Corporate mobility teams moving staff to France have been warned to brace for two complete outages of the France-Visas website next week. France’s outsourcing partner Capago has confirmed that the portal will be taken offline on Wednesday 3 December from 15:30-19:30 (Algiers time) and again on Tuesday 9 December from 06:00-09:00 for “major technical maintenance”. No applicant—tourist, student, posted worker or immigration provider—will be able to create a file, pay fees, book biometrics or track a case during either four-hour window.
Although four hours may sound modest, the timing is awkward. Early December is peak season for Algerian holiday-makers heading to French ski resorts, for international students returning for the January semester and for HR teams finalising Q1 assignee start-dates. Because every non-EU visa seeker must first generate a France-Visas confirmation before appearing at Capago’s centres in Algiers, Oran, Annaba or Constantine, even a short shutdown ripples downstream and can push appointment calendars back by weeks.
![France-Visas portal to shut down twice next week, risking holiday processing backlog]()
Capago is urging travellers to download their confirmation pages and pay fees well in advance, warning that system-generated payment deadlines will not be extended. Employers are advised to audit December travel plans immediately, flagging assignees whose biometrics fall inside the outage windows and preparing fallback scenarios such as remote onboarding or delayed start dates. Immigration providers should secure written re-scheduling notices to avoid last-minute surprises.
The incident also highlights the fragility of France’s broader push to digitise 100 % of immigration procedures by the end of 2025. Recent hiccups—including a four-hour crash during July’s air-traffic-controller strike—show that resilience still lags demand. Mobility managers are increasingly building extra buffer time into French filings and monitoring Capago and France-Visas alerts in real time.
Although four hours may sound modest, the timing is awkward. Early December is peak season for Algerian holiday-makers heading to French ski resorts, for international students returning for the January semester and for HR teams finalising Q1 assignee start-dates. Because every non-EU visa seeker must first generate a France-Visas confirmation before appearing at Capago’s centres in Algiers, Oran, Annaba or Constantine, even a short shutdown ripples downstream and can push appointment calendars back by weeks.
Capago is urging travellers to download their confirmation pages and pay fees well in advance, warning that system-generated payment deadlines will not be extended. Employers are advised to audit December travel plans immediately, flagging assignees whose biometrics fall inside the outage windows and preparing fallback scenarios such as remote onboarding or delayed start dates. Immigration providers should secure written re-scheduling notices to avoid last-minute surprises.
The incident also highlights the fragility of France’s broader push to digitise 100 % of immigration procedures by the end of 2025. Recent hiccups—including a four-hour crash during July’s air-traffic-controller strike—show that resilience still lags demand. Mobility managers are increasingly building extra buffer time into French filings and monitoring Capago and France-Visas alerts in real time.
