Translation of Work Documents for France

Without an application from the employer, a work file never starts

The distinctive feature of work-related procedures in France is that the first move is usually made not by the candidate but by the employer. The employer opens a request for a permit before the competent administrative body in respect of the foreign national it wishes to take on; once that request succeeds, the candidate moves to the visa stage through the consulate, and after entering France the residence document formalities are dealt with at préfecture level. This three-stage structure means the documents are put before three different readers, three times over. For the candidate the practical upshot is that translations should be prepared in several copies rather than one, and that the currency of each document has to be watched at every stage. While matters wait on the employer’s side, a candidate’s criminal record and civil status documents can go out of date.

Why a translation from outside the Cour d’appel list is not accepted

In France an official translation is made by a traducteur assermenté who appears on the list of experts kept by a court of appeal (Cour d’appel). In work files this condition is applied more strictly than in education files, because the administrative body examining an employment permit file can verify from the seal and the list details who made the translation. A translation by a translator not on the list may be turned away on procedural grounds, whatever the quality of the language. For work files bound for France, then, the choice of translator is a decision that comes before the translation itself. You can see the documents translated in this context on our document types page.

In regulated professions the professional body holds an authority of its own

In fields such as healthcare, law, architecture and accountancy the right to practise is granted by the relevant professional body, independently of the work permit. The comparability statement obtained through ENIC-NARIC France shows the level of the education, but that document on its own gives rise to no right to practise. The mistake candidates make most often is to put the comparability statement in the place of professional recognition. Where a file is being prepared in a regulated profession, the curriculum, the placement certificates and, where there is one, the record of membership of the professional chamber in Türkiye have to be translated as well; these are the documents that allow the body to assess the content of the training.

Stage by stage: who you deal with, and which document

Stage	Who you deal with	Key document
Employment permit request	The competent administrative body (opened by the employer)	Employment contract, diploma
Professional authorisation	The relevant professional body	Curriculum, certificate of qualification
Visa application	The French consulate	Criminal record certificate, civil status documents
Residence document	Préfecture	Contract and proof of address

The commonest ground of refusal: no link drawn between the post and the qualification

In the assessment of an employment permit in France, the negative outcome seen most often is a finding that the candidate’s documents do not match the qualification the post on offer calls for. The diploma is there in the file, but the relationship between the field of that diploma and the job description in the contract cannot be made out from the text. The way to head this off is for the job description to be set out in detail in the employer’s letter, and for the translation to render that description in keeping with the established French name for the occupation. The second frequent ground is that the apostille certificate has been left out of the translation; leaving the certificate untranslated weakens the verifiability of the document.

What can be done after a negative decision

When an employment permit request in France ends in refusal, the file is not to be treated as closed; reading the grounds given for the decision is the single piece of information that determines the next step. Those grounds generally fall into two groups. The first is procedural: a document is missing, the translation was not obtained from the proper list, the apostille was left out of scope. Shortcomings of that kind can be made good, and are put right by submitting the file again. The second group goes to the substance: no link could be drawn between the post and the qualification, or the terms of the employment were not thought sufficient. Here adding documents will not answer on its own; the employer may need to rewrite the job description, or the application may have to be framed along a different route.

Seen from the translation side, a fresh application seldom calls for every earlier translation to be renewed. Existing sworn translations of documents that do not change, such as the diploma and the curriculum, can go on being used; what needs renewing are the documents subject to a currency requirement, together with the contract and the job description letters whose content has altered. Drawing that line brings the cost of a second application down markedly. It also helps to note which document caused difficulty in the first application and on what ground, so that the same error is not repeated; passing that feedback to the translator as you hand over the new document lets the choice of terminology be tuned to what the receiving authority expects.

The translation of the grounds of the decision is a separate matter in itself. Reading a refusal letter written in French only on the surface can lead to a misunderstanding of which shortcoming needs making good; the set phrases used in administrative texts in particular carry meanings that differ from everyday language. Having the decision translated by a sworn translator allows the choice between an appeal and a fresh application to be made on the right footing. The grounds also need to be shared with the employer, since most substantive grounds point to matters for the employer rather than the candidate to put right: rewriting the job description, defining the post in a different category, or making the terms of pay clear. In a fresh application it is worth preparing a short covering letter showing which documents in the file have changed; when the assessor can see at once how it differs from the earlier file, the examination takes less time. Preparing that covering letter by the same sworn translation route keeps the file formally of a piece and stops a further argument over procedure from arising.

This page is for general information; the conditions governing employment permits and professional recognition are updated regularly, so confirm the current requirements from the official announcements of the relevant préfecture, the professional body and the French consulate. You can request a quotation for your file, look through the pricing page, and compare other countries in our country directory.