What to do with the administration when you leave France?
When you’re an expatriate or a traveler, you need to find a solution for administrative management. Many questions arise about the notion of address and mail.
What do you do if you no longer have an address in France, how do you receive the mail that will remain, how do you manage your administrative documents, what do you say to organizations? What if I want to make an online purchase for delivery in France?
Keeping an address in France is practical, even essential, for a number of reasons.
Expatriates: Registering with the non-resident tax office
If you move to a European country or outside Europe, you are no longer considered a French resident.
You will therefore register with the non-resident tax department. Your income tax file will then be transferred from the tax center in your current city to the single, centralized French expatriate center (SIPNR – 10 rue du Centre – TSA 10010 – 93465 Noisy-le-Grand Cedex). As a result, all French administrations will be aware of this information: social security, family allowance funds, pension funds and so on.
If you have a fixed address abroad with a reliable local post office, you can communicate the address of your residence abroad to all your correspondents. Be careful, though, as some may tell you that they can’t ship outside France.
It’s also practical to set up automatic international forwarding of all your mail. La Poste takes care of this, with subscriptions from 1 to 12 months.
Expatriate in a country where the post doesn’t work properly
If you’re an expatriate in a country where the Post Office operates on a haphazard basis, you know that it’s complicated to receive letters and even parcels. In Africa, for example, but also in many Asian countries, postal delivery is chaotic.
Start of expatriation with no permanent address
At the start of your expatriation, you may choose temporary accommodation for a few months. This may be a decision on your part, as you want to give yourself time to get to know your new locality better, so that you can make an informed decision on a longer-term home. This may be due to a shortage of vacancies matching your criteria.
Long-distance travellers
Long-haul travelers leave their homes and mailboxes behind. In their quest for freedom and discovery, administration is their last priority. However, French organizations and government agencies will not permanently remove you from their lists. So you’ll have to find an explanation and tell them where to contact you.
The solution for keeping an address in France
So, whether you’re an expatriate or a traveler, there’s a good chance that at some point in your journey, you’ll need to have a place in France where you can receive letters or parcels.
For convenience’s sake, many people will want to call on their family or a close friend in France to receive their mail, whenever possible. It’s free, but it can quickly become a hassle for everyone… This can have a financial impact on the person who is virtually hosting you: it can increase their taxes and remove any financial aid they may be entitled to. It’s also embarrassing because the information is confidential. The best solution is to subscribe to a P.O. box service from a company that specializes in Internet mail.
How can I receive my important documents remotely?
If you need to continue receiving your mail, parcels and important documents, wherever you are and whenever you want, Courrier du Voyageur has the solution, offering you a real and virtual P.O. box service.
This service allows you to receive all your items in one place, and to be informed in real time. A virtual P.O. box allows you to check on the receipt of your documents and items by viewing them scanned or photographed in your customer area!
All you need is an internet connection to access the digital platform.
The scan function is very practical when you’re abroad!
Of course, you can also opt for worldwide forwarding by choosing from a list of carriers. What’s more, the web interface lets you request other practical operations such as printing and sending documents (from pdf files), cashing cheques and paying invoices.
Regarding the reception of parcels, these will be treated as a priority and received each day. A consolidated parcel service with repackaging lets you shop on the web, use the address to have your orders delivered and then request consolidated forwarding to the country of your choice.
Thanks to all these services, you can manage your parcels and mail remotely, extremely easily and, above all, from anywhere in the world. A postal address certificate can also be downloaded online.
