CAF Registration in France: Complete Guide to Housing Aid (APL, ALF, ALS) for Expats (2026)

CAF administers three distinct schemes. They are not cumulative — you receive only one, automatically picked by CAF based on your housing and family situation.

• APL — aide personnalisée au logement. The most common aid. Reserved for tenants of a **dwelling that is conventionné with the State**: this covers most HLM (social housing) and any private rental where the landlord signed a convention APL with the préfet. The convention status is on the bail or on the attestation de loyer; if you're unsure, ask the landlord or check on caf.fr's simulator.
• ALF — allocation de logement familiale. Awarded based on family situation, when the dwelling is not conventionné. You qualify if: you receive family benefits (allocations familiales), you have at least one dependent child under 21, you are a married couple within the first 5 years of marriage with no children, you are pregnant and living alone, or you support an ascendant or descendant with a disability.
• ALS — allocation de logement sociale. The catch-all: awarded when the dwelling is not conventionné and you don't qualify for ALF. Most students, young professionals and single working expats fall here.

All three use the same calculation formula — the difference is purely in who administers them and which budget line. CAF's online simulator (caf.fr/aides/aides-au-logement-simulation) tells you within 5 minutes which one applies and gives an indicative monthly amount. Note: from 1 July 2026, non-scholarship international students from outside the EU/EEA/Switzerland will no longer be eligible for APL — this is a significant tightening for incoming students.

Three layers of eligibility need to line up before CAF will open a file.

Layer 1 — stable and regular residence in France. You must reside in France habitually. CAF traditionally read this as at least 6 months per year on French territory. Since 1 January 2025, a tightened threshold of 9 months per year applies for non-EU nationals to access most social benefits including housing aid. EU/EEA/Swiss nationals keep the 6-month rule under EU free-movement rules.

Layer 2 — valid titre de séjour for non-EU nationals. The accepted documents are the carte de séjour temporaire, the carte pluriannuelle, the carte de résident (10 years), the récépissé bearing a work authorization, or a VLS-TS validated by OFII. Asylum seekers receive specific treatment via ADA, not via CAF housing aid. EU citizens do not need a titre de séjour but are still asked for an ID and proof of address.

Layer 3 — a dwelling that meets the décence criteria. The rental must be your principal residence (≥ 8 months/year), with a regular bail, and decent under the law of 6 July 1989. Minimum surface: 9 m² for one person, 16 m² for two, +9 m² per additional person, with a ceiling height of 2.20 m. Since 1 January 2023, energy decency is part of the criteria — for 2026 the dwelling must have at least DPE class F, tightening to E from 1 January 2028 and D from 2034. A class G rental is not eligible for CAF aid; ask for the DPE before signing.

If any of those layers fails, CAF will reject the file or suspend payment until the situation is regularised.

Until 31 December 2020, CAF housing aid used your income from two years earlier (N-2). A graduate who started working in 2019 saw an APL based on their 2017 student-grant income — generous in year one, bad-news in year three. The 2021 reform (entered into force 1 January 2021) flipped the model: CAF now uses revenus contemporains — your income over the last 12 months on a rolling basis — and recalculates the aid every 3 months, automatically.

In practice:

• Your aid for April–May–June 2026 is calculated on income earned March 2025 – February 2026.
• Your aid for July–August–September 2026 is recalculated on income earned June 2025 – May 2026.
• And so on, with the window rolling forward each quarter.

Income is now collected automatically via the DSN (déclaration sociale nominative) employers file each month, and via the base ressources mensuelles. For housing aid you do NOT file a quarterly declaration of resources — that obligation only applies to RSA, prime d'activité and AAH beneficiaries. This is one of the most common confusions among new arrivals.

The net effect: the aid follows your situation in near-real time. A pay raise reduces APL after one quarter; a job loss raises it within 3 months. The flip side is volatility — each quarterly recalc can move the amount up or down, sometimes by hundreds of euros, with no warning beyond the message in your espace allocataire.

CAF asks for a tight list. Prepare these scans before opening the online dossier; missing one slows the file by weeks.

• Pièce d'identité. Passport or national ID for EU/EEA/Swiss; passport + valid titre de séjour for non-EU. Both sides if it's a card.
• Bail (lease). A complete copy with all signatures and the date of entry into the dwelling. The bail must be in your name (or that of one declared occupant); informal sublets are excluded unless explicitly authorized in the head lease.
• Attestation de loyer (Cerfa 10842). A short form filled and signed by your landlord, certifying rent amount, surface, address, and the dwelling's décence criteria. CAF asks for this before any quittance — it is the principal proof that the rental is real and in line with French rules. Ask the landlord at lease signature; refusal is a red flag. Rent — Bail, Quittance, Loyer generates an attestation de loyer that matches the Cerfa exactly.
• RIB (relevé d'identité bancaire). A French or EU IBAN in your name. Direct payment to a non-EU account is not supported. If you don't yet have a French account, see our expat bank account guide.
• Justificatif de revenus. Last 3 payslips (or the most recent), or a sworn statement if you arrived very recently and have no French income yet. CAF cross-checks via DSN once you start working.
• Composition du foyer. Marriage certificate, livret de famille, birth certificates of children, where relevant.

Quittance de loyer: in the standard case CAF asks for the attestation at the start, not monthly quittances. Quittances become relevant if CAF audits the file or if the aid is paid in tiers payant (directly to the landlord) — landlords then sometimes need to prove rent was actually due or paid. Our quittance template guide covers when and how to issue them.

The online dossier is straightforward if you take it in order.

Step 1 — Run the simulator first. Go to caf.fr → Aides et démarches → Aides au logement → Faire une simulation. The simulator asks for income, rent, household, dwelling type. It tells you which aid (APL/ALF/ALS), the indicative monthly amount, and whether you're eligible at all. Do this before signing the lease — knowing the aid amount may swing the rent budget.

Step 2 — Create your espace allocataire. Same page → Faire la demande. CAF assigns a numéro allocataire (7 digits + 1 control letter) at the end of the form. Save it; you'll use it on every future call, payment, or letter. If you've never been a CAF beneficiary anywhere in France, you'll fill out a full ID + address + family form. If you had a CAF file in another département, transfer it via Mon dossier → Changement de département.

Step 3 — Submit the housing-aid request. Inside Mon compte → Faire une demande de prestation → Aide au logement. Fill the form (rent, dwelling, dates), upload the documents listed above, validate. The system gives you a récépissé de dépôt — keep the PDF.

Step 4 — Track the dossier. Status appears in Mes dernières démarches. Statuses move En cours d'instruction → Pièce manquante (act fast) → Validé → Payé. CAF emails you when status changes if you've enabled notifications.

Step 5 — First payment. Counted from the first day of the month following your entrée dans les lieux, with one month of carence (no aid for the move-in month itself). The first transfer arrives the 5th of the month following validation, typically 6 to 8 weeks after submission. If your move-in date is 15 March 2026 and validation completes 20 April, the first payment hits 5 May for April's aid.

Guide: Démarches en France annotates every field on caf.fr field-by-field in English — handy when CAF asks whether the dwelling is conventionné or whether your titre de séjour is a VLS-TS or a CST. Try Guide: Démarches en France or grab the Android app.

Once paid, the file lives a quiet life — but with two important rhythms.

Monthly payments. CAF pays the 5th of each month (or the next business day). The 2026 calendar shows one exception: April 2026's payment lands Tuesday 7 April because the 5th and 6th are Easter weekend. Aid is paid for the previous month — May's payment covers April's aid.

Quarterly recalculation. Every 3 months CAF recalculates using the most recent rolling 12-month income window. You'll see the new amount in your espace allocataire on the recalc date — typically late January, late April, late July, late October. The amount can rise or fall; if it falls, the change applies immediately.

No quarterly declaration for APL/ALF/ALS. Important: the déclaration trimestrielle de ressources you may have heard about is only for RSA, prime d'activité, and AAH. Housing aid is recalculated automatically from DSN data. Beneficiaries of those other prestations who also receive APL still file the trimestrielle for the other prestations, not for the housing aid.

Changes of situation must be declared immediately, not on a quarterly cycle. The list: change of address, change of bank, marriage, PACS, divorce, birth, death, departure of an occupant, change of employer, change of work hours, prolonged hospital stay, departure from France >3 months. Use Mon compte → Déclarer un changement — the new situation typically takes effect the month after declaration.

Tiers payant. APL/ALF/ALS can be paid directly to the landlord (tiers payant) at the landlord's request, in which case your rent invoice nets out the aid. If you change landlord or move out, the tiers payant must be terminated explicitly — otherwise the new landlord won't see the aid.

Five mistakes account for most rejected or delayed CAF housing-aid files.

1. Picking the wrong aid in the simulator. Many expats tick "logement social" thinking ALS = social. Wrong: APL also applies to social housing if it's conventionné (which most HLM are). Let the simulator decide based on the bail and the dwelling type — don't manually override.
2. Forgetting the attestation de loyer. The most common cause of Pièce manquante. Landlords sometimes confuse it with a quittance or a simple lease summary. Hand them the official Cerfa 10842 — or use Rent — Bail, Quittance, Loyer which prefills it correctly.
3. Filing the trimestrielle de ressources for APL. It doesn't exist for APL/ALF/ALS. People who fill it out for housing aid are wasting the form and may be confusing CAF if they're also on RSA. Only fill the trimestrielle for RSA / prime d'activité / AAH.
4. Not anticipating the carence. No aid is paid for the move-in month. Budget the first month's rent on your own; the first payment lands 6–8 weeks later for the second month onwards.
5. Surprise from the rolling 12-month window. A bonus paid in November 2025 hits the income window of every quarterly recalc until November 2026, lowering aid for a full year. A job loss in April 2026 raises aid in July 2026, not before. Plan accordingly — don't expect APL to react instantly to a single month's bad luck.

If you are also navigating the broader rental setup, our French bail lease guide walks through clauses, deposits, and état des lieux.

CAF is one of the most-used administrative sites in France — and one of the most opaque for non-French speakers. Two AdminLanding tools sit on either side of the CAF flow.

Guide: Démarches en France is a Chrome extension and Android app that overlays caf.fr (and 30+ other government sites — impots.gouv.fr, ameli.fr, service-public.fr, ANTS, URSSAF) with field-by-field annotations in English. On caf.fr it explains what conventionné means before you tick it, what your titre de séjour category is on the dropdown, and which Cerfa your landlord must fill — without sending any of your data to a server. Annotations render locally. Try it as a Chrome extension or as a mobile app on Google Play.

Rent — Bail, Quittance, Loyer sits on the landlord side. Landlords using Rent — Bail, Quittance, Loyer generate CAF-compliant attestations de loyer (Cerfa 10842) automatically from the bail data, plus monthly quittances that respect the strict format CAF and tribunals look for if a payment is ever contested. If your landlord is haphazard about paperwork — or if you are the landlord renting to a tenant who needs CAF aid — Rent — Bail, Quittance, Loyer closes the loop. Available on Google Play (Android) and the Apple App Store (iOS).

Neither tool replaces a CAF advisor for edge cases (cohabitation litigation, retroactive APL, RAFP for retired civil servants). Both flatten the parts that are mechanical but unforgiving.