The French government finally closes an embarrassing legal loophole about « Passeport talent » visas

On June 13, 2025, The French government issued a new decree¹ which main purpose is to fix a legal vacuum, that had existed since 2020, and which made it theoretically possible for all applicants for « Passeport Talent » visas to obtain their visa without complying with its conditions.

As a bit of context, before 2020, all the French « Passeport Talent » visas (which are the most favorable visas destined to skilled workers and entrepreneurs) were all listed under article L. 313-20 of the French immigration code, and their precise conditions were implemented by government decrees.

In 2020, the French immigration code (ceseda) was entirely reorganized and renumbered². And as a consequence of this reform, all government decrees containing the aforementioned conditions were purely and simply removed, replaced by a simple ministerial decision (arrêté) of the Ministry of internal affairs.³

Nevertheless, the French immigration code itself specifically required that all conditions regarding « Passeport talent » visas be implemented by government decree and not by a lower-level decision⁴.

Since then, all consulates and prefectures have continued to issue « Passeport talent » visas under the same conditions as before, unaware of this loophole, but it became impossible to enforce these conditions before Court.

For example, in 2023, the Tribunal administratif of Nantes overturned a visa refusal opposed to an applicant, for the reason that his future employment contract did not meet the financial condition for the visa « Passeport talent – European blue card »⁵. The visa had to be issued, as this condition was simply unenforceable.

This embarrassing situation remained quite little known, however, and for whatever reason it took another two years before the government issued a decree to fill the gap, quite a long time for such a simple maneuver.

1. Décret n° 2025-539 du 13 juin 2025 relatif aux cartes de séjour « talent » et modifiant certaines dispositions relatives aux cartes de séjour « recherche d’emploi-création d’entreprise » et « entrepreneur et profession libérale » ↩︎
2. Ordonnance n° 2020-1733 du 16 décembre 2020 portant partie législative du code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile, et Décret n° 2020-1734 du 16 décembre 2020 portant partie réglementaire du code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile ↩︎
3. Arrêté du 30 avril 2021 fixant la liste des pièces justificatives exigées pour la délivrance, hors Nouvelle-Calédonie, des titres de séjour prévus par le livre IV du code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile, et Arrêté du 4 mai 2022 fixant la liste des pièces justificatives exigées pour la délivrance des titres de séjour prévus par le livre IV du code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile ↩︎
4. Article L. 421-8 of the French immigration code (ceseda) ↩︎
5. Tribunal administratif de Nantes, 9ème chambre, 30 octobre 2023, n° 2215675 ↩︎