Practical Paris

From Visitor to Resident: How to Make the Leap Without Losing Your Mind You came to France on a visitor visa, or maybe you have been stitching together long stays, and somewhere between the boulangerie runs and your first real Paris winter, it stopped feeling like a visit. Now you want to stay. Going from visitor to resident in France is absolutely doable, but it is less a single decision than a sequence of administrative moves, each with its own timing, its own paperwork, and its own small ways to trip yourself up. The good news is that the path is well marked once you know the order. The catch is that France rarely explains it to you, and 2026 added new requirements that caught even long-settled Americans off guard. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute immigration or legal advice. Rules change, and your situation may differ: always verify current requirements with the relevant French authorities or a licensed immigration professional. What…

Banking Glossary French-English terms What is the origin of the word "bank"? It goes back to Italian. In Medieval Italy a moneylander set up a bench in the town square and sat down behind it to do business. The word for "bench" in Italian is banca. When the banker ran out of money he smashed his bench, it was then a broken bench or banca rotta. Doesn't that sound like bankrupt? (makes one think of "rupture", interestingly in French the word is banqueroute) Here is a set of the most commons terms used in banking/finance in France along with their English equivalents to form a banking glossary French English. Actions : Shares ADI (Assurance Décès Invalidité) : Death and invalidity insurance Agios : Interest paid on loan or overdraft Annuité : Annual payment Apport :  Down payment or deposit you bring for loan or mortgage Approvisionner : To credit funds to your account Argent liquide/espèces : Cash Avis d’opération : Transaction receipt Avis à Tiers Détenteur : Not…

Wero is coming Did you know that each time you use a payment card there is a cost to the merchant? Did you know that it costs even more if your card is a Premium MasterCard or Visa? It also costs the business more if your card is from outside the EU or if the card is of a professional nature but there is no additional service provided to the merchant. For each transaction the shop, service provider or restaurant pays between 1.5 and 5% depending on the card used. And it’s the little guy that pays the most since there are volume discounts! Sure, everyone benefits from the ease of using a card as opposed to cash, but do you realize how much it is costing you and the business accepting the card? And that the cost of the service is higher just because the card is a different color? Visa and MC charge the merchant more for the same service if your card is of a higher grade. Plus a lot of cards charge YOU for foreign transactions. When you think about the trillions of transaction…

A visit to the recycling facility Recently we visited the trash recycling sorting center near our home just outside Paris and were fascinated by the machinery and process of treating trash as well as the value in recycling. At the same time seeing all that we throw away in one place was disheartening. We learned quite a lot about the process, how it works, who pays for it, the value of it. Perhaps you heard in the news in April that a recycling plant in Paris 17th burned to the ground. The destroyed plant, dated only from 2019. And fire is a constant threat in the trash business. The cause of this particular fire is still not known but it could have been due to poor sorting. For example be careful not to put batteries in the recycling or trash can. They can explode and cause fires in the collection trucks and at the plants. Other fire causing items include canisters with a gas. Such as empty Soda Stream cylinders or small butane canisters. The most frequent offenders…

Don’t Miss Out: A Guide to Recovery Rebate Credit for U.S. Expats If you’re one of the many U.S. expats who are owed the 2021 stimulus money, you can still claim it through Recovery Rebate Credit. While it is too late to request a refund for the 2020 stimulus check, 2024 is the last year to get the 2021 stimulus check you might have missed! It will either boost the amount of your tax refund or reduce the taxes you owe to the IRS. Either way – you win! Don’t miss out on the opportunity to get the money you’re entitled to. Keep reading to find out how the credit works and what makes you eligible to qualify. What is Recovery Rebate credit? Recovery Rebate Credit is part of the Covid-19 Economic Relief program. The credit makes it possible for those who didn’t receive Economic Impact Payments (also known as stimulus payments) to claim their missing money. So if you were eligible for stimulus payments but did not receive them (or you received a partial payment), you can claim…