France’s central online visa platform, France-Visas, will be completely offline for two four-hour maintenance windows on Wednesday 3 December (15:30–19:30 Alger time) and Tuesday 9 December (06:00–09:00). Capago, the private contractor that operates French visa centres in several countries, warned users late on 6 December that no new applications, fee payments, appointment bookings or status-tracking requests will be possible during the outages.
The timing is awkward for mobility managers: early December is peak season for Algerian leisure travel to French ski resorts, for international students returning after the winter break, and for corporate HR teams finalising first-quarter assignments. Under French rules, all Algerian nationals—tourists, posted workers or students—must complete a France-Visas file before enrolling biometrics at one of Capago’s four Algerian collection centres.
![France-Visas portal to shut down twice next week, risking year-end application backlog]()
A similar shutdown last year generated a five-day backlog, forcing some travellers to re-book flights and prompting complaints from French tour operators. Capago says the upgrade will migrate the portal to a new cloud environment that promises “better resilience ahead of the Paris 2026 tourist surge,” but admits that additional short disruptions may follow.
Practical advice for employers: alert travelling staff to submit files early, keep proof-of-submission screenshots, and budget extra time for biometrics. Mobility teams supporting Algerian assignees should consider contingency flights from Tunis or Casablanca, where French consulates use different IT systems.
The timing is awkward for mobility managers: early December is peak season for Algerian leisure travel to French ski resorts, for international students returning after the winter break, and for corporate HR teams finalising first-quarter assignments. Under French rules, all Algerian nationals—tourists, posted workers or students—must complete a France-Visas file before enrolling biometrics at one of Capago’s four Algerian collection centres.
A similar shutdown last year generated a five-day backlog, forcing some travellers to re-book flights and prompting complaints from French tour operators. Capago says the upgrade will migrate the portal to a new cloud environment that promises “better resilience ahead of the Paris 2026 tourist surge,” but admits that additional short disruptions may follow.
Practical advice for employers: alert travelling staff to submit files early, keep proof-of-submission screenshots, and budget extra time for biometrics. Mobility teams supporting Algerian assignees should consider contingency flights from Tunis or Casablanca, where French consulates use different IT systems.
