Your Brexit carte de séjour expires in 2026: how to renew it and get the 10-year card

If you are British and you were already living in France before 1 January 2021, the préfecture issued you a card carrying an unusual line: “Article 50 TUE/Article 18(1) Accord de retrait du Royaume-Uni de l'UE”. Some of those cards were granted for 10 years and some for 5, depending on how long you had been resident when you applied. The 5-year ones were handed out in 2020 and 2021, which means the first big wave of them expires during 2026. If yours is one of them, this is the year you deal with it.

What you get when you renew

The renewal is not simply another 5 years of the same thing. Once you have completed 5 years of residence in France, the card you receive is the permanent one: “Séjour permanent - Article 50 TUE/Article 18(1) Accord de retrait du Royaume-Uni de l'UE”, valid for 10 years. So the paperwork you are doing now buys you a decade rather than a repeat of the same appointment next year.

No language test, no civic exam

Since 1 January 2026, most people applying for a multi-year card or a carte de résident in France have to prove a level of French and sit a civic knowledge test. Those rules come from ordinary immigration law. Your card comes from the withdrawal agreement, which is a treaty, and the conditions in it are the ones that govern your renewal. There is no language requirement and no civic exam attached to this procedure. It is worth knowing, because a lot of general 2026 advice written for other permit holders does not describe your situation at all.

It does not go through ANEF

This is the part that trips people up. Almost everything else in French immigration has moved onto the ANEF portal, so it is natural to log in there and start looking. Withdrawal agreement renewals sit outside that system. Depending on your département, the file goes through a dedicated online form on Démarches simplifiées, by post, or in person at a counter after you request an appointment by email. Préfectures differ genuinely and not just cosmetically: some run an online form and nothing else, others refuse anything that arrives by post or email and take the dossier only at a guichet.

So the first step is not filling in a form. It is opening your own préfecture's website, finding the Brexit or ressortissants britanniques section, and reading how that specific préfecture wants the renewal filed this year. Doing it in the wrong channel usually means the file is not treated at all rather than treated slowly.

When to file

The national guidance says the renewal is made in the 2 months before your current card runs out. Several préfectures ask their residents to start earlier, commonly 3 to 4 months ahead, because they schedule counter appointments and want the queue to move before the expiry dates bunch up. Follow whichever instruction your own préfecture publishes, and if it gives no figure, work to the 2-month rule and file at the start of that window rather than the end.

What to have ready

• Your passport, valid, including the pages with your civil status and any entry stamps.
• The card that is expiring.
• Proof that you live in France: an electricity, gas, water, phone or internet bill, a lease, or a tax notice. If you live with someone else, an attestation d'hébergement plus their own proof.
• Recent ID photographs in the French format, for the préfectures that ask for them at the counter.
• Documents for any change of civil status since the card was issued: marriage, divorce, a new name.

Some préfectures also ask you to sign a contrat d'engagement as part of the online form. It is part of the dossier, not an extra hurdle, but read what you are signing rather than clicking through it.

Do not let it simply lapse

Your rights under the withdrawal agreement do not evaporate because a piece of plastic expired, but the document is how you prove them, and an expired card is a practical problem long before it becomes a legal one. Employers, banks, CPAM and border officers all read the date. Someone who lets the card run out with no renewal filed can end up treated as being in an irregular situation, which is a slow and unpleasant thing to unwind. File inside the window, and keep the proof of filing.

The reply, when it comes, will be in French: a convocation with a date and a document list, a request for one more piece of proof, or the notice that your card is ready to collect. Upload it to Mes Papiers and we will tell you in English what it is asking for and by when, so a renewal you filed on time does not stall on a letter you set aside to read later.