French marriage visa: which one and how it works
"French marriage visa" usually means one of two things; for a Vietnamese spouse of a French citizen, the relevant path is the long-stay VLS-TS « vie privée et familiale » under the famille-de-français track.
Which "French marriage visa" do you mean?
The phrase points to two different situations. The first is that you are already married to (or about to marry) a French citizen and you want to live together in France. That is the famille-de-français pathway, and it is the one this article covers. The second is that you want to travel to France specifically to hold the wedding ceremony there. That is a different track entirely, with its own requirements, and is not the subject of the spouse visa described below.
For the spouse route, the visa you apply for is a long-stay visa (Type D) called a VLS-TS « vie privée et familiale » (visa de long séjour valant titre de séjour, a long-stay visa that doubles as a residence permit). It is valid for up to one year and must be validated online on the ANEF portal within 3 months of arriving in France. After that year, you apply at the local préfecture for a 2-year carte de séjour pluriannuelle, and after 3 years of legal residence, a 10-year carte de résident.
Getting a Vietnamese marriage recognised in France
If your marriage was celebrated in Vietnam, it cannot be used directly for the visa application. It must first be transcribed into the French civil registry by the Service Central d'État Civil (SCEC) in Nantes. The French spouse initiates this request through the French consulate in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, or directly with the SCEC by post. The result is an acte de mariage transcrit (a French transcribed marriage certificate), and it is mandatory before you file the visa. Without it, the application will be refused.
Before the transcription can happen, the Vietnamese marriage certificate (giấy đăng ký kết hôn) must go through a legalisation chain: notarisation by a Vietnamese authority, authentication by the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then authentication by the French embassy or consulate in Vietnam. Vietnam is not party to the Hague Apostille Convention, so apostille does not apply.
The SCEC does not publish a processing timeline. Straightforward cases may take several weeks, but complex ones can take several months. This is the longest-lead item in the entire file, so confirm whether the acte de mariage transcrit is already in hand before preparing anything else.
Eligibility: four cumulative conditions
The official government page on the spouse-of-French-national visa sets out four conditions that must all be met. First, communauté de vie: the spouses share a genuine common life that has been maintained since the marriage and is intended to continue in France. For couples who have been separated by distance (one partner in Vietnam, one in France), the consular post will look for documentary evidence across the relationship's history: photos with dates, communication records, evidence of visits, joint financial arrangements, and supporting letters.
Second, the French spouse must hold French nationality at the time of the application, evidenced by a current French passport or carte nationale d'identité. Third, the marriage must be transcribed to the French état civil (the Nantes step above). Fourth, the marriage must be non-polygamous; for Vietnamese applicants this is normally satisfied without a separate declaration.
What this means for applicants
Do not book a TLS Contact appointment until the acte de mariage transcrit from Nantes is in your hands. TLS Contact is France's intake vendor in Vietnam (not VFS), with centres in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The visa application form is Cerfa 14571-05, generated through the france-visas interactive assistant, which also produces your specific document list. The TLS service fee is EUR 25, and the visa fee should be verified on france-visas before each filing as it has historically been exempt or reduced for this track.
The full document checklist for the spouse-of-French sub-track, including the legalisation steps and the communauté de vie evidence guidance, is available at the Spouse of French national checklist.
After arrival in France, the 3-month ANEF validation deadline is critical. The VLS-TS lapses if it is not validated in time. Note the exact date before you travel and set a reminder.