Health insurance provides foreign students with social coverage while studying in France. This is mandatory to subscribe to Sécurité Sociale. If you want to be better-reimbursed, you can opt for a complementary health insurance, or mutuelle.
Allô Docteur ?
At university, you have a health department: the Service Universitaire de Médecine Préventive et de Promotion de la Santé (SUMPPS - the University Department of Preventive Medicine and the Promotion of Health). You can make an appointment with a doctor there. Some visits are for free, including for contraception, testing, vaccinations, nutrition and psychological monitoring.
There you can also get contact information for a doctor and make an appointment online on the doctolib.fr website
If you have questions about sexuality, sexual relations, or contraception, contact the Planning Familial (Family Planning), an association that offers free and confidential check-up. Women in particular may obtain a prescription for contraception which suits them and obtain the day-after pill in case of need. Family Planning has branches everywhere in France.
Here are a few important numbers
112: the European emergency number;
15: the SAMU (Service d’Aide Médicale Urgente - Emergency Medical Service);
18: the Fire Brigade;
And 3624: for a house-call doctor if you are too ill to travel. This service is available 24/7
How to subscribe to health insurance?
As part of the law project in relation with academic orientation and the success of students, a reform of the system of the student social protection is ongoing (June 2018). A transition phase should be in place for the 2018/2019 period. Eventually, international non-European students will be included in the general healthcare scheme; European students will continue to be covered by their European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) if they have one.
European students
You don't have to complete any process if you have a European Health Insurance Card: you can use it to have access to medical care in France. You are covered, whatever the date of your registration in a French higher education institution.
You are in this case if you have the nationality of a country of the European Union, Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway or Switzerland.
Non-European students already registered in France for the academic year 2017/18
- Start of the academic year 2018:
You don't have to complete any process: you stay in the same scheme. Your file will be managed by a student healthcare mutual (the one you subscribed during your registration in an institution in 2017). You can't change it during the academic year 2018/2019.
- Start of the academic year 2019:
You don't have to complete any process: you will be automatically included in the general system of French healthcare.
Non-European students arriving in France for the academic year 2018/2019 or later
- You can benefit from the French general healthcare system if you came to France with a VLS-TS visa ("visa long séjour valant titre de séjour", Long Term Visa used as Residence Permit)
- First, you must
- validate your visa
- register to your higher education institution.
- Then you must register to the French general healthcare system.
- Registration is free and completed online by logging in to the website of the health insurance dedicated to foreign students: www.etudiant-etranger.ameli.fr (website under construction)
Our advices:
- There are reciprocity agreements between the French health insurance and those of other countries. To know more, check the list of countries
- Read our article about the first steps to complete when you arrive in France to prepare smoothly.
