your documents
France adds a compulsory step before the visa even opens: Campus France. Skip it and the consulate will not look at your file, however good it is.
The set below is what a Nepali applicant to France is normally asked for. Your institution or your circumstances can add to it — treat this as the floor, and the official checklist as the ceiling.
Études en France file
The Campus France online procedure, completed and validated before any visa application.
Campus France interview
Conducted in Kathmandu as part of the procedure.
Acceptance from a French institution
Following the Campus France route.
Passport
Valid for the length of your intended stay.
Academic documents
Transcripts and certificates, with certified translation where required.
Language proof
French or English, depending on the programme.
Evidence of funds
Against the monthly minimum the consulate applies.
Accommodation evidence
Proof of where you will live on arrival.
First Campus France Nepal, which runs the compulsory Études en France procedure and interviews you in Kathmandu. Then the visa application, submitted at VFS Global in Kathmandu and decided by the French Embassy in New Delhi. The online visa form asks you to select India as the country of application — that is correct, not an error.
Campus France Nepal
VFS Global — Kathmandu
Create your Études en France account
Before you approach any French institution informally. The procedure is the application route, not a formality alongside it.
Attend the interview in Kathmandu
Campus France Nepal sits inside the Alliance Française in Pulchowk. The interview covers your project, your funding and your language level.
Wait for the file to be validated
The validated file is what the consulate looks for. Applying for the visa without it wastes the appointment.
Then book VFS
Applications are received under the authority of the French Embassy in New Delhi, and the centre in Kathmandu has limited opening days — book well ahead of your departure.
The Campus France procedure: compulsory before a student visa application
Where your application is decided: the French Embassy in New Delhi
VFS opening days for France in Kathmandu: limited — historically two days a week
Two things trip Nepali applicants here: not realising Campus France is mandatory rather than advisory, and not realising the visa file is processed in Delhi with a courier leg on top of the published processing time. Both are timeline problems, and both are solvable by starting earlier.
Where this page shows a blank rather than a number, it is because we could not verify it against a source we would stand behind. A shown gap is more useful than a confident guess.
Most of your file is issued in Nepal and is identical whichever destination you choose. Each of these has its own guide with the office address, the fee and the steps.
The NOC is a Nepal-side requirement, not France's — but without it a Nepali bank will not send your tuition, so it blocks everything downstream regardless of where you are going.