Which life insurers accept US persons living in France? The real conditions in 2026

Published 28 July 2026 · Written by Quentin Hagnéré, wealth management adviser (ORIAS 23002291: financial investment adviser, insurance broker, banking and payment services broker), Hagnéré Patrimoine, Chambéry, France · Primary sources cited in the text (IRS, Internal Revenue Code, French General Tax Code, and BOFiP, France's official published tax doctrine) · Reading time: 25 minutes

The short answer, and who this guide is for

Your broker asked for a Form W-9. You did not reply in time. The account was closed.

If that is your story, you want one thing from a page like this: a door that opens. So here is what this guide does. It names the life insurers we can establish something about, in writing, on a stated date. It sets out the conditions an application has to meet. And it says where applications stop, which is almost always on a nine-digit number rather than on any law.

Some 40,000 people in France, and around 300,000 across the European Union, are reported to be in that position. Treat that as an order of magnitude rather than a statistic: the figure comes from a French Senate written question (no. 12379 of 27 June 2024) that was never answered, and the wider US person population is larger still.

One point governs everything that follows. This guide is written for US persons who are tax resident in France and is not directed at persons resident in the United States. Your policy is taxed in France and reported to the United States and, depending on its structure, its internal gains may also be taxed there. Your US filing obligations come on top of the French ones; they replace nothing.

Why so many institutions refuse when no law requires them to

Start with the mechanism. A policy with a surrender value, the cash you could take out if you closed it, counts as a financial account under FATCA, and the Luxembourg–United States Model 1 agreement of 28 March 2014 is what makes it one. The company has to identify the US policyholder, collect the documentation and report. If it does not, a withholding tax of 30 percent falls on the non-participating institution.

The direction of that liability is often misstated. In a Model 1 jurisdiction such as Luxembourg, the withholding does not touch the client: the agreement provides for none against a recalcitrant account holder. The cost falls on the institution, which is exactly why the institution declines.

Add US securities-law constraints on offering financial products, and a compliance cost a single retail application rarely justifies. No law requires an insurer to refuse a US person. Refusal is an internal risk policy, and the IRS documents the consequences itself in section 2 of Notice 2023-11, quoted verbatim further down. One piece of context, and no more: the Commissariat aux Assurances, Luxembourg's insurance regulator, published circular letter 26/1 on 28 January 2026, in force since 1 February, tightening product governance and the definition of a target market. It says nothing about US persons, in either direction. It explains only why a company may decline a profile that falls outside the market it has defined for itself.

Which insurers may consider your application: practices observed as of July 2026

The list runs to two companies. It is deliberately short: it names only what can be established from a public source or from our own panel. It is not exhaustive, it reflects practices observed as of July 2026, and acceptance policies change without notice: reconfirm with the company before you take any step. Plenty of institutions decline this type of case in practice, and no law obliges them to; it is an internal risk policy.

Two things limit that second line. The source is in French only, and the webinar it announced was built around US persons resident in Switzerland. Nothing in it commits the company to anything in France.

Naming a company here is not a recommendation of that company, not a statement that it will accept you, and not an offer of any product. It is a record of what could be established publicly, on a stated date.

Practices observed in July 2026 do look more open than they were a few years ago for US persons living outside the United States. That is a trend we see on our own cases, not a rule, and it tells you nothing about how any individual application will go.

For transparency: Hagnéré Patrimoine has four companies on its panel, namely OneLife (APICIL), AXA Wealth Europe (AXA), Wealins (Foyer) and Vitis Life (Monceau), and does not distribute Baloise Vie Luxembourg, which we cite solely on the strength of its own public statements. We assert nothing about how the other companies treat US persons, because we have not established it.

Choosing a company usually turns on financial strength, ratings, solvency, the range on offer and charges. For a US person one question comes before all of them and makes them academic until it is answered: will the insurer look at the case at all?

On what conditions? The six points that decide your application

You will not change a company's acceptance policy. The conditions below are the part of the case you can prepare.

1. Where you pay your tax

A US tax resident is turned away almost every time, and the reason is both legal and practical. In law, the “U.S. person” of US securities law is defined by residence: Regulation S, Rule 902(k)(1)(i) under the Securities Act of 1933 (17 CFR 230.902), reads “any natural person resident in the United States”. In practice, no Luxembourg company markets into the United States.

A French tax resident who is a US citizen sits somewhere else entirely, and the case can be looked at. The IRS definition turns on citizenship; the securities-law definition turns on residence. The analysis belongs to the insurer and its advisers. The point is simply that the obstacle is first about where you live, not the nationality on your passport. Moving to the United States during the life of the policy changes everything, and is outside the scope of this page.

2. Being in a market the company actually covers

A Luxembourg insurer sells cross-border under the freedom to provide services, the EU passport that lets it operate from Luxembourg, and only in the countries for which it has filed a notification with the regulators (article L. 362-2 of the French Insurance Code; Solvency II, directive 2009/138/EC). Vitis Life presents itself as operating in France, Belgium, Italy and Luxembourg, among other markets, with its corporate documentation adding Portugal, Monaco and New Caledonia. The United States does not appear. Outside the notified countries there is no case to build.

3. The FATCA paperwork: self-certification and Form W-9

The underlying paperwork is the same as for anyone else; what changes is what gets added on top. The FATCA self-certification works through the indicia of US status, the flags that mark a file as American, one by one: date and place of birth, dual nationality, tax residence, any US telephone number or email address, a green card, a US bank account. Then it puts three questions. Are you a US citizen? Are you a US tax resident? Do you hold a US tax number although you no longer live there?

Yes to either of the first two marks you as a US person and calls for a signed Form W-9, the Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification. No to all three calls for a Form W-8BEN instead. Both are signed under penalties of perjury, so a US person cannot sign a W-8BEN, and if you do not answer at all, US-person status is presumed.

That answers the question most readers have already asked themselves: can you simply not reply? Any person identified as a US person or refusing to provide the required information has their identifying data and policy information passed to the competent tax authorities. Refusing protects nothing: the policy is reported anyway, and the case never gets off the ground. After that, you have 30 days to tell the company about any change of circumstances.

4. The US taxpayer identification number: where new applications stop

So which number? Notice 2023-11 is explicit: “The U.S. TIN of a U.S. citizen is the individual's U.S. Social Security number (SSN).” An ITIN is reserved for people who are not eligible for an SSN, and a US citizen never falls into that group. An accidental American without one applies on Form SS-5, with proof of US citizenship. Nobody controls how long that takes, which is why you start it before you go looking for a company.

5. The structure of the policy and the number of funds

English-speaking readers usually arrive with private placement life insurance in mind: US policies built to satisfy sections 7702, 7702A and 817(h). No source establishes that a Luxembourg life insurer issues, for the French market, a policy designed to satisfy those tests. And a policy carrying only a token death benefit runs a real risk of failing the section 7702 cash value corridor, which under 7702(g) means the income on the contract is taxed annually. All of that turns on how each individual policy is built, and cannot be asserted either way.

Nor should anyone sell you a dedicated fund structure as protection against investor control, the US doctrine that taxes a policyholder treated as the real owner of the underlying assets. Revenue Ruling 2003-91 draws a narrow safe harbor, and in Webber v. Commissioner, 144 T.C. 324 (2015), a policyholder who in fact directed the investments was taxed on their income.

The one variable you do control is the number of lines: how many separate funds sit inside the policy. A policy's US filing burden does not depend on the amount invested. It depends on the number of underlying funds and on the structure. Take a fund-by-fund look-through, a reading no published IRS guidance settles, and six funds against twenty-eight is six forms against twenty-eight, every year. Far easier to settle at the outset than to unwind later.

PFIC treatment itself depends on the structure of the policy and on the analysis of a French-US tax attorney or CPA. It is never a certainty and never a selling point: see is Luxembourg life insurance a PFIC? and what US compliance actually costs each year.

6. A US position that is up to date

Under IRC 6501(c)(8), the limitation period on international information returns cannot expire before three years from the date the information is actually furnished. There is a safety valve at 6501(c)(8)(B): where the failure is due to reasonable cause, the suspension is confined to the items related to that failure, which describes the good-faith accidental American exactly.

So an unreported position gets brought into compliance first, with a French-US tax attorney or CPA. The IRS runs the Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures for taxpayers living outside the United States, conditional on the failure being non-willful. That is neither a right, nor a guarantee, nor legal advice, and it is not something the firm handles.

A policy with a cash value is reportable twice over: on the FBAR (FinCEN Form 114, threshold 10,000 USD aggregate at any point in the year) and on Form 8938. Filing one does not excuse the other. One point cuts the other way: in Bittner v. United States, 598 U.S. 85 (2023), the Supreme Court held that the non-willful FBAR penalty applies per report, not per account.

And one cost decided at the outset: the 1 percent excise tax

IRC 4371(2) imposes “1 cent on each dollar, or fractional part thereof, of the premium paid” on a life insurance policy issued by a foreign insurer, and IRC 4372(e) catches a policy written on the life of a “citizen or resident of the United States”. A US citizen living in France is within scope. The tax follows who is insured, not who takes out the policy. Under 26 CFR 46.4374-1 it falls in practice on the payer of the premium where the foreign insurer does not account for it, on Form 720, quarterly.

A treaty exemption exists in law for companies resident in Luxembourg, but it is not automatic: it requires a closing agreement in force with the IRS. When we checked the lists published by the IRS on 27 July 2026, themselves updated to 15 June 2026, no Luxembourg life insurer appeared on them, the only Luxembourg entities listed being non-life insurers. That is a dated observation about a published list, not a criticism of any company. The working position is to presume the tax due and have it confirmed in writing.

Accidental Americans: the bank refusal, and why insurance is different

You did not imagine any of it, and it is the IRS saying so. Section 2 of Notice 2023-11 records: “The Treasury Department and the IRS have received communications from Model 1 IGA jurisdictions, FFIs, and U.S. citizens expressing concern that FFIs are closing or may close bank accounts of U.S. citizens who have failed to provide a required U.S. TIN, including accounts of U.S. citizens resident outside the United States.” And further: “The Treasury Department and the IRS also have received communications expressing concern that some FFIs are refusing to provide accounts to U.S. citizens resident in the FFI's jurisdiction, or otherwise providing access to accounts on less favorable terms than apply to other account holders, even if the U.S. citizen provides a U.S. TIN.” Note the scope: the closures described are conditioned on the absence of a TIN, whereas the refusals to open, on the Notice's own wording, are not.

The recourse many readers have heard of does not exist on this side of the market. For a bank account, French law gives you a right to an account at article L. 312-1 of the French Monetary and Financial Code: a certificate of refusal, a referral to the Banque de France, France's central bank, and an institution designated on your behalf. For life insurance there is no equivalent. An insurer remains free to contract, and the Bureau central de tarification, the French body that can compel an insurer to provide cover, handles compulsory insurance only. The consequence is practical: with an insurer you do not appeal, you prepare an application it can accept.

Nor should you time anything around litigation. Three sets of proceedings are sometimes cited, and none of them changes what can be done this year. The Conseil d'État, France's supreme administrative court, dismissed the Accidental Americans Association's challenge to FATCA data transfers on 30 January 2024 (no. 466115). In Belgium, the Cour des marchés, the Brussels Market Court, referred thirteen questions on FATCA to the Court of Justice of the European Union on 26 November 2025, published on 4 December 2025, with no ruling to date. And in Washington, H.R. 10468, the Residence-Based Taxation for Americans Abroad Act, has not been enacted. No strategy should be built on the assumption that FATCA will be overturned.

How a case actually proceeds, and how long it takes

A US person's case carries an extra step, and it comes before everything else.

1. Establish your status: citizenship, US place of birth, a green card even if expired, the substantial presence test, a long-stay visa. See am I a US person?
2. Approach the company before building the application, asking whether it can look at this profile as at today's date. This step does not exist for a standard case, and an application sent without asking first is an application lost.
3. Check the US documentation. Is there a TIN? Are the filings up to date? These two questions decide the rest.
4. Get referred to a French-US tax attorney or CPA. That cost is the client's, and the firm's fees do not cover it.
5. Structure the allocation: the number of lines and the nature of the underlying funds are decided here.
6. Subscribe subject to acceptance, then live with the policy: changes notified within 30 days, and the annual French declaration of the foreign policy (article 1649 AA of the French General Tax Code, forms 3916 and 3916-bis, 1,500 EUR fine per undeclared policy, article 1766). These are two separate obligations, running in parallel.

A standard case completes in four to eight weeks, a complex one in ten to twelve. A US person's case sits at the top of that range, with the preliminary approach in front of it and the 30 calendar-day cooling-off period of article L. 132-5-1 of the French Insurance Code behind it. No timescale can be guaranteed.

On the minimum investment: no US-person-specific minimum premium or surcharge is documented anywhere, so the market's usual entry thresholds apply. Documentation in English can usually be requested, to be confirmed with the company.

A worked example: 480,000 EUR, and the number that is missing

Nathalie, 47, was born in Boston while her father was on assignment, came back to France at three and has never returned. She is a CFO in Lyon, single, a French tax resident without interruption, and has never applied for a US tax number. In March 2025 her online broker asked for a Form W-9 and, receiving no reply in time, closed her securities account. She has just sold a flat in Villeurbanne: 480,000 EUR sitting in her current account.

On the French side, her US citizenship changes nothing at all. On 12,000 EUR of gain withdrawn after eight years, the tax comes to 3,011.20 EUR, or 25.09 percent of the gain: 947.20 EUR of income tax, plus 2,064 EUR of prélèvements sociaux, France's social levies, at 17.2 percent. That is the rate maintained for life insurance, because the increase carried by France's 2026 social security financing act does not reach it.

The arithmetic behind those two figures runs as follows. The income-tax slice follows the pro rata of the 150,000 EUR net-premium threshold. The abattement, a tax-free allowance of 4,600 EUR after eight years, applies first to the slice taxed at 7.5 percent and, for the balance, to the slice taxed at 12.8 percent. She gets the 7.5 percent rate and the allowance because Luxembourg is an EU member state bound to France by a convention on administrative assistance. Exactly what she would pay on a French policy. And a Luxembourg insurer withholds nothing at source: the policyholder declares and pays in France.

What changes sits on the US side, and two of those parameters are locked in on day one. The first is the 1 percent excise tax on premiums: on 480,000 EUR, of the order of 4,800 EUR (converted into USD for the return, this being a federal tax assessed in dollars), reported on Form 720. Absent a closing agreement in force it should be presumed due and confirmed in writing. It is an entry cost, quite separate from the annual cost of compliance.

The second is the number of lines. If the characterization your US adviser adopts is a fund-by-fund look-through, a reading no published IRS guidance settles, then six funds against twenty-eight is six forms against twenty-eight, every year, whatever the amount invested.

Nathalie has the assets and the right tax residence. On a new subscription, the absence of a TIN is not covered by the IRS relief. Until she has one, with US counsel, no application will get past the first stage, at any company.

When this will not work

There are five situations in which we do not build the case, and decline it rather than send it to an insurer.

How Hagnéré Patrimoine can help

The order is the one set out above: status, then the approach to the company about your profile, before you fill in a single form, then what the application is missing, then the allocation, structured with the number of lines in mind. Because acceptance policies change without notice, we put the question again on every case; a favorable answer given last year commits nobody this year.

What the firm does not do: we cannot open a policy for you. We can review whether a policy could be arranged, subject to the insurer's acceptance, and no acceptance can be given in advance. We give no US legal or tax advice and we do not prepare US tax returns: we refer clients to partner French-US tax attorneys or CPAs, at the client's cost, which our fees do not cover. Sometimes we conclude that the case should not be built at all, and we say so before you have completed anything.

We also cannot guarantee the US tax treatment of any policy: characterization under section 7702 of the Internal Revenue Code requires written confirmation from the insurer and the analysis of a French-US tax attorney or CPA. Whatever the structure, the capital placed in unit-linked funds is at risk and no return is guaranteed. Information up to date at 28 July 2026; practices as at July 2026; company sites and IRS lists checked on 27 July 2026.

Where to go next

If you are not sure any of this applies to you, start with am I a US person? For the whole picture, see Luxembourg life insurance for US persons: the full picture. The technical questions have their own guides: is Luxembourg life insurance a PFIC? and what US compliance actually costs each year, as does the reason the Luxembourg wrapper is used at all, the triangle of security and the super-privilege. Whatever else follows, the US taxpayer identification number comes before the search for a company.

This guide is also available in French: assurance vie qui accepte les US person.