International Student APL in France: Eligibility, Amount and 2026 Rules

If you are looking into APL for the first time, the short version is that France runs one of the more generous housing benefit systems in Europe, and until recently international students used it on almost the same terms as French students. A student paying €880 for a studio in the 15th arrondissement could see around €240 of that covered every month.

That changed on 1 July 2026. A decree published at the end of June closed access for most non-EU students, and it applied immediately to people who were already receiving payments. There was no transition period. Students who had built a full-year budget around the benefit found out by letter, and several years of living in France offered no protection at all.

Paris is where this lands hardest. The rent ceiling used in the calculation sits at roughly a third of what a real Paris studio costs, rental vacancy hovers between 1 and 2 percent, and most landlords ask for a French guarantor that international applicants simply do not have. National guides give you the national answer. This one covers what APL actually is, who still qualifies under the exact wording of the decree, what it was worth in Paris, how to apply if you are still eligible, and what your options are if you are not.

APL stands for Aide Personnalisée au Logement. It is a monthly, means-tested housing benefit run by CAF, the public body that pays most social benefits in France. The money either lands in your bank account or goes directly to your landlord, in which case it shows up as a deduction on your rent invoice.

The amount depends on three things: your rent, your household resources, and where in France you live. It is not taxable and does not appear in your tax reference income, which matters if your family declares income in France.

APL, ALS and ALF: which one applies to you

Most students say "APL" for all three. In practice CAF decides which scheme you fall under, and you do not get to choose.

• APL covers conventionné housing, meaning properties under a formal agreement with the State. Most CROUS residences, social housing and a portion of private stock sit here.
• ALS is the residual scheme for tenants who fall outside APL and ALF. If you rent a private studio in Paris, this is almost certainly what you get.
• ALF applies to households with dependants or specific family situations.

From where you sit, the distinction is invisible. Same online application, same calculation, same monthly amount. Only the internal label changes.

One point matters a great deal in 2026, and it is worth stating plainly here rather than further down. Since 1 July 2026, students from outside the EU, the EEA and Switzerland no longer receive any of these three benefits unless they hold a French social-criteria scholarship, work, or hold an apprenticeship or professionalisation contract. American and British students are inside that restricted group.

Two consequences follow. Moving to a different apartment does not get around it, because the rule attaches to your status rather than your housing. And the conventionné question above only affects which label your benefit carries, not whether you receive one at all.

How to check whether a Paris apartment is conventionné

Ask the landlord or agency before you sign, because the status is documented and they will know. The rent attestation your landlord fills in for the CAF claim also confirms it. If you are still eligible and the flat turns out not to be conventionné, nothing changes financially. You simply receive ALS instead.

The conditions that apply to everyone

Whatever your nationality, a claim needs:

• A lease in your own name, for a property that is your principal residence in France
• A bank account in the SEPA area
• No family relationship with the landlord. Renting from a parent, child or grandparent disqualifies the claim outright, even at full market rent with a proper contract
• Genuine accommodation, so hotels and short-let platform bookings do not count

Five categories keep the benefit. Everyone else in the non-EU group lost it on 1 July 2026.

The legal chain runs like this. Article 179 of the 2026 Finance Act created the restriction, and Decree No. 2026-552 of 27 June 2026 set out how it applies. Two new articles entered the Construction and Housing Code: D. 822-0-1 defines which scholarships count, and D. 822-0-2 identifies who is treated as meeting the condition without holding one. The rule targets holders of a long-stay visa or residence permit marked poursuite d'études.

The detail that caught most people off guard is timing. The decree covers benefits due from 1 July 2026, not just applications filed after that date. A previous CAF award decision does not survive a change in the eligibility rules, so nothing was grandfathered in. For many students, June 2026 was the last payment. CAF set out the change in a public notice at the start of July.

EU, EEA and Swiss students

Unaffected. Free movement law protects this group, and the EEA includes Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway alongside EU member states.

Which scholarships actually count

This is where most of the confusion sits. The decree recognises only social-criteria higher education scholarships under the first paragraph of Article D. 821-1 of the Education Code. In practice that means CROUS scholarships and certain regional scholarships in health and social care programmes.

Excluded from the definition:

• Scholarships from your home government
• Funding under international cooperation agreements
• Private foundation and corporate awards
• Most university merit awards

Being described as a scholarship holder in everyday conversation is not the test. The issuing body named on your award letter is what decides it, so read the letter rather than assuming.

The work exemption most guides skip

The decree treats students in professional activity as meeting the condition, and that includes people registered as auto-entrepreneurs. What makes this significant is what the text leaves out. It sets no minimum hours, no minimum pay, no minimum seniority and no minimum contract length.

Non-EU students on a study permit may work up to 60 percent of annual full-time hours, which works out at 964 hours a year. Within that allowance, a part-time job can preserve eligibility. If you assumed the benefit was gone, run your case through the CAF simulator before writing it off.

The flip side deserves attention. If work is your only basis for eligibility and the job ends, so does the benefit. Keep your contract, payslips, employer attestation and every declaration you make to CAF.

Apprenticeship, professionalisation and protected statuses

Apprenticeship contracts under Labour Code Article L. 6221-1 and professionalisation contracts under Article L. 6325-1 both qualify. Refugees, stateless persons and spouses of non-EU students also remain eligible.

One quirk worth knowing: if you live with someone who is not eligible, CAF calculates the benefit as though you were living alone.

The scope of the change is easier to grasp when someone talks it through, especially the line between a scholarship that qualifies and one that does not. The video below summarises which student profiles are affected. It is in French, which is worth knowing in advance, and it reflects one commentator's reading of the decree rather than an official position.

The United States has always been outside the EU, and the United Kingdom left the EEA after Brexit. Both nationalities sit squarely inside the restricted category, with no legacy exemption for either.

British students after Brexit

For the purposes of this decree, British students are non-EU, non-EEA and non-Swiss. Most arrive in Paris on a VLS-TS study visa and fall directly under the restriction. Students holding pre-Brexit French residence rights are a separate case and should have their permit category checked rather than assume it either way.

American students on a study permit

Americans on a VLS-TS marked for studies are within scope. The scholarship route is effectively closed to this group, because CROUS social-criteria eligibility is assessed on family circumstances and French tax household history that almost no incoming American student will have.

That leaves the work exemption as the realistic path. For a US or UK student who wants to keep housing support, part-time employment or self-employed registration is the practical answer, not a scholarship application.

If your family already has French tax residence, or a parent works in France, different options may open up. The same applies if you hold a dependent or family permit rather than a study permit, in which case your status is worth checking individually. This sits alongside several other administrative details that catch out Americans settling in Paris during their first year.

In Paris the benefit never covered a proportional share of rent, and understanding why prevents a very common budgeting mistake.

Across France, a student paying around €600 typically received €100 to €200 a month. In Paris, sitting in the highest zone, that rises to roughly €200 to €280. Useful money, but not the 30 to 40 percent of rent that some guides suggest.

The zone 1 rent ceiling and why it caps your aid

Paris and the Île-de-France region fall into zone 1, the highest ceiling band in the country. Under the scale in force since 1 October 2025, the rent ceiling for a single person is €333.14 a month, with a flat charges allowance of €60.59 added on top.

Meanwhile, the average private studio in Paris rents for €915 a month according to UNEF data for 2025 and 2026, and several arrondissements run above €1,100.

Anything above the ceiling is ignored. A €900 studio is calculated as though it were a €333 studio. Paying more rent does not increase your benefit once you pass that line, which is why two students in very different apartments often receive similar amounts.

The two thresholds above the ceiling

The ceiling is not the end of the story, and this is the part most guides leave out. Two further limits apply in zone 1:

• Above €1,132.68 in rent, the benefit starts to taper off
• Above €1,332.56, it stops completely, even if you meet every other condition

This matters in the 6th, 7th and 8th arrondissements, where studios regularly cross that second line. An eligible EU student in a €1,350 studio receives nothing at all, which is a genuinely surprising result if you have only read about the ceiling.

The student flat-rate income

Rather than using your actual earnings, CAF applies a notional annual income to students. For 2026 that figure is €8,600 for non-scholarship students in standard housing and €6,900 for scholarship holders. Neither was uprated this year, and the R0 resource threshold was frozen as well. The next annual revaluation falls on 1 October 2026, indexed to the rent reference index.

A worked example in the 15th arrondissement

Take a studio at €880 rent with €60 in charges.

• Benefit before the reform: roughly €230 to €260 a month
• Effective monthly cost before: around €680
• Effective monthly cost now: €940
• Difference across a twelve-month lease: approximately €3,100

That gap is the reason this reform reshaped student housing decisions in Paris rather than simply annoying people.

For a precise figure on your own situation, the CAF housing simulator is free, anonymous and takes a few minutes.

If you fall into one of the eligible categories, the application is filed online at caf.fr after your lease is signed. The single most important thing to know is that the benefit is never backdated. Your rights start counting from the application, not from your move-in date.

1. When to apply and why waiting costs money

You cannot apply before the lease is signed, because CAF requires the signed contract and your landlord's details. Submitting early does not put you in a queue. The application is simply rejected.

Rights then open the month after you apply. Move in on 1 April and file immediately, and your rights open in May with a first payment in early June. The month you move in is never covered, so plan for it.

Apply the week you move in. A two-week delay is a full month of benefit gone, and there is no mechanism to recover it later.

2. What happens after you submit

You file through your caf.fr account or the mobile app, and an allocataire number usually follows quickly. Processing can take several weeks during the September rush, so check your account rather than assuming silence means refusal.

Since the 2021 reform, CAF assesses resources on a rolling twelve months and recalculates every quarter. A change in your circumstances feeds through within months rather than years, which cuts both ways.

Two practical notes. CAF branches generally operate in French, so bringing a French-speaking friend to an appointment helps. University international offices and CROUS centres also walk students through the application during orientation week.

Gather everything before you start, because the application times out and CAF will not hold an incomplete file open for you.

Documents everyone needs

• Passport, plus your validated VLS-TS or residence permit. A récépissé confirming a pending permit application is generally accepted
• Your signed lease, in your own name
• A RIB for a bank account in the SEPA area
• The attestation de loyer, a rent certificate your landlord completes
• A declaration of your resources over the last twelve months

If you share a flat, each tenant files their own application. The rent ceiling is divided between you, so one flatmate skipping the process does not increase anyone else's payment.

Extra documents if your eligibility rests on work or a scholarship

This is new in 2026 and easy to overlook. If you qualify through employment, keep your work contract, recent payslips and an employer attestation ready. Self-employed students should have their auto-entrepreneur registration to hand.

If you qualify through a scholarship, the award letter needs to show the issuing body clearly, since that is what CAF checks against the legal definition.

Keep copies of everything you upload, along with screenshots of your account and any messages exchanged with CAF. If a decision goes against you later, this file is what you will argue from.

Start by reading the decision properly, because a refusal based on a misreading of your situation is fixed very differently from one that correctly applies the new rule.

Read the decision before you react

Identify the exact ground CAF used. Did they treat you as having no scholarship, no work activity, or simply an incomplete file? Then check what CAF actually holds. If you started a job in October and never declared it, the refusal may be accurate on the information available and wrong in substance.

Where the decision is correct under the new rule, paid work is the most accessible route back for a US, UK or other non-EU student. Declare the activity as soon as it starts and supply the contract and payslips.

How to challenge a CAF decision

• A recours gracieux, a written request for reconsideration, goes to your local CAF office within the deadline stated on the notification
• If that fails, the Commission de Recours Amiable can be seized through your caf.fr account. It costs nothing
• Beyond that, the social division of the Tribunal Judiciaire hears the case. Filing is free and legal aid is available on low income

Deadlines and procedures are printed on your notification letter and should be followed to the day.

Emergency support while you wait

• The CROUS annual specific allowance supports students in serious financial difficulty
• The departmental Fonds de Solidarité Logement offers one-off housing assistance
• Your institution's social services and student welfare office can often move faster than either

Free legal advice for foreign nationals is available through associations including GISTI and La Cimade.

The benefit is not coming back for most non-EU students. What is worth knowing is that in Paris specifically, three other levers move more money than APL ever did.

1. Check the rent against Paris rent control before you sign

Paris operates rent control on every primary residence let, furnished included. Your rent excluding charges cannot exceed the loyer de référence majoré, which is the local median plus 20 percent, unless a justified supplement is written into the lease.

Reference rents in 2026 run roughly €22 per square metre in the outer arrondissements such as the 13th, 19th and 20th, €26 to €28 in the inner ring covering the 11th, 12th, 14th, 15th and 18th, €30 to €34 on the Left Bank and in the west, and up to €38 in the historic centre. Furnished lets sit 10 to 15 percent above those figures.

Here is why this matters more than it sounds. The maximum benefit in zone 1 was around €200 to €280 a month. A studio priced above the legal ceiling can be overcharged by a comparable amount or more, and any rent supplement can be challenged within the first three months of the lease. CAF has stopped paying you, but your landlord may be overcharging you, and that figure is often larger than the benefit you just lost. Most international tenants never run the check.

2. Get the guarantor question right

Visale, the free state-backed guarantee from Action Logement, carries a student rent ceiling of €1,000 including charges in Île-de-France under the scale introduced on 6 January 2026. The visa stays valid six months for students, and coverage now runs to 36 months of arrears in the private sector, arising within the first three years of the lease rather than across the full term.

Two details are easy to miss:

• Visale always applies the lower of two figures: your zone ceiling, or 50 percent of your net resources. Students are exempt from proving income up to the flat-rate ceiling, but going above it requires income documentation.
• Leases signed before 6 January 2026 keep the old rules for their full term. And once the three years are up, you can submit a fresh Visale application for the same apartment if you still qualify.

The structural problem is arithmetic. An average Paris studio at €915 plus charges sits at or above that €1,000 ceiling, which puts most central Paris studios outside Visale entirely.

Above the ceiling, private guarantors such as GarantMe and Cautioneo accept foreign income and issue a certificate within 24 hours, charging roughly 3.5 to 4.1 percent of annual rent. On a €1,200 apartment that is around €500 to €590 a year. Where a family funds the tenancy, a bank guarantee with blocked funds is a third route. The three guarantor solutions used most often in Paris each suit a different profile, and picking the wrong one costs you viewings.

Check your own eligibility on the Action Logement Visale portal before you start viewing. Presenting a certificate you already hold carries far more weight with a landlord than promising to apply for one.

3. Choose the lease that fits your cash position

• Bail meublé runs one year, or nine months for students. The standard choice for a full academic year
• Bail mobilité runs one to ten months, permits no security deposit by law, allows one month's tenant notice, and accepts Visale as guarantor. The most visa-compatible option for students and short programmes

With the benefit gone, that no-deposit rule frees up €900 to €1,800 at move-in, which for many students matters more than the monthly figure. Lease selection also shapes the housing evidence your consulate appointment requires, since proof of accommodation is needed before the interview rather than after it.

4. Consider CROUS and the Cité Internationale realistically

CROUS rooms in Paris run roughly €330 to €540 a month, which is well below market. The catch is allocation: scholarship holders come first, and FAGE counted one CROUS place for every 17 students in 2025. Applications go through the CROUS housing platform in allocation rounds from May to late June, with remaining stock released in early July.

Non-scholarship international students should treat CROUS as a long shot and run a private search alongside it rather than waiting on a result.

The Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris in the 14th arrondissement houses around 6,000 students and researchers, and its Access service is where Crous Paris itself directs international arrivals. Several grandes écoles also hold reserved rooms there, so ask your institution's housing office directly.

Without the benefit, your budget has to be built on gross rent. The number that decides whether a Paris year works is usually the upfront cash, not the monthly figure.

Your real monthly number

• Rent, with no deduction. A central Paris studio runs €850 to €1,300. A room in a shared flat runs €650 to €950
• Charges of €50 to €100 on top
• Home insurance is a legal requirement for tenants, and landlords normally ask for the certificate at key handover and once a year afterwards. Budget €8 to €15 a month
• Transport at €90.80 for a monthly Navigo, or the Imagine R annual pass for under-26s living in Île-de-France at €401.30 a year, which works out around €33 a month

A realistic all-in monthly total for a Paris studio comes to €1,100 to €1,400. Housing alone absorbs 50 to 60 percent of a student budget in the capital, which is why the food line rarely rescues you. CROUS canteens at €3.30 to €4 a meal help, but they cannot offset rent.

The upfront cash before day one

Before your first transfer arrives, you need the deposit (one month on a furnished lease, none on a bail mobilité), the first month's rent, agency fees, a guarantor fee if you use a private service, insurance, the €105 CVEC contribution, and €150 to validate your VLS-TS.

Budget €2,000 to €3,000 for that first block. Families funding a student from abroad frequently plan the monthly figure well and this one badly.

One more change belongs in the same budget conversation. Since 1 August 2026, non-EU students applying for or renewing a study permit must show €877.50 a month rather than the previous €615, under Decree No. 2026-526. Over a year that is €10,530 to evidence instead of €7,380. It is not money you spend, but it is money you have to show.

Timing is the last variable, and the one people underestimate. The Paris market peaks between June and September at 1 to 2 percent vacancy, a level that shapes how relocation support is structured in the capital. A search started in August competes with the entire incoming cohort. A search started in March does not.

Losing the benefit does not change what a Paris landlord asks for. It changes how carefully everything else in your application has to be built, because the margin for a weak file has narrowed.

A property search built around your profile

Our team runs a tailored search across furnished, unfurnished, short and long-term stock in Paris and the surrounding communes. That includes off-market properties surfaced through direct relationships with agencies, private landlords and building managers, before those properties reach public platforms. In a market where a well-priced apartment can draw 20 to 30 applications inside 48 hours, seeing something early is often the whole difference.

Viewings run in person or by video with written reports, so a decision can be made while you are still in your home country. Most searches complete within two to four weeks. The property search service page sets out how the process runs step by step.

Dossier, guarantor and lease review

We prepare the rental file before the search begins, so an application goes out the same day a suitable property appears rather than three days later when it is gone.

The guarantor route is matched to the actual rent: Visale where the ceiling allows it, a private guarantee where it does not. Before signature, we check the lease against Paris rent control, and we activate utilities, insurance and contracts ahead of your move-in date so the apartment works from the first evening.

Scope is modular. You can engage the team for the housing search alone, or for end-to-end support including administrative onboarding and settling in. Every deliverable and fee is set out in writing before work starts, following a free initial consultation. Current scopes are listed on the pricing page.

For students arriving without a French guarantor, which is most of them, the practical starting point is understanding what landlords accept in place of one.