How to read a CAF letter without panicking
A plain-English walkthrough of the letters CAF sends — rappel, indu, contrôle — and what each one actually wants you to do.
If you live in France and have ever asked for APL, RSA, prime d'activité or any family benefit, sooner or later a CAF envelope lands in your mailbox. It's white, the logo is blue, and the moment you open it your French gets noticeably worse. This guide is the short version of what each letter is asking for.
Why CAF writes to you in the first place
CAF is the Caisse d'allocations familiales — the national body that pays out housing aid (APL), family allowances, and a long list of means-tested benefits. Every payment they make has to match the resources and household composition you've declared. When something looks off — a missing declaration, a salary change, a new address — they write. The letter is the legally-required notification that something has changed, or that they want you to confirm something has not.
The four letters you're most likely to get
What the deadlines actually mean
Every CAF letter that asks you to do something has a deadline, usually printed in bold near the bottom. Treat it as a hard wall: past that date, payments suspend automatically and re-instating them takes weeks. The recours (appeal) deadline for an indu is two months from the date on the letter — not from the date you opened it.
Where to reply
- Espace personnel on caf.fr — for uploading documents, declaring resources, and most contestations.
- Postal address printed on the letter — for formal recours when you want a paper trail.
- Phone (3230) — for clarifying what they want, but not for substantive replies.
When in doubt, the espace personnel is the fastest path. Every document uploaded there is timestamped and visible to your conseiller, which removes the 'did you receive my fax' loop.
If you still can't tell what they want
Photograph the letter and drop it into Mes Papiers. We pull out the sender, the deadline, the reference number, and turn the French legalese into one English sentence: 'what they want, by when, and how to reply.' That's enough to act on without translating the whole thing word by word.