🇫🇷 France vs 🇮🇹 Italy: Digital Nomad Visa Compared
France has no visa officially called a "digital nomad visa". Italy offers Digital Nomad / Remote Worker Visa - Decree Law No. 79/2024. Every figure below comes from each country's own sourced, dated fiche - compare income, duration, tax, family rules, fees and processing time before you decide.
- Minimum income
- 1,867 EUR / month
- 24,789 EUR / year
- Visa duration
- Tax regime
- Living in France more than 183 days generally makes you a French tax resident, taxed on worldwide income at French rates. Double-taxation treaties apply.
- If you become an Italian tax resident (183+ days), income is taxable under IRPEF. Two optional favorable regimes (cannot be combined): Regime Forfettario (5% flat for self-employed under EUR 85k, first 5 years, 15% after) or Regime Impatriati (50% of qualifying income exempt for 5 years). Employees kept on a foreign contract may be taxed under treaty rules.
- Family (spouse / children)
- Spouse + children admitted
- Spouse + children admitted
- Application fees
- 99 EUR
- 116 EUR
- Health insurance
- Required - Comprehensive private health insurance covering France required for the application.
- Required - Min EUR 30,000 (or USD 50,000) covering medical care, hospitalization and repatriation. Cited by the consulate as the number-one cause of visa rejection.
- Processing time
- Typically 2-3 weeks after the consulate appointment
- Reported 30-60 days for remote employees, 90-120 days for freelancers/self-employed, plus consulate appointment backlog
France has no digital nomad visa. Since June 2025, France had enforced a ban on remote work under the long-stay VISITOR visa (VLS-TS 'visiteur'); a 2026-06-23 Journal Officiel response from the Ministry of the Interior (answering National Assembly question n°11730) reversed course: remote work from France for a foreign employer, with income paid and taxed abroad and no activity benefiting a France-based business, is 'non-active' and IS compatible with visiteur status - no work permit needed. The visiteur visa has no fixed income figure in law; consulates require proof of 'sufficient and regular resources', commonly benchmarked against the SMIC. The Profession Liberale visa (resources ~SMIC, figure above) or the Talent Passport remain the applicable routes only if the work is integrated into the French economy (French clients, French-paid work, staff supervised in France). SMIC-linked figures rise with each revaluation - confirm the current amount and exact thresholds with your consulate.
source · verified 2026-07-16
Some consulates round up to ~EUR 28,000 - confirm with your consulate. Income must derive from the remote work; passive income (pensions, rent, stocks) is excluded. Eligibility also needs a degree OR 5 years' experience (3 for ICT) + 6 months remote-work experience. RE-CHECKED 2026-07-23: the ~EUR 28,000 figure some 2026 guide sites cite does not trace to any 2026 Gazzetta Ufficiale decree - the operative decree is still the original 2024-02-29 one (GU Serie Generale n. 79); ~EUR 28,000 looks like consulate-level rounding of the same formula, not a sourced threshold rise. EUR 24,789 remains the better-sourced figure. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-01: a visahq.com claim of a specific '2026-03-02 Gazzetta Ufficiale decree' behind the ~EUR 28,000 figure could not be verified anywhere - no matching GU entry, decree number, or independent source found; treated as an unverified/likely-spurious citation. EUR 24,789 stays published. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-05: verified the arithmetic directly - EUR 24,789 = 3x the 2026 healthcare-exemption threshold (EUR 8,263.31), confirming the formula rather than a guessed figure; ~EUR 28,000 is a loose rounding, not a competing legal number.
source · verified 2026-08-05
source · verified 2026-07-08
Regimes have conditions (e.g. Impatriati needs 3 years' prior non-residence + a 4-year residency commitment; the two regimes cannot be combined). Verify with the Agenzia delle Entrate. UPDATE 2026-07-15: the 2026 Budget Law was enacted as Law No. 199 of 30 Dec 2025 (Gazzetta Ufficiale), extending the Regime Impatriati (D.Lgs. 209/2023 - 50% tax-base reduction, EUR 600,000/year cap, arrival year plus 4 more) to foreign workers who transfer tax residence to Italy from 2026. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-01: located the specific Agenzia delle Entrate ruling behind the 'foreign employer / smart working' question - Risposta ad interpello n. 2/2026 (12 January 2026) confirms a worker who returns to Italy and does smart working for a foreign employer (including one different from their pre-return employer) can access Regime Impatriati, provided the work is carried out predominantly on Italian territory and all other D.Lgs. 209/2023 requirements are met. This is an official AEdE ruling, sourceUrl updated to it directly, but confidence stays 'reported' rather than 'official' because the page itself 403s on direct fetch (same proxy-policy pattern as other .gov.it domains) - this rests on a search-engine read of AEdE's own indexed document, not a page fetch. It resolves the foreign-employer question generally but does not explicitly name 'digital nomad visa holders' as a category, so whether a separate, still-undefined 'Digital Nomad Tax Bonus' also exists remains open.
source · verified 2026-08-01
Family may accompany on the long-stay visa; each adult typically needs their own status/resources.
source · verified 2026-07-08
Spouse (not legally separated) and a child under 18. Children over 18 and parents cannot currently be sponsored.
source · verified 2026-07-05
EUR 99 long-stay visa application fee (paid to the consulate); confirm with the consulate. Separately, the mandatory post-arrival visa validation fee (OFII/interior-ministry portal) rose from EUR 200 to EUR 300 effective 2026-05-01. RE-CHECKED 2026-07-19: this rise now traces to a specific legal source - Article 128 of Loi n. 2026-103 du 19 fevrier 2026 (Loi de finances pour 2026) - corroborated on several prefecture .gouv.fr pages, not just aggregator guides. The figure itself is unchanged; this only upgrades how well-sourced it is. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-11: the separate OFII stamp duty (droit de timbre, applied to issuance/renewal/duplicate of residence permits) also rose under the same 2026 Finance Law, from EUR 25 to EUR 50, effective 2026-05-01 - confirmed directly on multiple prefecture .gouv.fr pages (Oise, Bas-Rhin, Loire, Nord, Gers), correcting the prior 'unaffected, unverified' note.
source · verified 2026-08-11
EUR 116 visa application fee (non-refundable). Plus ~EUR 116 for the residence permit on arrival (contributo EUR 40 + electronic permit EUR 30.46 + stamp EUR 16 + postal kit EUR 30). The consular visa fee varies quarterly by the EUR/USD rate.
source · verified 2026-07-05
source · verified 2026-07-08
source · verified 2026-07-05
source · verified 2026-07-08
No single official government figure exists; range is a consulate-guidance consensus across independent 2026 immigration-guide publishers, with freelancers/self-employed applicants taking longer due to more document scrutiny. Consulate appointment-booking backlogs (New York, London, Los Angeles) add further weeks-to-months on top of processing itself. Confirm with your specific consulate.
source · verified 2026-07-25
Frequently asked questions
Which has the cheaper application fee, France or Italy?
France's application fee is lower: 99 EUR versus 116 EUR for Italy.
How long does it take to process a digital nomad visa for France vs Italy?
France's stated processing time is Typically 2-3 weeks after the consulate appointment; Italy's is Reported 30-60 days for remote employees, 90-120 days for freelancers/self-employed, plus consulate appointment backlog, per each country's own sourced fiche. Actual processing time varies by consulate and caseload.
Related comparisons
Figures marked TBD are not yet verified and are never shown as facts. Last full review: France 2026-09-05, Italy 2026-09-05.