Guide
The CIR: France's integration contract, and the exam that now gates the cards
By Covered Abroad Research Desk · Last verified July 2026
What signing the CIR commits you to
Service-public.fr's CIR page describes the two pillars: formation linguistique — language training prescribed after an initial assessment, running to 600 hours at the top prescription, and available via an online learning platform as well as in class — and formation civique, the civic training on French institutions and values. Accept the prescribed language training and it is written into your CIR, at which point it becomes obligatory; strong French at the initial assessment can exempt you from the evaluation entirely.
The 2026 change gives the contract teeth: since 1 January 2026, meeting the language level and passing the civic exam is required for a carte de résident or a multi-year carte de séjour — the CIR stopped being a formality and became a gate on the cards that make French life administratively calm.
Source: Service-public.fr, F17048 — le contrat d'intégration républicaine, read 4 September 2026.
Who signs, and what it gates
The CIR is signed by most non-EU nationals admitted for a durable stay — workers, family joiners, refugees — at the OFII welcome appointment that follows arrival. What it now gates is the jump from one-year cards to stability: the carte de séjour pluriannuelle (the multi-year card that ends annual renewals) and the ten-year carte de résident. Our renewal guide covers the annual cycle you stay in until that jump; the VLS-TS timeline covers year one.
Visitor-route holders — retirees and non-workers — should read their own convocation carefully rather than assume: obligations differ by status, and the OFII letter that follows validation says which trainings apply to you.
60-second check
Not sure the policy you have meets your destination's written rule? Run it through the policy check now, before you build the rest of the file around it.
Check my policyClean years, again
As with every long-term status in Europe, the cards the CIR gates are built on clean qualifying years — permits renewed on time, conditions continuously met. For visitor-route residents that includes the health-cover line France re-reads at each renewal; a lapsed policy in year two is precisely the kind of blemish that surfaces when a multi-year card application re-opens the whole file. The France hub carries the insurance wording France expects, cited; the checker reads what you hold against it: