Treatment in France: entry, cost estimate, payment and translation

Why do patients choose France?

The backbone of the French hospital system is the public sector: university hospitals (CHU) in the regional centres combine treatment, teaching and research, and alongside them work private clinics and specialised cancer centres. Patients from Georgia usually consider France when they need:

• complex cancer treatment, where the plan is drawn up by a multidisciplinary team;
• neurosurgery and paediatric surgery, including rare congenital conditions;
• diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases. For this purpose France has a network of reference centres for rare diseases, approved by the Ministry of Health for 2023-2028;
• cardiac surgery and cardiology, as well as a second opinion on a complex diagnosis already made.

France's main difficulty is language: the medical environment is almost entirely French-speaking, and communication in English is not always guaranteed. This makes translation and an interpreter all the more important, which we discuss separately below. Decide on the country and method of treatment together with your treating doctor; this guide describes only the organisational side. To compare alternatives, read the guides to Spain and Italy.

What do you need at the French border?

France is a Schengen country, so a Georgian citizen with a biometric passport may stay there visa-free for 90 days in any 180-day period. This limit applies to the Schengen area as a whole: if, for example, you were in Germany or Italy before your treatment, those days count too. A visa-free stay does not give you the right to work.

According to the list published by the EU Delegation, at the border you may be asked for a return ticket, the address where you are staying, travel insurance and proof of funds. A person travelling for treatment should also carry the hospital's letter with the admission date and the receipt for the advance payment: these two sheets explain the purpose of the visit most clearly.

Since April 2026 the Entry/Exit System (EES) has been fully operational at the Schengen border, recording foreigners' biometric data and every crossing electronically. The EU's pre-travel authorisation system ETIAS is still being introduced, and its start date will be announced separately. In March 2026 the European Commission suspended visa-free travel only for holders of Georgian diplomatic, service and official passports; this does not apply to ordinary passports. Check both points before you buy a ticket.

When do you need a French visa for treatment?

You need a visa for France in three main cases: when treatment together with recovery exceeds 90 days, when the patient or the accompanying person does not have a biometric passport, and when the accompanying person is a citizen of another country. In the first case you need a long-stay visa, applied for before departure through France's official visa portal and the embassy.

According to the French government, medical visas are issued for planned treatment, and in such cases hospitals draw up a devis in advance. So for the visa application you first need the hospital's assessment, the devis and proof of payment, and then the admission date. You will find the exact order of the stages in the table below, and we describe how to put together the visa package on the medical visa service page.

How to check a French hospital: HAS and QualiScope

In France, the main tool for assessing a hospital's quality is certification by the French National Authority for Health (Haute Autorité de Santé, HAS). HAS is an independent institution that carries out external assessments of healthcare institutions in terms of quality and safety of care. The result is expressed in four levels:

• certified with distinction (certifié avec mention);
• certified (certifié);
• certified with conditions, when a repeat assessment is required within 6-24 months;
• not certified, also with an obligation to undergo a repeat assessment.

The results and reports are public and are published on the HAS portal QualiScope, and institutions also state their certification level on their own websites. This is something that does not exist in many countries: the chance to check a hospital's advertising against an independent assessment. Certification assesses the institution as a whole, not a specific department, so ask separately, in writing, about experience with your diagnosis.

Public hospital or private clinic

In France, public healthcare institutions are required by law to admit everyone who needs their services on an equal basis, and a large share of complex cases end up in university hospitals. On the other hand, administrative procedures there are slow and correspondence is conducted in French. Private clinics (cliniques privées) often respond quickly and some have an international patients service, but not all of them take complex and rare cases. Both types of institution undergo HAS certification, so use the same criteria when comparing them.

In your first letter, also ask: whether the hospital has an international patients service, in what language correspondence is conducted, who will assess your documents and how soon they will reply. We handle this correspondence and compare the replies of several institutions through our clinic search service.

Stages: from documents to the admission date

Planned treatment at a French hospital usually follows the same sequence. The table shows what the hospital does at each stage and what is required of you.

The third stage is part of French practice: according to the government, for planned treatment healthcare institutions, in line with the Public Health Code, take an advance payment before the patient arrives. This is a normal requirement, not a warning sign, provided the money goes to the hospital's account.

Which translation do you need: ordinary or traducteur agréé?

For the hospital to assess your medical file, you need an accurate translation, into French or, if the hospital agrees, English. A French version usually speeds up the process, because the file may pass through several doctors' hands and not all of them are fluent in English. At this stage no official certification is needed.

When the document goes to a French authority, court or administration, you need a translation by a certified translator (traducteur agréé, often also called traducteur assermenté). According to France's official administration portal, such a translator is a court expert listed on the rolls of the courts of appeal or the Court of Cassation. An expert on the national list also appears on the list of their own court of appeal, and the lists can be searched online.

An important detail for people living in Georgia: if the translation is made abroad, according to the same portal, the translator's signature must be certified by a French consulate. So before ordering a translation in Georgia, ask the receiving French authority which form it will accept. Public documents issued in Georgia need an apostille for France, because both states are parties to the Apostille Convention; the apostille and legalisation tool shows what you need in which case. The translation calculator will work out the approximate cost of the translation.

The medical file for a French hospital

French medical documentation uses its own terms, and it helps if your file is organised accordingly. The discharge report is called compte rendu d'hospitalisation in French, the operation report compte rendu opératoire, and the letter passed between doctors lettre de liaison. Include in the file:

• the discharge summary or Form 100, with the diagnosis, the treatment given and current prescriptions;
• operation reports, if you have had surgery before;
• recent laboratory test results, with units and reference ranges;
• radiology reports and images in DICOM format;
• histology and molecular test results for an oncological diagnosis;
• genetic tests and family history if a rare disease is suspected.

If you do not yet have one of the documents, the guide to obtaining your medical history explains how to request it from a Georgian clinic. Give every file a clear name with the date and the document type, and have the translation done in one consistent terminology. The specifics of translating a discharge summary are on the discharge summary translation page, and if for now you only need a French specialist's opinion, ask about a remote consultation before travelling to France.

The devis, the advance payment and the final bill

In France, the devis is the cost estimate that the hospital administration draws up after the medical assessment. In correspondence with Parliament, the French government acknowledged that the devis may turn out lower than the final cost if an associated condition is added to the main illness or an unforeseen complication develops during treatment. The practical conclusion: plan a reserve and ask in writing in advance how additional costs are settled.

• how many inpatient days the devis allows for, and what an extra day costs;
• whether the doctor's fee, anaesthesia, medicines and implants are included;
• how soon an overpayment is refunded if treatment cost less;
• in what language and form the final invoice is issued, which you will need in Georgia for reporting or funding.

Bear in mind that an unpaid debt to a public hospital does not disappear when you go home: collecting it is the responsibility of the state treasury network. If you are asking a state programme or City Hall in Georgia to cover part of the cost, you will need a Georgian translation of the devis. The order in which to apply is described in the guide to funding for surgery.

Your stay in France and after you return

When booking accommodation near the hospital, bear in mind that many treatments include an outpatient stage: tests before surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy sessions, follow-up visits. For difficult conversations in a French-speaking environment, especially when going through consent forms and discharge instructions, a medical interpreter is not an unnecessary expense.

On discharge you will receive the compte rendu d'hospitalisation and the prescription, usually in French. For your treating doctor in Georgia, both must be translated into Georgian, with drugs written by their international non-proprietary names instead of French brand names. If a prescribed medicine is not registered in Georgia or you need special care at home, the post-operative care service will help.

Before discharge, agree with the French doctor how follow-up will continue: which tests will be done in Georgia, to whom and in what form the results will be sent, and when a repeat visit is needed. Keep this agreement in writing.

Gather all the documents you bring back from France, including the devis, payment receipts, the final invoice, test results and discs with images, in one folder, and make an electronic copy too. You will need them in future both to continue treatment in Georgia and to prove the costs if you claim reimbursement from a programme or an insurer.

Frequently asked questions about treatment in France