Hiring a non-EU seasonal worker in France for six months a year

The multi year residence card marked travailleur saisonnier lets a third country national work in France for six months at most in any twelve month period. Article L. 421-34 of the CESEDA sets that limit. The card is issued for up to three years and is renewable, but every season requires a fresh work authorisation filed by the employer.

The combination is what catches out farms and hotel groups. A multi year permit does not remove the annual application. The card gives a stable right of residence; the work authorisation stays tied to the contract for the season in hand.

The conditions set by the CESEDA

The first contract that opens the right to a long stay visa and to the multi year card must run for at least three months. The contract is approved before entry into France by the Office français de l'immigration et de l'intégration and by the national platform for foreign seasonal labour, on the basis of the application the employer files on the Administration numérique pour les étrangers en France, choosing the option for seasonal employment.

The holder undertakes in writing to keep a habitual residence outside France. That is the trade off in the scheme. A seasonal worker is not a settling worker, and the undertaking sits in the file. The employer has to check that the contract does not run past the authorised period of stay, because an overrun is attributed to whoever provides the work.

The fees are modest against the cost of a season. First issue comes to 150 euros, made up of a 100 euro tax and a 50 euro stamp duty, and renewal to 100 euros. A renewal requested out of time brings in a 180 euro regularisation visa fee, which employers usually discover once the worker is already on the farm.

The calendar, which is the real constraint

An agricultural season is prepared in autumn for a spring start. The work authorisation follows the ordinary regime and the administration has two months from a complete file, on top of which sit the consular appointment and the journey. That chain is set out in the introduction procedure for a foreign employee.

The usual breaking point is not refusal, it is slippage. An application filed in February for a harvest starting in May leaves four to six weeks between the decision and the first working day, which is not enough when the consulate in Kathmandu or New Delhi offers a slot three weeks out. Filing in December for the same harvest puts the margin back around three months.

The second point is the six month ceiling. A business running two consecutive campaigns, summer fruit and then the grape harvest, uses up the worker's annual allowance before autumn ends. The rule counts on a rolling twelve months, not on the calendar year, and the counter restarts on the anniversary of entry rather than on 1 January.

What the employer carries in parallel

Accommodation is the second duty of seasonal recruitment and the most inspected. Articles R. 4228-26 and following of the Code du travail for non agricultural sectors, and articles R. 716-1 and following of the Code rural et de la pêche maritime for farming, set numerical standards that the labour inspectorate verifies on site. The detail is in housing foreign workers in France.

Pay follows ordinary law. A foreign seasonal worker is covered by the same SMIC and the same collective agreement as a French one, and pay below the sector minimum is a ground for refusing the work authorisation before it becomes a ground for a social security reassessment.

France differs from several neighbours here. Greece administers its seasonal intake through bilateral agreements and annual contingents, described in Greek bilateral labour quotas for seasonal work, while France proceeds file by file, with no numerical ceiling but with an individual examination of every post.

A business that comes back to the same profiles season after season is better served by thinking in cohorts than in isolated contracts, since the multi year card survives the campaign and only the work authorisation has to be redone. What Werklist takes on, and what stays with the employer, is set out on our employers page.