Can international students still get APL in France? What changed on 1 July 2026
Since 1 July 2026, non-EU students get APL only if they hold a bourse sur critères sociaux. Who lost it, who kept it, and what to do now.
For years, one of the first pieces of advice any new student in France got was to file for APL the day you sign your bail. That advice no longer holds for everyone. Décret n° 2026-552 of 27 June 2026, published in the Journal Officiel on 28 June, narrowed who can receive aides personnelles au logement as a foreign student, and the new rule has applied since 1 July 2026.
What the rule now says
If you are a student from outside the EU, the EEA or Switzerland, and you are in France on a long-stay visa or a titre de séjour for studies, you can receive APL only if you hold a bourse sur critères sociaux. Those are the means-tested scholarships awarded by the CROUS, plus certain regional scholarships in the health and social-work fields. Without one of those, the student route to APL is closed.
Who is not affected
- Nationals of an EU country, of the EEA (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway), or of Switzerland. The rule does not touch you.
- Students who also work, whether salaried or self-employed.
- Students on a contrat d'apprentissage or a contrat de professionnalisation.
- Students with refugee or stateless status.
- Spouses of non-EU students.
The pattern behind that list is worth noticing. The exemptions are built around a link to work or to protection status, not around how long you have been in France or how much you earn. A student on a tight budget with no job and no bourse is exactly the profile the change removes, which is the opposite of how most people assume means-tested aid works.
What to do this month
- Check whether you hold a bourse sur critères sociaux. A merit prize, a school-funded discount, or a scholarship from your home country is not the same thing, and only the means-tested French one counts here.
- If you took a part-time job or signed an apprenticeship contract, declare it to CAF. That may be what keeps your file open.
- If your payment stopped, read the CAF letter before you contest it. It will say which condition was not met, and that tells you whether there is anything to correct.
- Rebuild the budget without APL if none of the exemptions apply. Between rent, the CVEC and higher inscription fees, the gap for a first-year student can be several hundred euros a month.
If you think CAF got it wrong
Mistakes happen at the point where CAF reads your titre de séjour or your student status. If you believe an exemption applies to you, send the proof through the messagerie in your CAF account rather than by post, so the exchange is timestamped. If the answer is still no, a recours à l'amiable to the commission de recours amiable of your CAF départementale is the formal next step, and the letter refusing your aid states the deadline for it.
A CAF letter announcing the end of a right looks almost identical to one announcing a routine recalculation, and the line that tells them apart is halfway down the second page. Upload yours to Mes Papiers and we'll tell you in English which one it is, what it changes, and whether there is a deadline attached.