The CPAM and the number you wait months for: start the clock on day one
French healthcare only knows you once you report. For non-workers the entitlement begins after three months of residence, and after that the processing runs on for weeks to months. Whoever starts the registration straight away suffers least from it.
5 min read
Written and checked by Auke on , against the sources at the bottom. Is something no longer right? Report it below and I'll fix it.
French healthcare only learns that you exist on the day you report to the CPAM, the health insurance fund of your place of residence. From that moment a waiting period begins that counts in months. The sooner you report, the better.
In Spain and Portugal the pitfall is a registration obligation nobody knows about. In France it's exactly the reverse: nothing is required, and so nothing starts by itself either. This is the longest clock of the whole French process. Everything in this article serves one purpose: getting it started as early as possible.
Who is entitled straight away, and who waits three months
The French residence-based system (PUMa) covers everyone who works in France or lives there stably and regularly.
Do you work, employed or self-employed? Then according to Service-Public you're entitled from the first hour of work and can apply straight away.
If you don't work, a waiting period applies. You first have to live stably in France for three months. Your means must be at least at the level of the French social minimum. After that your rights stay open as long as you live in France for at least six months a year.
Retired with a Dutch pension? Then you take a different route: the S1 form from the CAK, the European form with which your right to healthcare moves with you. The processing time is at most four weeks, and you register the form with the CPAM. The waiting period doesn't apply to you.
| Who | When the right begins | The period that goes with it |
|---|---|---|
| working, employed or self-employed | from the first hour of work | apply straight after starting |
| non-working EU citizen | after 3 months' stable residence, with sufficient means | rights stay open with at least 6 months a year in France |
| retired with an S1 from the CAK | on registering the S1 with the CPAM | the CAK decides within at most 4 weeks |
| provisional number (NIA) | after the application, by letter | usable for 9 months |
| definitive number | after processing of the birth certificate | processing time of at most 9 months |
| early retirement without AOW | CAK route closes to new registrants | expected from 1 November 2026 |
If you leave before your AOW age (the Dutch state pension age), watch the date. The CAK route is expected to be open from 1 November 2026 only to new registrants with a statutory benefit: AOW, Anw, WAO, WIA or Wajong. Whoever brings only an early-retirement pension, an RVU payment or an early-drawn occupational pension then falls outside it. Until AOW age, they take the non-workers' route above: three months' waiting period, the means requirement, and a policy of your own for the gap. Whoever is already a CAK client keeps their rights. What exactly changes, and what you can do now.
For non-workers this means: your Dutch cover stops on emigration, and the French cover only begins after months. You arrange the insurance that bridges that gap before departure.
The application: one form, at the fund of your place of residence
The application is form S1106 ("demande d'ouverture des droits à l'assurance maladie"). You submit it to the CPAM of your place of residence: online for EU citizens without work, or by post. What goes with it:
- a copy of your identity document
- your IBAN
- proof of three months' residence if you don't work (rental contract, rent receipts, energy bills)
- proof of your work if you do work
- a birth certificate
Two stories go round about that certificate, and only one is right. Officially it has to be "certified" — a legible stamp — and the fund itself tells you whether a translation is needed; it isn't mandatory by default. That it also has to be recent appears nowhere in the official documents — at most it's something a local fund asks for. So bring your international (multilingual) extract from the Netherlands, and don't let yourself be talked into a fresh certificate plus sworn translation in advance.
The provisional number, and the deadlines nobody mentions
After your application you receive by letter a NIA: a provisional number with which you're already identified and can get healthcare costs reimbursed. But note what you can't do with it: no carte Vitale (the French health card) and no ameli account (your online account with the health insurance). So you claim on paper for months.
How long that takes is exactly the point where you'll come across wrong stories. So here's what it really says. Ameli names nine months twice, and both times it's about the definitive number:
- the provisional NIA is usable for nine months
- the processing time for the definitive number is at most nine months
That's a legal maximum for that one procedure, not a waiting period in which you're uninsured. With your NIA, healthcare costs are already reimbursed.
What to make of it practically:
- The clock only starts once you start it, and for non-workers only after those three months of residence.
- Then follows a processing that runs weeks to months.
- Only at the end does the carte Vitale land on the doormat.
So count on a run-up of several months before everything runs smoothly. Not on nine months without healthcare, and not on "probably a few weeks" either.
The lesson is the same as with every long clock: it only counts from the moment you start it. Home sorted, address provable? Then the S1106 is your very next piece of post, before the boxes are unpacked.
In Vertrekklaar this is phase 1 of 5 of the journey, step 1.2: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to France or go straight to step 1.2 in the open plan.
What this rests on
The facts in this article come from these official pages. Rules change. When in doubt, go by the source, not this article.
- Ameli — the protection universelle maladie (PUMa) — ameli.fr
- Ameli — EU citizens without work: the 3-month requirement and the means — ameli.fr
- Ameli — born abroad: the NIA and the deadlines — ameli.fr
- Ameli — form S1106, the application itself (PDF) — ameli.fr
- CAK — emigrating on early retirement, the expected change from 1 November 2026 — hetcak.nl
- Service-Public — what is the protection universelle maladie (F34308): work or 3 months' residence, rights with 6 months a year — service-public.gouv.fr
- Service-Public — health insurance of someone settling in France (F12859): S1, workers from the first hour — service-public.gouv.fr
- NederlandWereldwijd — health insurance through the CAK, processing time at most 4 weeks — nederlandwereldwijd.nl
Read on
- FranceGetting the basics in order in France5 min
Bank account in France: identity document and proof of address, and the droit au compte if the bank says no
You open a French account with an identity document and a justificatif de domicile; the bank may refuse, but must then point you to the droit au compte. With that refusal the Banque de France designates within one working day a bank that has to give you a free basic account — card, direct debits and transfers included. What you bring, what the bank may ask, and why the refusal letter is your best paper.
Updated 26 September 2026
- FranceGetting the basics in order in France4 min
The justificatif de domicile: the paper all of France asks for
No registration, no compulsory residence card — and yet *every* French counter asks for proof that you live where you live. What counts as proof, how fresh it has to be (that varies by counter), how you start the chain on day one, and what France, as the one thing it may, can ask of an EU citizen: the means not to become a burden on social assistance.
Updated 26 September 2026
- FranceGetting the basics in order in France5 min
Your first weeks in France: nobody registers you, so you build the chain yourself
France has no counter where you report: no registration, no compulsory residence card. What there is, is a chain of proofs that you set in motion yourself — energy in your name, then the bank, then healthcare — and four clocks that run meanwhile: seven days for your pet, eight days for the school, one month for the car, and the nine months the CPAM may take for your definitive number.
Updated 26 September 2026