How to Set up Your Digital Carte Vitale in France: STEP BY STEP

If you’re resident in France, you’ll already be familiar with the Carte Vitale, the green card that provides access to the state healthcare system. The card is required at doctor’s appointments, pharmacies, and any other medical procedures to enable reimbursement for treatment and prescriptions.

There’s now a digital version of the Carte Vitale, allowing access to your card via a smartphone app. The digital version works in a similar way to the physical card, allowing access to all of the above services in the absence of the physical card. It also offers a few additional features, such as the option to designate someone to pick up prescriptions on your behalf and the possibility to follow payments and reimbursements in real time.

The digital Carte Vitale isn’t designed to replace the card entirely, at least not for the time being; rather, the two are interchangeable. It’s also not a legal requirement to have the digital version, and you may continue to use your physical card if you wish.

Up until recently, the digital Carte Vitale was only available to French citizens with a National Identity Card issued in the recent credit-card format. Since May 26, 2025, access has now opened up to all French citizens (using any type of national ID card or French passport) and some foreign residents, including those with a valid carte de séjour residency card, as well as Belgian, Spanish, and Portuguese ID card holders.

For the moment, access also depends on the French department in which you live. 46 out of the 96 mainland France departments now offer the digital card, with the remaining departments expected to roll it out towards the end of the year.

The departments that currently allow access to the digital Carte Vitale are:

Ain, Allier, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Alpes-Maritimes, Ardèche, Ardennes, Aube, Bas-Rhin, Bouches-du-Rhône, Cantal, Calvados, Côte-d’Or, Doubs, Drôme, Eure, Hautes-Alpes, Haute-Loire, Haute-Marne, Haut-Rhin, Haute-Saône, Haute-Savoie, Isère, Jura, Loire, Loire-Atlantique, Maine-et-Loire, Manche, Marne, Mayenne, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle, Nièvre, Orne, Puy-de-Dôme, Rhône, Saône-et-Loire, Sarthe, Savoie, Seine-Maritime, Var, Vaucluse, Vendée, Vosges, Yonne, Territoire de Belfort.