La CAF — Housing Aid

Housing aid and the CAF

France pays housing aid to a large share of its students, and the institution that pays it, the CAF, Caisse d'allocations familiales, is one of the first administrations a student meets. The main benefit, the APL, depends on rent, income, household and location, and is calculated from recent income, which for most students is low. Foreign students with a valid residence permit and a lease in their own name are generally eligible, and in a shared apartment each tenant applies separately for their share. The process is online. A simulation gives a rough figure; the application then needs the lease details, a rent certificate completed by the landlord or agency, and bank details. Aid is usually paid from the month after moving in, and is not paid for months before the application, which is why French students tell one another to apply quickly. It may be paid to the tenant or directly to the landlord, who then deducts it from the rent. The rules on amounts, eligibility and the resources taken into account change regularly, so the CAF's own simulator is the reference. The CAF also has a reputation that the word usine à gaz sums up: a system so complicated that few people understand it fully, and that checks declarations after the fact. Honest declarations and kept receipts are the standard advice. For many students, though, a hundred or two hundred euros a month makes the difference between affording Paris and not, which is why the subject comes up in so many colocations, usually in the kitchen.