UGA international

Conditions to be met

To apply for CAF housing allowance, if you are going to stay in France for more than three months, you must first meet certain general conditions: you must be renting accommodation in your own name, paying rent, and have a bank account in France or within the SEPA area.

Since 1 July 2026, specific conditions apply if you are a non-European student (from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland), and have a "student" long stay visa (VLS-TS) or "student" residence permit.
In this case, to be eligible for CAF housing allowance, you must meet at least one of the following conditions (*):

• be working in France (under an employment contract, a "contrat d'apprentissage" or "contrat de professionnalisation"),
• be receiving a scholarship awarded on social criteria or on the basis of means-tested criteria, and paid by a French organization (CROUS or the regional authority for certain regional scholarships in the health and social care sectors).

More information about these new eligibility requirements on the UGA International web portal and on the CAF website.
(*) Since these conditions are new, further details may be provided during the 2026–2027 academic year.

If you are non-European, please also note that some types of residence permits do not allow to benefit from the CAF housing allowance.
Therefore, you will not be eligible if you came to France, for example, with:
- a visa marked "dispense temporaire de carte de séjour" (temporarily exempted from applying for a residence permit),
- a short stay visa ("visa de court séjour"),
- a temporary long term visa ("visa long séjour temporaire"),
- a "long-term resident - EU" residence permit (carte de séjour "résident de longue durée – UE") issued by a country other than France,
- a residence permit issued by a country other than France accompanied by the "Notification de la mobilité en France d’un étudiant [ou chercheur] étranger autorisé à séjourner dans un autre État membre de l’Union Européenne".

If you meet the eligibility criteria, and would like to have an estimate of the amount you might receive, you can do a simulation on the CAF website.

Applying for housing allowance for the first time

Your first application for housing allowance is made online, on the CAF website, in the following steps.

Step 1 – Create your CAF account

To create your CAF online account, you must go on the CAF website, then click on "Mon compte", then "Créer mon compte".
You will need to enter your personal details and contact information.
Creating an account takes between 5 and 10 minutes.

If you do not have a French social security number, you can still create a CAF online account.
You will then be issued with an "identifiant provisoire" (temporary username), which you will use to log in to your account and submit your first application for housing allowance.
You can use this temporary username until the CAF sends you a French social security number by post.

See the CAF tutorial on how to create your account

Step 2 – Applying for housing allowance

Once you have created your account, you will need to log in to your CAF online account using either your social security number or your "identifiant provisoire".
You can then apply for housing allowance by clicking on "Faire une demande de prestation en ligne", then "Logement", "Demande d'aide au logement", and finally "Faire la demande".
 
In order to be able to enter all the requested information, you must have with you at the time of the request:

• If you live in a CROUS residence, the 'attestation CAF', which you can obtain from your residence reception desk or download from your account on MesServices.etudiant.gouv.fr, section 'Cité U',
• If you live in another type of accommodation, your rental contract or lease, as well as the contact information of your landlord (owner, agency...), the Siret number if the landlord is a company, and the amount of the rent,
• The amount of your income over the last 12 months (whether the income was received in France or abroad),
• Your bank details (your RIB, or the IBAN and BIC numbers of your account in the SEPA).

If you do not have all the necessary information with you, it is possible to suspend the online application, and resume it later, within a maximum of 30 days.
  At the end of the online procedure, once your application has been validated, a list of the documents you need to send to CAF will appear on the screen, and a summary document of your housing allowance application will be available to download in PDF format.
Beware! This information will disappear as soon as you close the window.
We recommend that you make a note of the list of documents (by taking a screen shot, for example), and that you download the summary document (it is a proof that you have completed your application and allows you to check the information you have entered).

Step 3 – Send the requested documents to CAF

To submit your documents, please login to your CAF online account, and click on "Transmettre un document".
If you are unable to do so, you can send your documents by post / mail to your local CAF, or drop them off at a CAF office.

You may be asked for different documents depending on your situation, but you will have to provide at least the documents listed below.
Please note that the copies of your documents must be of good quality.

Everyone:

• Copy of your ID (passport, or ID card).
• Copy of your birth certificate in the original language (along with the French translation if you have it).

Europeans (EU / EEA) or Swiss nationals:

• Copy of your European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) (or of your French health insurance certificate if you have no EHIC).
• Copy of your certificate of enrolment (‘certificat de scolarité’) at a higher education institution (if applicable).

Non-Europeans (from outside the EU, EEA or Switzerland):

• Copy of your visa and the certificate confirming validation of the registration of your long-stay visa serving as a residence permit (‘Confirmation de la validation de l’enregistrement de votre visa long séjour valant titre de séjour’), or of your residence permit card.
• If you work: copy of your employment contract (and payslips if available).
• If you receive a scholarship: copy of your grant notification, showing the award criteria and the organization paying the grant.

Employed / salaried doctoral students:

• Copy of your work contract.

The processing of your application for housing allowance

After receiving your application for housing allowance, CAF will send you letters by post: so remember to put your name clearly on your letterbox.
The first letters you receive will contain your file number, which is also your CAF beneficiary ("allocataire") number.

If you access your CAF online account using an 'identifiant provisoire' (P + 8 digits), CAF will also send you a social security number at a later date, which you will then have to use to access your account. The first time you use your social security number to log in to your account, if your password is not recognized, you will be redirected to the creation of a new account, using your social security number.

Processing times can be several weeks, or even several months at the start of the new academic year.
To find out how long it takes to process housing allowance applications, visit the CAF website for your place of residence ("CAF de l'Isère" if you live in Grenoble, or "CAF de la Drôme" if you live in Valence).

Payment of the housing allowance

The first payment depends on the processing times of the CAF in your place of residence, and is made at the earliest two months after the application.
Please note that if you are applying for a housing allowance for the first time, no allowance will be paid for the month in which you move in. You are not entitled to housing benefit until the month following the month in which you move in.

Example
You move into your accommodation on January 8th, and do the online application in January.
-> Housing allowance entitlement starts in February, paid in the beginning of March at the earliest.

If your circumstances change or you move house

It is important to report any changes in your situation to the CAF!
Indeed, certain changes in your personal or professional circumstances may require a recalculation of your entitlements, or a review of your eligibility for CAF housing allowance.

You must report any changes to your circumstances via your CAF online account, under the section "Déclarer un changement": change of address, return to your home country, employment status, family circumstances (marriage, birth), bank details, etc.

In addition, please feel free to send a message to the CAF to explain your situation in more detail.
And remember to provide any documents supporting your change in circumstances: employment contract, payslip, scholarship notification, etc.

If you move to a new address in France, and wish to continue to receive the CAF housing allowance, you must submit a new application for your new address. This new housing allowance application should be made online, via your CAF account, in the section "Faire une demande de prestation".

If you change your address and move abroad, you must notify CAF via your online account: either in the section "Mon profil", or in the section "Déclarer un changement".

If you are a non-European (from outside the EU, EEA or Switzerland), and receive a new residence document (new residence permit, 'attestation de décision favorable', 'récépissé'...), remember to send a copy of it to CAF to ensure a better continuity of your housing allowance entitlements.