Withdrawal Agreement Residence Permit Survey

In April 2021 RIFT conducted a second survey of applications for the new Withdrawal Agreement Residence Permit (WA RP) and this is a summary of our findings.

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About RIFT

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Remain in France Together (RIFT) is a small group of volunteers providing information and support to UK passport holders and their families living in France. Our information relates to the rights of UK passport holders and their families who are afforded the protection of the Withdrawal Agreement.

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​The group, which receives no funding, was set up following the referendum in 2016. It provides information and guidance on citizens’ rights post Brexit via a popular Facebook group (in excess of 22,000 members), website and regional Facebook groups.

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About our surveys

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In January 2021 the group ran a short, anonymous survey to take a snapshot of the situation with regard to applications for the new Withdrawal Agreement Residence Permit (WA RP). You can read more about it here.

​We ran our second survey between 31 March and 11 April 2021, again with the aim of gauging what percentage of UK passport holders and their family members have or haven’t applied and to identify any trends which are emerging regarding timescales, documents required and any variations in the process by individual préfectures.

We have summarised the data below and you can also view the national data and the breakdown for each department and topic via the link at the top or bottom of the page.

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Who responded?

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A total of 5187 respondents completed the survey. The response rate amounts to over 20% of our membership, covering all regions of France, so we can be confident that the sample size is large enough to give a representative snapshot of the situation as at mid-April i.e. six months into the application window.

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33.8% of respondents had also completed the January survey.

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The responses cover all regions of France.

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Some 60% of respondents had been living in France for more than five years with the remaining 40% arriving within the last five years. These figures are the same as in our January survey.

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98.70% of respondents to our survey are UK passport holders. As with our survey in January, this means we have little data on how easy it is proving for non-British family members to go through this process.

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​Key findings

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We had a total of 5187 respondents, of whom 94.4% had already applied for their WA RP, an increase of 7.9% on our survey in January. Whilst it is to be expected that our survey respondents are more likely to be digitally-enabled and well informed about the process, this figure is nonetheless very encouraging.

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For 51.6% of people, this was their first ever application for a residence permit. The other 48.4% already held an existing Carte de Séjour (CdS).

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Of those people who have already made a WA RP application, 93.26% have applied since the new WA RP portal was launched in October 2020 and the remainder had applications carried over from the ‘No Deal’ portal that was open for a few months during 2019/20.

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How long is the wait?

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Many people will probably jump straight to this section. If you are still waiting and impatient for news then don’t worry, a large minority of applicants have not yet been contacted by their préfecture.

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Of the 4899 respondents who have applied for their WA RP (applicants), 29.27% had received their WA RP at the time of completing the survey. This is an encouraging increase of 22.28% on our January survey.

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In 65% of cases where the applicant had already received their WA RP, they had been required to attend a rendez-vous at the prefecture. 29% reported that their WA RP had either been sent directly or had been available to collect without the need for a rendez-vous. 6% did not indicate how they obtained their card.

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In contrast to our January survey, where 72% had received an acknowledgement of their application but had heard nothing further i.e. had not been invited to an rendez-vous or asked for further information, our April survey shows a significant decrease in this number to 45.51%, so there is a significant increase in the % of people who can be confident their applicant is actually being processed.

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Waiting Times for contact from the local préfecture

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We analysed the applications made on the new online system for the first 6 months of its implementation – October to March inclusive.

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The vast majority of applications (1806 / 39.52%) were made in October and of those 31.62% have not yet been contacted.

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2142 applicants indicated that they have had, or are due to have, a rendez-vous at the préfecture.

We noted in the last report that processing of applications did not begin in earnest (except in a few test areas) until the decree bringing the process into law was published in late November 2021. Rendez-vous dates started coming through thick and fast from January onwards.

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The average waiting time for an applicant who applied in October and has been contacted further by their préfecture was 4.33 months. (October was counted as a full month)

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The more recent the application, the higher the percentage of people awaiting contact from their préfecture.

Month of application - % not yet contacted

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Oct  31.62%    

Nov  41.96%

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Dec  57.41%

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Jan  62.69%

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Feb  70.11%

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March  76.04%

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There is a certain amount of ‘buzz’ on Facebook complaining that processing is taking place in an ad-hoc manner rather than first come, first served. Our evidence does not bear this out. Our table below shows the month in which the application was made and the month in which the WA RP was received. 

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On the contrary, the more recently the applicant was made, the higher percentage of people applying, the more likely you are to be waiting for contact from the préfecture.

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