Applying to a French University from the UK: the French You Need

A British student applying to the first year of a licence at a French public university applies through the DAP procedure rather than Parcoursup, is not exempted from the language requirement by an A Level or an IB, and will struggle to sit the French test the national rules ask for anywhere in the UK. The deadline also falls eight months before A Level results. All of that is worth knowing in Year 12 rather than Year 13.

This page sets out the route and the language requirement as the French government and Campus France publish them, with links so you can check each point at source. The language side is what I can help with, but the route matters because it determines which certificate you need and when.

Which application route

Since Brexit, Campus France states that British students are treated as third-country nationals for French higher education. The route then depends on four things: nationality, country of residence, the secondary qualification held, and the type of course applied for. The last two are the ones most often missed.

Student Route
British, living in the UK, with A Levels or the IB, applying to the first year of a licence at a public university DAP, the demande d'admission préalable, filed on the Études en France platform
British, living in the UK or in France, applying to a selective course outside the universities: a CPGE, a BTS, an engineering school Parcoursup, whatever the nationality
British, applying to a selective university programme such as a BUT, a DEUST or a DU Parcoursup, but only if resident in France
British, but holding or sitting the French or European baccalauréat Parcoursup

The third row matters more than it looks. A BUT is a three-year degree delivered inside a public university, through an IUT, and it is a mainstream destination. So "a degree at a French public university" does not have one answer: a licence and a BUT go different ways, and for the BUT where you live decides it.

The DAP itself is the pre-admission procedure for foreign students entering the first year of a licence, and also the PASS, the first common year of health studies. There are three forms: a dossier blanc for applicants living abroad, a dossier vert for those living in France, and a separate procedure run by the Ministry of Culture for schools of architecture. A UK-resident applicant uses the first. You may name up to three programme choices.

The UK is one of the countries covered by Études en France, so the application is filed online rather than on paper through an embassy. The platform does two separate jobs: it is where the DAP admission application is filed, and later, separately, where the pre-visa step produces a certificate the visa application requires. Campus France UK charges £180 for that second step. Pages describing Études en France purely as a visa procedure are describing only the second job.

You will read that British students use Parcoursup for a first-year licence, and you will read it on official-looking pages that are live today. That advice describes arrangements from 2021 and 2022, and the French government's own guidance at the time framed the Parcoursup opening as exceptional for that year. The ministry's current rules put a UK-resident applicant with A Levels on the DAP route for a licence. Because getting this wrong means applying on the wrong platform and missing the deadline, confirm the route with the individual university rather than relying on any general page, this one included.

A Levels and the IB give no exemption

The DAP applies to applicants who are not French and not nationals of the EU, EEA, Switzerland, Monaco or Andorra, and who do not hold and are not preparing the French or European baccalauréat.

That exemption is narrow and specific. The "European baccalauréat" means the Baccalauréat européen awarded by the accredited European Schools. It does not mean the International Baccalaureate, and it does not mean A Levels. The ministry's own table places the baccalauréat international on the DAP route for non-EU applicants seeking a licence. A Levels are not mentioned in the exemption rules at all, which means they do not exempt.

Nor does either qualification carry automatic equivalence in France. Answering a parliamentary question in February 2024, the French government confirmed that there is no legal equivalence principle for the IB, that it is treated as a foreign diploma, that holders may need a recognition statement from ENIC-NARIC, and that for a non-selective licence the university itself checks whether the subjects taken match the first-year requirements and may accept or refuse on that basis. The answer noted that this review applies to all foreign secondary diplomas, which includes A Levels.

So a British applicant should expect the university to assess subject match, and should not assume that strong A Level grades in the right subjects are self-evidently sufficient.

A separate point: the DAP has its own exemptions, distinct from the language-test exemptions further down. Besides the French or European baccalauréat and EU, EEA, Swiss, Monégasque and Andorran nationality, they cover holders of French government scholarships and of approved foreign-government or international-body scholarships, stateless people, refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary or temporary protection but not asylum seekers, children of diplomats posted in and resident in France, anyone already enrolled in a post-bac programme at a French university, and architecture applicants, who use the separate procedure. The scholarship and already-enrolled routes catch more people than you would expect.

What level is required

There is no national minimum. The ministry's own DAP pages say only that, save for exceptions, candidates must sit a paid language test. No level is stated. Campus France confirms that the level varies with what the institution and the programme ask for.

In practice B2 is the common floor. Campus France UK puts it as: where a level is not stated, universities generally ask you to certify a minimum of B2. But the range runs higher, and these are four institutions' own published requirements.

Institution Published requirement
Sorbonne Université, Faculté des Sciences B2 minimum described as indispensable for non-EU applicants
Université de Strasbourg, maths and computer science B2 minimum, described as essential to follow the courses
Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès TCF DAP B2, DELF B2 or DALF. A mark below 6 in the written expression paper is eliminatory
Université Paris Cité, Psychology C1 required at undergraduate and graduate level

So B2 is a floor rather than the answer, and at least one psychology course asks for C1. Check the actual programme page before deciding which exam to prepare for, because the gap between B2 and C1 is a year or more of work for most students, and discovering it late is what wrecks the timetable.

Which certificate to get

Here the national rule is specific and the practical answer is different from it, which is why this section matters more than any other on the page.

The rule. A candidate in the DAP procedure must register for the TCF taken within that procedure, unless they hold one of a closed list of exemptions. The awarding body states plainly that no other exemption may be granted, and that the DAP framework does not allow a different language certification to be preferred locally. Only DAP applicants may register for that version of the TCF.

The problem. That version is not offered by any UK centre I could verify. The Institut français du Royaume-Uni in London publishes its certificate list, and it covers TCF tout public, TCF IRN, TCF Canada, TCF Québec, DELF at every level and DALF, but not the DAP version. Every session I could evidence runs at a French institution. Campus France UK, asked directly where a UK applicant can book a French language test, answers that you can book one on the website of the French Institute, and recommends the TCF tout public.

The answer. A DELF B2, or a DALF C1 or C2, is on the closed exemption list. It is an explicitly listed national dispense from the required TCF, and it can be sat in London. For a UK-based applicant that makes it the dependable route, and it has the side benefit of being a diploma held for life rather than a test result valid for two years.

On the TCF tout public. Campus France UK recommends it, Campus France USA says DAP candidates sitting it must also take the written expression paper, and several French universities accept it that way. But the awarding body's own conditions for the DAP do not list it as a dispense. So it is accepted in practice by many institutions and not guaranteed by the national rule. If you intend to rely on it, get the specific university to confirm in writing before you pay. If you would rather not have that conversation, sit the DELF B2.

Exemptions from the language test

This is a different list from the DAP exemptions above. The awarding body closes it with a statement that no other exemption may be granted:

  • Nationals of a state where French is the sole official language, or residents of such a state holding a secondary diploma from one
  • Candidates whose secondary schooling took place mostly in French
  • Pupils of certain listed secondary schools outside those countries where teaching was in French, on a list set jointly by the French higher education and foreign affairs ministries
  • Holders of a DELF B2, or a DALF C1 or C2
  • TEF candidates reaching the required mark on the written papers

Applying that to the questions families actually ask:

  • A French A Level is not an exemption. It does not appear on the list, and the list is closed. This surprises people, reasonably, but an A Level in French is a UK qualification in a foreign language, not evidence of schooling in French.
  • An IB bilingual diploma is not an exemption as such. It is not listed. It could only help through the schooling route, and an IB taken in an English-medium UK school is not secondary schooling conducted mostly in French.
  • Having been educated in a French-speaking system can exempt you, through one of the first three routes. Note how narrow the first is: it requires French to be the sole official language of the state, which rules out Belgium, Switzerland and Canada. The third depends on the school appearing on a ministerial list.

Published figures for the TEF threshold conflict across official sources, so if the TEF is your route, get the number from the university rather than from any summary.

The timing problem

For entry in September 2027, the DAP window opened on 1 October 2026 and closes on 15 December 2026. Institutions decide by 30 April 2027. The student must reply by 31 May 2027, and silence counts as a refusal.

A Level results arrive in August 2027. So the application closes about eight months before results exist, and both the decision and the student's acceptance happen before them too. That is normal and provided for: the DAP is written for holders and future holders of a qualification, and the application describes the diploma you are preparing. But it means the language certificate has to be in hand far earlier than a UK student would expect.

The DELF session calendar is the real constraint. At the Institut français in London, the December 2026 session has its B2 written paper on 3 December and the oral on 4 December, and publishes results on 2 February 2027, which is after the 15 December deadline. Registration for that session runs from 15 to 29 October 2026. The preceding October 2026 session closed to registration on 1 September 2026. So a student who plans to "do the DELF in December" will not have a result when the application closes. Sit it in the spring or early summer of the year before you apply.

Institutions may also publish their own DAP deadline. Sorbonne Université's Faculté des Sciences set 15 January as a strict deadline for the 2026 to 2027 cycle, against the national 15 December, so check the date on the programme page you are applying to rather than assuming the national one.

If you are already in Year 13

Worth saying plainly, because the page's own dates force the conclusion. If you are applying for September 2027 entry and have no language certificate now, there is no London DELF session that can give you a result before the 15 December 2026 deadline. The October session closed to registration in September, and the December session reports in February.

That leaves three realistic options, and they are all worth a conversation with the university rather than a guess:

  • Ask the university what it will accept, including whether it will take a result arriving after the deadline, or proof of registration for a test. Some institutions do set their own later date for the certificate. That is institution-specific, not a national rule, so it has to come from them in writing.
  • Sit the TCF tout public, with the written expression paper, having first got the university to confirm it will accept that. London runs it, and results come in about three weeks rather than two months, which is the one thing it has over the DELF here.
  • Apply for the following year, sit the DELF B2 in the spring, and go into the next cycle with the certificate already in hand. For a student who is not yet at B2 anyway, this is often the better outcome rather than the worse one.

Registering for the December DELF is still worth doing in that last case, since the diploma does not expire and it will be ready well before the next application window.

Fees

French public university fees are set nationally and are low by UK standards. For 2026 to 2027 the standard rates are 178 euros for a licence, 255 euros for a master's and 398 euros for a doctorate.

There is also a higher schedule, the droits différenciés, which applies to students from outside the European Union: 2,902 euros for a licence and 3,950 euros for a master's, with doctorates unaffected. Since UK nationals are treated as third-country nationals for French higher education, they fall within the scope of that higher schedule in principle.

In practice the picture is different, and this is worth knowing before anyone is put off. Institutions hold wide discretion to exempt students from the differentiated rates. Answering a parliamentary question, the French government said that a very large majority of institutions had partially exempted the students concerned, and that fewer than 6,000 students nationally actually paid the higher rates. So the published figure is a ceiling rather than a forecast, and the only way to know what a particular university will charge is to ask it directly.

One situation this page cannot resolve: whether living in France before 2021 changes anything for a British family, on fees or on the application route. I could not establish that from official sources, so it needs checking individually with the institution and with Campus France. Note that for the route itself, living in France already has a published answer in the rules above, through the dossier vert.

A workable plan

  1. Year 12, autumn. Identify two or three programmes and read their own language requirements. If any wants C1, start now: that target is a year or more of work, and leaving it until the spring will not do.
  2. Year 12, spring or early summer. Sit the DELF B2, or the DALF if C1 is needed. This is the step people leave too late. Results take roughly two months, so a spring sitting gives you a certificate by the summer and about six months of slack before the deadline.
  3. Year 13, October to December. File the DAP on Études en France, with up to three choices, by 15 December, checking each institution's own deadline.
  4. Year 13, spring. Decisions arrive by 30 April. Reply by 31 May. Do not let it lapse, since silence is a refusal.
  5. Year 13, summer. Results in August, then the separate pre-visa step on Études en France.

If you want to know where your French currently sits, there is a free French level test on this site, and a page on choosing a DELF level with a GCSE or A Level behind you. For sitting the DELF itself, including session dates and fees, see DELF in the UK.

Sources

Deadlines, fees and language requirements change every year. Last checked October 2026. Confirm every date and requirement with the individual institution and with Campus France before relying on it.