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The French civics test: format, centres, registration and fees

By Augusto Grone · Updated 8 October 2026 · 8 min read

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The civics test (examen civique) is a 40-question multiple-choice test, in French: 45 minutes at most, and 32 correct answers to pass. You take it on a computer, at an approved centre of one of the two bodies authorised by the Ministry of the Interior: France Éducation international — 244 centres in France, pre-registration on test-civique.fr — and the CCI Paris Île-de-France, whose « Trouver une session » (find a session) tool lists dates centre by centre. Compulsory since 1 January 2026 for a first multi-year residence permit (carte de séjour pluriannuelle), a first resident card (carte de résident) and citizenship, it costs €70 to €110 depending on the centre, and you can retake it as many times as you need.

Contents

1. Who has to take it, and which version
2. Two bodies, two networks of centres
3. Registering at an FEI centre: test-civique.fr
4. Registering at a CCIP centre
5. In Paris: the centres and their sessions
6. How much it costs
7. Taking it abroad
8. The traps: paid preparation, the wrong version, fraud
9. Frequently asked questions

Who has to take it, and which version

Since 1 January 2026, a pass certificate for the civics test has been required for three procedures: a first multi-year residence permit, a first resident card, and citizenship by decree (naturalisation). The Ministry of the Interior puts it this way: “Any adult foreign national who has signed the republican integration contract (CIR) and wishes to settle in France for the long term.” It isn’t required for a renewal, nor from beneficiaries of international protection, nor from nationals covered by certain bilateral agreements. Our guide to French citizenship and our French guide to the resident card detail who is affected and the exemptions.

The test comes in three versions (« mentions »), set by the order of 10 October 2025: “multi-year residence permit”, “resident card” and “citizenship”. You choose yours when you register. The difficulty differs, not the pass mark: in all three cases, 40 questions — 28 on knowledge, 12 real-life scenarios, with a single right answer out of four — 45 minutes at most, on a tablet or computer, and 32 correct answers to pass. A useful rule: “A pass certificate for the civics test, CR version, counts as a pass certificate for the CSP version” — CR being the resident card, CSP the multi-year permit. The reverse isn’t true.

The questions are in French and cover the values, the institutions and the history of the Republic. The civics test doesn’t replace the language level: it comes on top of it, and the two are prepared separately — they share neither content nor format.

Two bodies, two networks of centres

“Two bodies have been approved by the Ministry of the Interior to run the civics test,” says the official website formation-civique.interieur.gouv.fr: the Paris Île-de-France Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI Paris Île-de-France) — the TEF’s operator — and France Éducation international — the operator of the TCF and the DELF. Each has its own network of approved centres, often the same language schools and Alliances françaises as for the French tests, and its own registration procedure. The certificate is worth the same in both cases.

On 17 September 2026, FEI’s list counted 244 civics test centres in France, in 94 départements — seven in Paris, eight in the Rhône, seven in the Bouches-du-Rhône, six each in Haute-Garonne, Hérault and Moselle. The list of 19 September 2026 had 245, in 187 towns: FEI adds and removes centres as approvals come in. The CCIP network is searched session by session, town by town, in its search tool. A body that is on neither list can’t give you a certificate.

Our French directory lists the FEI centres region by region, with address, phone number and website, and our French city pages — Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Montpellier, Bordeaux, Nantes, Rennes, Strasbourg, Lille, Nice — add what each centre’s website showed on 17 September 2026 (exams offered, fees, dates) and how to register.

Registering at an FEI centre: test-civique.fr

For France Éducation international centres, the ministry points to a single pre-registration form: test-civique.fr/inscription. There you choose the département, the town and the centre, then the test you want — resident card, multi-year residence permit or citizenship, each with or without special arrangements — and you enter your contact details, your foreign national number (numéro étranger, AGDREF), and your date and place of birth. The form shows the contact details of the centre you chose; the centre then offers you a date and takes payment. Candidates with a disability must contact the centre before registering, to arrange adjustments.

Registering at a CCIP centre: « Trouver une session »

The CCI Paris Île-de-France network works by session: on francais.cci-paris-idf.fr, the « Trouver une session » tool asks for a town and the exam — « Examen civique mention carte de résident », « … carte de séjour pluriannuelle » or « … naturalisation » — and shows the centres with their number of available sessions, a map, and two buttons: « Contacter le centre » (contact the centre) and « Choisir » (choose). You then register and pay with the centre. The same tool is used for the TEF: TEF IRN centres are often CCIP civics test centres too.

In Paris: the centres and their sessions

Paris is the best-served city, and also the one where you find full sessions. On the FEI side, the seven approved centres are those of the TCF: ACTE (10th arrondissement), ILE International (12th), the Alliance française Paris Île-de-France (6th), the Cours de civilisation française de la Sorbonne (17th), ELFE (1st), Etoile Institut (7th) and ACCORD (15th). On 17 September 2026, the Alliance française showed on its civics test page: “All our sessions are full for the moment.” On the CCIP side, a search for the citizenship version in Paris returned, for September to December 2026:

Etoile Institut, approved by both bodies, ran sessions almost every day in September 2026, at €80 on weekdays and €90 on Saturdays. With sessions of 40 questions in 45 minutes, a centre can run several a day: the scarcity you find with the DELF or the TCF Canada has no reason to exist here, except at centres that open only a few dates a month.

How much it costs

No text sets the price of the civics test — not the order of 10 October 2025, not the Service-Public fact sheets, not the ministry’s website. Each approved centre decides. At the centres we checked on 17 September 2026:

Fees vary by a factor of almost two for exactly the same test, and results often arrive the same day: the certificate is issued by the approved body, with no expiry date — “it has no period of validity”, the ministry writes — and “the civics test can be taken at any time and as many times as necessary”. Each attempt is paid for.

Taking it abroad

The civics test can also be taken outside France, at Instituts français, Alliances françaises and consular authorities — useful for a citizenship or residence permit application prepared from abroad. The Institut français d’Algérie, for example, runs it in Algiers (30, rue des Frères-Kadri, Hydra): pre-registration on test-civique.fr through its dedicated link, 9,000 DA (Algerian dinars) payable by bank card or Dahabia card on site, or by bank transfer, confirmation within 48 hours, test-day notice by email, biometric ID card or passport on the day. FEI’s centre map has a country filter for the civics test.

The traps: paid preparation, the wrong version, fraud

• The wrong version. A “multi-year residence permit” certificate isn’t valid for the resident card or for citizenship; the reverse works from the resident card to the multi-year permit. If in doubt, take the highest version you will need.
• The French test, on top. The civics test doesn’t replace the language level: A2 for the multi-year permit, B1 for the resident card, B2 for citizenship, to be proved with a TCF IRN, a TEF IRN or a DELF diploma. Two registrations, two dates.
• Bogus certificates. Centres check identity; the order of 10 October 2025 provides that, in the event of fraud or attempted fraud, the candidate can’t sit the test again for two years, and the test is cancelled in the event of false identity or impersonation. A website promising a certificate “without taking the test” is selling a fake.
• The wrong network. A TCF centre isn’t automatically a civics test centre, and vice versa: check the “examen civique” category on FEI’s map, or that the centre appears in the CCIP’s tool.

Frequently asked questions

Related pages

• French citizenship: the B2 requirement

  What changed in January 2026, the accepted proofs of level, the transitional rule.

• TCF IRN: the French test for residence and citizenship

  The levels required since 2026, the four tests, the 499 scale.

• DELF B1

  The diploma that proves B1, the resident card level — and never expires.