Parents of French children need a long-stay visa for first residence applications in Mayotte

Use Mayotte's current rules for the first application

Mayotte prefecture's current immigration instructions require proof of regular entry under a long-stay visa for a first residence application as the parent of a French child. This is a current explanation of existing requirements, rather than a newly announced November restriction. The prefecture lists the family-of-French-citizen residence category among applications made through ANEF.

The Mayotte adaptations in Article L441-7 of the immigration code took effect on 1 January 2026. They remove the usual exemption from the long-stay-visa requirement for the relevant parent-of-French-child residence provision. The article also modifies the contribution-to-maintenance-and-education period to three years, rather than the two years appearing in the general provision. Where the law refers to contribution since birth, readers should not interpret the three-year wording as requiring every child to have reached their third birthday.

For cases involving acknowledgement of parentage by the French parent, the Mayotte adaptation requires named evidence of that parent's contribution. These are substantive evidential questions, not matters resolved merely by selecting the correct online category.

Read the constitutional safeguards before assuming a refusal is inevitable

The Constitutional Council's decision of 7 August 2025 upheld the relevant reforms subject to interpretative safeguards. Paragraph 15 says the long-stay-visa requirement must be interpreted as requiring the administration, subject to judicial oversight, to issue a family long-stay visa when the applicant satisfies the conditions of the relevant statutory family provision.

The decision also states that the provisions do not eliminate the administration's discretionary power to regularise a person's circumstances. Paragraph 17 addresses contribution evidence: the requirement for named documents cannot prevent the administration from using its discretion in light of evidence supplied, even where it is not nominative.

Those safeguards do not automatically approve an individual application, remove the need to establish the family relationship or turn an online submission into lawful residence. They do mean that a missing document should not be assessed using a headline alone. Readers with an adverse decision or a difficult evidence history should obtain advice addressing the statutory rule and the Council's reservations together.

Avoid relying on an older checklist for current eligibility

A prefecture-hosted parent-of-French-child PDF still accessible online carries an October 2019 date. It refers to two years of contribution and three years of regular residence for the resident-card section. Those historic figures should not be used to override the later Mayotte amendments.

In particular, Article L441-7 now requires five years of regular, uninterrupted residence for the relevant parent-of-French-child resident-card provision. A first temporary residence application and a later resident-card application are separate stages. Keeping that distinction clear prevents a family from treating an older renewal checklist as a current route to a longer permit.

The older checklist remains useful for recognising types of family evidence, including the child's nationality, birth record and residence. It identifies school or nursery records for the child's residence and a French passport or national identity card as nationality evidence. Confirm the current checklist in the application process before relying on its historical instructions.

Prepare the online file and confirm the applicable assessment

The prefecture requires the signed commitment to respect the principles of the Republic with residence applications, including renewals. For an ANEF dossier, its instructions place that document in the address-evidence section alongside the actual address evidence. The current page also links a February 2026 residence-and-contribution attestation model for parents of French children.

The immigration code's fiscal provisions changed on 1 May 2026. They set a general first-permit tax of EUR 300 and a stamp duty of EUR 50, with separate reduced rates or exemptions for specified categories. Confirm the assessment for the actual application rather than treating a historic checklist as a complete fee quotation. The prefecture page does not publish a guaranteed decision time or a special November filing deadline for this category. Retain the submission confirmation and follow requests in the application account promptly.