sense of groundedness.

The internet—particularly lively Facebook groups—can really emit a sense of doom and gloom. Sifting through bad advice from people who were missing important parts of the story was disheartening, so we mostly avoided it.

The visa we chose is the VLS-TS, the long-stay visitor visa. It essentially offers the same limitations and requirements as any tourist visiting the country, except that you are permitted to stay for up to 12 months, with the possibility to renew. We are not able to get jobs in France or do any business in France; we are tourists, for all intents and purposes. My license to practice as a mental health therapist remains limited to Washington State as well, where my clients are all located. Andrew and I both have our independent businesses registered and based out of Washington State.

Meaning, like if you join a Teams call while on vacation in Italy, or send some emails while waiting for your layover in London, we are not working or doing business “in France” itself; our economic activity and business-related services are occurring in Washington State and the US only, while the power and beauty of the modern internet allows it to be so.

And then, of course, we spend our hard-earned US dollars in the French economy, so it’s a win-win for everybody.

We will have the option to apply to renew the VLS-TS visa for a second year if we wish, which is what we anticipate at this point. There is time to explore other options based on how we feel once we’re settled there.

The process

The requirements for the VLS-TS are outlined extremely clearly on the website. At the time we applied, you could submit your initial application up to 90 days before your scheduled arrival date. We applied about a week after we hit that 90 day mark. The online application was actually quite simple, besides the anxiety that bubbled inside both of us the whole time. Once we’d submitted the initial online version, we were allowed to schedule our actual visa appointment, which was very much the “real” application submission.

Online, we were providing our basic information and itinerary. We were once again given the list of requirements, for which we were to bring supporting documents to the appointment.

The documents we submitted in-person at the appointment included:

Our actual passports
Scanned copies of our passports, including all pages with stamps
A signed copy of the online application, printed out
A letter of intent, from each of us, including a statement promising not to do business in France
Copies of our business licenses
The 3 most recent bank statements (just the summary page, not the list of all transactions) from our relevant bank accounts, including my business account and all retirement and investment accounts, to demonstrate the financial means to support ourselves while staying in France
Proof of accommodation when we arrive
Proof of travel health insurance that covers France
ID photos, sized to be in compliance for France (spoiler alert: it’s different from the standard US passport photo!)
Copies of our marriage license

At the bottom of this post, I go into complete detail of what and how we did each of these steps.

The in-person appointment

I feel like the Visa Appointment had this air of mystery and intensity to it, the flames fanned I’m sure by the internet and TV and movies, but for the VLS-TS, this wasn’t a visa interview or some kind of residency test. The nearest French Consulate is actually in San Francisco, but a transmission company called TLS Connect has an office in Seattle for appointments like this one.

Even though we did the online application (which opened up the ability to book an appointment) in early July, the earliest we could schedule an in-person appointment was August 12. This made us nervous, despite all the reassurance online that it would still be plenty of time before our September 15 departure date to get it all done.

Our 8:00am appointment was on a Wednesday, and the office is in the thickest part of downtown Seattle, so we left the house just after six in the morning to account for the insanity of commuter traffic. Naturally, this meant we had parked the car a block away by 7:05am. (I’m certain that if we’d left the house not 15 minutes later, our drive time would have doubled.)

The building TLS Connect was in was clearly a massive business hub. The lobby was vast and swanky. We had to check in with security, who gave us printed QR codes to use to scan into the secure elevators. TLS Connect is on the 22nd floor, in an office that’s easily smaller than the footprint of our tiny two-bedroom home.

They called each of us back one at a time, though we were assured our applications would be processed together. We worked with the same kind, competent lady.

There were a few things we brought along that she said weren’t necessary. For example, I had copies of the statements from Andrew’s retirement accounts, which were waved away since they weren’t in my name and they already had a copy from Andrew. They also didn’t include a copy of the deed to our house. (We thought it would be a helpful demonstration of our access to assets and ongoing ties to the US, but apparently that wasn’t necessary.) We also brought more than 3 months of bank statements, just to be thorough, and they didn’t let us send all of them.

After our curated applications were organized and put together in their official TLS envelope, we were called in one at a time for the “biometrics” part. This was just a room about the size of our newly remodeled bathroom, with one guy who couldn’t have been older than us; he took our photos and fingerprints. Andrew is pissed, because this is the photo that got used for the visa itself, instead of the one we provided from Walgreens—his Walgreens one turned out better.

Our exit was honestly kind of unceremonious. We just walked out through a small side door back into the hallway of the 22nd floor. Nordstrom wasn’t even open yet, down the street. I drove Andrew home, where he picked up his own vehicle to take into the office for his work day, and I tried to reorient my brain to my own Wednesday admin work routine.

By Monday the next week, we were notified that the consulate had received our applications, and they were being processed. By that Friday, less than 10 days after our appointment, UPS was delivering our passports back to us with our shiny new visas inside.

A deep-dive breakdown, for those interested

Scanned copies of our passports, including all pages with stamps

We took our passports to a UPS store for scanned color prints, instead of our home printer, just for the improved quality. The checklist requests all pages with visa stamps, and that the passport has at least 4 blank pages left. We provided scans of every page, including all blank pages, but the TLS lady removed the blank pages from the application. The checklist didn’t specify if the copies needed to be in color or black and white, so we went with color to be safe.

A signed copy of the online application, printed out

We brought our own copies of this, but the TLS lady had her own printed copy that she had us sign and include.

A letter of intent, from each of us, including a statement promising not to do business in France

We each wrote our own letters in English. The reviews online were mixed about writing these in English or French, but we decided we could trust the legal weight of the words we chose in our mother tongue better than attempting to translate ourselves (even with editing help from Claude…).

Our letters were 4 short paragraphs or less. Some snippets from mine include, “I, [my full name and citizenship] am writing this letter of intent to disclose my motivations for applying for the VLS-TS. [...] The purpose of my visit is tourism; more specifically, cultural exchange and language learning.” We included brief summaries of what brings us to France. “[We] have long valued travel and cultural exchange. We have visited over a dozen countries together over the years, but have continued to come back to France multiple times, and determined we would like to see what we can learn more deeply from this country if we stay a little longer. We plan to stay in Paris primarily, but also explore the variety of regions throughout France.”

We stated our dates of travel, named the address of our accommodation, and attested to our financial means to support ourselves. I wrote, “My husband and I have sufficient financial means to support our stay in France. My access to economic resources is entirely based in the United States, including stable monthly income and real-estate assets. I will be maintaining ownership of my home in Tacoma, Washington; my business that is registered in (and limited to) Washington State; and my professional license in (and limited to) Washington State. I will not be working/conducting economic activity in France.” My choice of language was very specific, to document the truth while not raising red flags about any risk of working illegally on French soil. I closed with, “I will abide by the rules and conditions of the VLS-TS. My life here in the United States, based in Tacoma, Washington, is rich and meaningful, with strong ties to family, friends, and my horses. I look forward to bringing home what I learn about France, the world, and myself after my enriching long stay. I am grateful for your time and consideration.”

Andrew’s letter was extremely similar, in his own voice, but hitting all the same points.

Copies of our business licenses

The checklist asks for either a letter from your employer validating your employment status/plans, or proof of self-employment via a business license. It was probably overkill, but we both included our state business licenses, our state certificates of formation, and our Tacoma business licenses.

The 3 most recent bank statements from our relevant bank accounts, including my business account and all retirement and investment accounts, to demonstrate the financial means to support ourselves while staying in France

We provided just the summary pages of these statements, not the full list of every transaction. I also added a profit and loss summary from my business’s bookkeeping, more than anything to show the nice, clear, round “income” number. Andrew had statements from his investment accounts, but they turned away my duplicate copies of those.

Put most simply, the resources we drew from suggested that France wants to see that you can access the equivalent of the French minimum wage per adult, to demonstrate the means to support yourself. At the time of applying, the French minimum wage was net €1,443.11, or $1,663.10 per month. Because there are two of us, we need to show cash or consistent income that supports about $3328 per month, or right around $40,000 for the full year.

(Keep in mind, this is the amount generally recommended to get your visa approved, not necessarily what we will actually need to make to support our actual life and plans in France.)

Our documents showed a combination of cash savings, and evidence of consistent income to supplement. The plan is for our remote income from our Washington businesses to cover our actual, real living expenses, and we shouldn’t need to touch any savings/investment accounts. The numbers we’re using to assure the French government that we won’t be a drain on their social resources are just that!

Proof of accommodation when we arrive

We are initially landing in an Airbnb that we booked for the first 4 months. Airbnb and other vacation rental platforms are so much easier to use than navigating longer-term French rentals from abroad, and we wanted the opportunity to be on the ground to decide on a neighborhood and ideally check places out in-person. Our plan is to transition to a bail mobilité or bail meublé—the standard options for fully furnished lease agreements—around January 2027.

Airbnb’s platform generates an accommodation letter upon request, specifically for visa purposes. This document is all we included in our application.

Proof of travel health insurance that covers France

We went with a policy through Mondassur, the Gold Backup plan, as it is both visa-compliant and seems to cover our anticipated needs. We paid $1,230 for both of us to be insured, covering emergencies and hospitalizations at 100%, and 80% for most other things. (Considering the full, out-of-pocket price for a specialist visit for Andrew in Paris in 2018 was 35 euros, we feel pretty good about that.)

ID photos, sized to be in compliance for France (spoiler alert: it’s different from the standard US passport photo!)

These were $17 per person to get taken and printed at Walgreens. A critical note is that the standard size for France and the EU is not the same as the US passport! The TLS lady told Andrew that 80% of applicants show up with the wrong size photo. The girl at the Walgreens photo desk did need to call her manager over to find the right official size for France specifically, but it was there in their computer widget.

In the end, they used our biometrics photos that they took at the appointment instead of the prints we provided, but I’m still glad we had everything on the checklist.

Copies of our marriage license

This one wasn’t on the official checklist with the application, but since we applied together, we thought it would be helpful. The TLS lady did affirm this and include it in the application.

Moving with a dog: Emmett and his Pet Passport

On a logistical level, getting Emmett into France almost looked like it was going to be easy, until it wasn’t.

In 2026, a time of effective rabies vaccinations, digital health records, and easy-to-Google information, it’s a lot simpler to move a dog from the United States to Europe than it was in the past. Instead of a multi-month quarantine, all we need is some official documents to certify his current health and vaccination status.

We called and reserved him a spot on our flight pretty much at the time we booked our tickets ourselves, and there was an additional fee of around $400. Air France not only provides clear guidelines as an airline as far as what kind of kennel dogs must travel with, but you can purchase one directly through them.

France requires an exam with an accredited vet within 10 days of your dog’s arrival in the country. (Important to note, because our departure from Seattle was technically the day before we arrived in Paris.) There was some minor confusion when we first made this appointment, because one of the vets at our usual clinic thought the appointment was valid for 30 days, but we got it straightened out. We arrived in Paris on the 16th of September, and regrettably didn’t account for Labor Day weekend, so the earliest we could make the appointment was Tuesday, September 8th, only 8 days before our arrival. This is something we now note for the future: when deciding which day to buy plane tickets for, consider where other important time-windows land.

Prior to that appointment, we did learn of some fixable but time-consuming bumps with Emmett’s records. Our vet had recently switched to a new EHR system, which seemed to trip up some of the staff, and amendments had to be made to Emmett’s old vaccination records to make sure they were both accurate and complete to France’s standards.

Put simply, France requires that there be no question that the identified animal did receive appropriate vaccinations. This makes perfect sense. In practice, it means that the animal must have been microchipped before any relevant vaccinations be given, and if they were microchipped after their first rabies vaccine, for example, the first vaccine given after microchipping must be treated like an initial vaccine and not a booster. They also require that there be no lapse in vaccinations, or else the vaccination following a lapse (of even 1 day!) must be treated like an initial vaccine.

Our mistake was that when we first brought Emmett home, we went through a couple of vets before we were established at our current place. We took him to the old family vet in Lakewood that Andrew’s childhood dogs went to, but the drive was long and the vet was busy, and a place less than 10 minutes away in Gig Harbor for time-sensitive stuff, but they were expensive even without the bridge toll. We eventually landed on our regular place in Puyallup, because they had a veterinary behaviorist, who established Emmett’s behavioral health plan and prescriptions. He’d been going there since 2023, but not since day one.

This meant that they’d had to request official records of his vaccinations and neutering to add to their own, and on top of that, he was microchipped when we picked him up from the breeder, so we didn’t have record of that appointment besides a copy of the AKC Reunite registration.

It is apparently their practice, which makes sense, to code their records of a rabies vaccination as a 1 year, or initial vaccination, if they don’t have a record of an initial one already. They received records of his actual initial vaccination (from one of the other vets) after giving him that first booster. This meant that prior to some official amendments, his rabies certificate from 2023 suggested that he’d been due for another in 2024, when our understanding was that he wouldn’t be due again until 2026. Because we were already anticipating this move, Andrew had requested he get a rabies booster early, so we had another rabies certificate from 2025. Without updating the paperwork, however, it appeared that there had been a lapse between 2024 and 2025. On top of that, Emmett’s microchip number was missing from his 2025 rabies certificate.

This was all totally fixable, and we did get updated official copies of accurately-coded rabies certificates to reflect his complete and thorough vaccination, but it took some time and some sleuthing to figure out what had gone wrong. My advice to anyone considering an international trip with a pet is to check in with your vet well ahead of time and ongoing, to make sure your pet’s records are complete to the standards of other countries. As someone who professionally keeps official client medical records, it’s actually not hard to miss a detail or two in chart documents that never have long-term consequences…until they do. If our vet hadn’t caught that the 2023 rabies booster—technically effective for 3 years—was accidentally coded as a 1-year, Emmett’s health certificate would have been outright rejected by France for supposed lapse in immunity.

Okay, so we got his proof of vaccination organized, and an appointment for the best time we could manage with local holiday weekends. Emmett was a good enough boy for the actual exam, only threatening to bite once, but with a muzzle so the stakes were low. Our vet assured us that the paperwork process would be stressful, but doable, and he’d been doing this for 10 years.

Because here’s the next part: once your accredited vet signs off on the health certificate, it has to be officially sent to the USDA for endorsement. This is required for it to be valid at all. Like, there wasn’t a copy of the health certificate to be given to us at the time of the appointment, from the vet. It has to come from the USDA.

This is all well and good, except France also requires that the USDA endorsement be a wet-ink, embossed, original copy. No digital copies allowed.

Which meant that while our vet could electronically transfer the certificate securely online to the USDA, a vet from the USDA had to review, sign, and stamp a hard copy and then mail it to us. In less than 7 days. Because we got on the plane a full day before we’d arrive, and there was also a weekend in there.

The cost of the health certificate and endorsement for France included the price of an overnight priority shipping label with FedEx, but this was still a stressfully tight timeline. But also, this was the process, so we had to take some deep breaths and trust it. If the documents came late and we had to change our flight, we’d only have a 2-day window before the original appointment was invalid, so surely it must work.

Cut to Friday. We’d been busy all week, packing, organizing, and trying to squeeze in quality time with the people and critters (read: horses) we were leaving behind. But by the end of the business day Friday, we still didn’t have an update that the endorsement had been reviewed and approved by the USDA, or a shipping notice. We were sweating. Andrew scoured Reddit and obscure Facebook groups, and found reassurance that a lot of people did receive their documents the night before their departure, which for us, was Tuesday.

But then on Monday, I blearily opened my eyes and rolled over to turn off my phone alarm, and was greeted with an email notification: “CORRECTION REQUIRED: [health certificate] returned.” Received at 7am that very morning.

Cue: absolutely freaking out. We were scheduled to get on a plane the next day, and apparently the health certificate that had been submitted more than a week ago was rejected, requesting edits. The vet didn’t open until 8am, but we called and left a message. At 8:02, Andrew called again. By about 8:20, our vet had made the requested edits and re-submitted the certificate, but even he was baffled.

“Never in my ten years of doing this have I ever had a case where they didn’t even open the certificate to review until the day before departure,” he said. “It’s not uncommon for them to approve them pretty late, but usually they’ve reviewed them several days in advance.”

(We don’t need to get into the state of the USDA at the time of writing this.)

So now we’re really panicking. It’s the morning before we leave, we have renters scheduled to move in on the 17th, and we don’t know what to do. There is no phone number to call. Even the vet confirmed that they don’t give anyone, even vets, a contact number.

At 12:35pm that Monday, we got an email notification that the endorsement was approved. Okay, important progress, indeed. But that’s not a shipping confirmation, just a signature confirmation.

I went to the barn, to say a heartbreaking goodbye to my beloved horses (except maybe also we’d be stuck here for another 10-day appointment cycle, which we didn’t want). Sitting in the dirt in front of Cupcake, tears dripping down my face as I contemplated the emotional weight of one last ride, my phone buzzed. A shipping notification.

Indeed, at 7:48am on Tuesday, the morning of our flight, a weary FedEx delivery driver dropped the government-official envelope on our front porch. Andrew went out to meet him, though a signature was not required. I plugged in the nearly-broken printer that we were trying to put into storage in order to make scanned copies for our own selves, and tucked the official copy carefully into the folder that went into my carry-on for check-in. Our parents—all 4 of them—met us at our house to divide all the luggage and bodies between 2 cars.

Of all the things we did to get ready for this move…building our independent businesses for visa-compliant remote self-employment, deciding what items from our life were worth carting 5,000 miles, preparing our house to be rented, securing a temporary rental in Paris, selling a car, applying for and getting our visas, actually packing everything…and it almost looked like a piece of paper from the USDA was going to knock the whole house of cards down.