France’s outsourced visa partner in Algeria, Capago, has warned applicants that the France-Visas website – the compulsory first step for every Schengen or long-stay application – will be shut down for “major technical maintenance” on Wednesday 3 December (15:30-19:30) and Tuesday 9 December (06:00-09:00). During each four-hour window users will be unable to create files, pay fees, book appointments or track cases.
Although the outages look brief on paper, Capago says the ripple effect could be severe because demand typically peaks in the first half of December. Every tourist, student and work-permit applicant must obtain a portal confirmation before giving biometrics at Capago’s Algiers, Oran or Annaba centres. If even 5-10 % of customers are forced to re-book, appointment queues could slip into late December, jeopardising Christmas trips and January university intakes.
![France-Visas portal to go offline twice next week, threatening holiday-season processing for Algerian travellers]()
For multinational employers, the advice is clear: submit dossiers before 3 December or be ready to re-sequence assignee start dates. Mobility managers moving staff between Algeria and France are being urged to pre-reserve blocks of appointments, keep flight bookings flexible and warn travellers of possible last-minute rescheduling.
Capago says it is accelerating a cloud-migration project to cut downtime in 2026, but concedes that “sporadic maintenance windows” will continue throughout the first quarter. The French foreign ministry has not commented publicly, but internal sources say the upgrade is needed to prepare the portal for October 2025’s EU Entry/Exit System (EES) requirements.
Although the outages look brief on paper, Capago says the ripple effect could be severe because demand typically peaks in the first half of December. Every tourist, student and work-permit applicant must obtain a portal confirmation before giving biometrics at Capago’s Algiers, Oran or Annaba centres. If even 5-10 % of customers are forced to re-book, appointment queues could slip into late December, jeopardising Christmas trips and January university intakes.
For multinational employers, the advice is clear: submit dossiers before 3 December or be ready to re-sequence assignee start dates. Mobility managers moving staff between Algeria and France are being urged to pre-reserve blocks of appointments, keep flight bookings flexible and warn travellers of possible last-minute rescheduling.
Capago says it is accelerating a cloud-migration project to cut downtime in 2026, but concedes that “sporadic maintenance windows” will continue throughout the first quarter. The French foreign ministry has not commented publicly, but internal sources say the upgrade is needed to prepare the portal for October 2025’s EU Entry/Exit System (EES) requirements.
