Searches for moving to France and the permits Americans received

Two public series, drawn on the same years: how often people in the United States search Google for moving to France, and how many first residence permits France issues to US citizens.

The two series side by side

Interest in moving to France was steady and low until 2022. It then climbs, reaches 30 in November 2024, and in the series pulled on 28 October 2026 the highest month is June 2026 at 100. First permits for US citizens went from 6,935 in 2016 to 15,388 in 2025 (provisional). The permit figures stop at 2025: the months after have no official counterpart yet.

Top line: search interest in "moving to France" in the United States, one point a month, on Google's relative scale where 100 is this series' own highest month. It is not a number of searches. Bars: first residence permits issued to US citizens in France each year (Eurostat, all reasons). The light bar with an outline is a provisional value. October 2026 is a partial month.

Data source: Google Trends (https://www.google.com/trends). Permits: Eurostat, migr_resfirst.

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Searches for moving to France and first permits for Americans

Search interest, "moving to France", United States, monthly, relative scale 0 to 100 (month: value)
2016-01: 9
2016-02: 9
2016-03: 10
2016-04: 8
2016-05: 10
2016-06: 8
2016-07: 10
2016-08: 8
2016-09: 8
2016-10: 10
2016-11: 16
2016-12: 11
2017-01: 11
2017-02: 12
2017-03: 10
2017-04: 8
2017-05: 13
2017-06: 15
2017-07: 9
2017-08: 6
2017-09: 10
2017-10: 11
2017-11: 11
2017-12: 10
2018-01: 9
2018-02: 10
2018-03: 8
2018-04: 9
2018-05: 9
2018-06: 12
2018-07: 13
2018-08: 9
2018-09: 8
2018-10: 12
2018-11: 9
2018-12: 8
2019-01: 10
2019-02: 9
2019-03: 9
2019-04: 8
2019-05: 10
2019-06: 9
2019-07: 9
2019-08: 9
2019-09: 9
2019-10: 10
2019-11: 8
2019-12: 9
2020-01: 10
2020-02: 8
2020-03: 7
2020-04: 11
2020-05: 11
2020-06: 11
2020-07: 13
2020-08: 11
2020-09: 14
2020-10: 15
2020-11: 14
2020-12: 11
2021-01: 10
2021-02: 13
2021-03: 11
2021-04: 12
2021-05: 10
2021-06: 9
2021-07: 9
2021-08: 8
2021-09: 11
2021-10: 11
2021-11: 13
2021-12: 9
2022-01: 12
2022-02: 14
2022-03: 13
2022-04: 16
2022-05: 14
2022-06: 17
2022-07: 15
2022-08: 10
2022-09: 12
2022-10: 13
2022-11: 14
2022-12: 16
2023-01: 16
2023-02: 18
2023-03: 17
2023-04: 19
2023-05: 16
2023-06: 13
2023-07: 13
2023-08: 11
2023-09: 19
2023-10: 17
2023-11: 15
2023-12: 15
2024-01: 17
2024-02: 19
2024-03: 20
2024-04: 23
2024-05: 16
2024-06: 14
2024-07: 16
2024-08: 14
2024-09: 19
2024-10: 20
2024-11: 30
2024-12: 17
2025-01: 20
2025-02: 27
2025-03: 28
2025-04: 26
2025-05: 24
2025-06: 24
2025-07: 45
2025-08: 33
2025-09: 41
2025-10: 45
2025-11: 65
2025-12: 97
2026-01: 89
2026-02: 83
2026-03: 83
2026-04: 67
2026-05: 76
2026-06: 100
2026-07: 62
2026-08: 25
2026-09: 36
2026-10: 32

First permits issued to US citizens in France, yearly (year: permits)
2016: 6935
2017: 6569
2018: 7414
2019: 9030
2020: 5387
2021: 9214
2022: 12373
2023: 12341
2024: 13122
2025: 15388 (provisional)

Data source: Google Trends (https://www.google.com/trends)
Source: https://doi.org/10.2908/MIGR_RESFIRST, 28 October 2026 (Eurostat, dataset migr_resfirst)
Chart: https://easyfrancenow.com/data/search-interest-and-permits#chart

Two lines that move together do not show that one causes the other. People who search are not the people who apply for a permit, a search can come from anyone curious about France, and a permit can go to a student or a family member as well as to someone who moved for the reasons a search suggests. We make no claim about what drove either line.

The figures behind the chart

Yearly first permits and the highest monthly search interest of the same year (relative scale, 0 to 100 on the whole series)
Year	First permits	Highest month of search interest
2016	6,935	16 (November)
2017	6,569	15 (June)
2018	7,414	13 (July)
2019	9,030	10 (January)
2020	5,387	15 (October)
2021	9,214	13 (February)
2022	12,373	17 (June)
2023	12,341	19 (April)
2024	13,122	30 (November)
2025	15,388 (provisional)	97 (December)
2026	Not published yet	100 (June, up to October 2026)

What each line counts

Search interest. Google says Trends is "a largely unfiltered sample of actual search requests" made to Google, anonymized and grouped. Each point is divided by all searches of the place and period it covers, then scaled from 0 to 100. A value of 100 here means the busiest month of this series, nothing more. Google says Trends is not a perfect mirror of search activity.
First permits. Residence permits issued for the first time to US citizens by France, as counted by Eurostat. More on what that includes and leaves out, and on the ministry's own series, on Americans in France: the official numbers.

How to cite this page

Google asks that Trends data be attributed to Google with a citation. This is the line to use with the chart:

Data source: Google Trends (https://www.google.com/trends). Search term "moving to France", United States, 2016 to 2026, pulled 28 October 2026. Permits: https://doi.org/10.2908/MIGR_RESFIRST, Eurostat.

EasyFranceNow, "Searches for moving to France and first permits for Americans", https://easyfrancenow.com/data/search-interest-and-permits, data pulled 28 October 2026.

Download the monthly search interest as a CSV, in the layout of Google's own export. The permit figures are in the CSV of the permits page, with their sources.

Methodology

Search term. "moving to France", as a search term (not a Google topic). We first set it against "move to France" on the same day. The Rising related queries of "move to France" included quiz questions about the French Renaissance and Charlemagne and "edgenuity", and its monthly values dip in July and August of every year from 2021 to 2024, so part of that line is probably schoolwork. The Rising queries of "moving to France" were "moving to spain", "moving from uk to france", "moving to canada" and "air france", with one quiz question. We kept the cleaner term. No travel or tourism term is used.
Region and period. United States, all categories, Web Search, 2016 to 28 October 2026, which Trends returns by month.
Pull date. 28 October 2026, from the Trends Explore page. Trends is built from a sample of searches, so a new pull may not return exactly the same values. The original file is kept in the project with the exact address and the day.
Scale. Relative, 0 to 100, set by the highest month of the series (June 2026). It cannot be turned into a number of searches or of people.
Permits. Eurostat dataset migr_resfirst, first permits by reason, length of validity and citizenship, citizenship United States, reporting country France, all reasons, read on 28 October 2026. The query. The figures are Eurostat's values for US citizens, unchanged. Eurostat is not responsible for how this page presents them.
What we do not do. We add no figure of our own: no ratio, no forecast, no conversion of the scale into searches. The only arithmetic is picking the highest month of each year.

Google's own wording is in its help pages Export, embed, and cite Trends data and FAQ about Google Trends data. How we check facts in general is on how we verify.

What each number means: the definitions of every measure on these pages, from the publishers' own metadata.