Hi am going to collect our CDS Tuesday our 1st , been here a year on visa. On booking the appointment which I had to chase up been 7 weeks since attended St lo was told only takes 3 weeks. anyway 0bsviously v busy . My question look so many other events we had to pay a tax of 225 each is this a one off payment ? we paid a similar amount on arrival as well . thank you all
This is the cost of the type of CdS you have. You will pay the same each time you renew it.
After 5 years you may qualify for a 10 year card which will save you having to renew your card every year.
A number of years ago while living in southern France my wallet was stolen from our car in Nice but rather surprisingly my carte de séjour was returned (via a third party) to the Bureau d’Étrangers . Even the French criminal classes know what a bureaucratic pain the loss of such identity documents can be. I arrived at the Bureau to pick up the returned carte with our yellow labrador. It became immediately apparent that for it to be released to me, I had to produce une pièce d’identité. As the carte de séjour was that pièce d’identité this had all the makings of a peculiarly French Catch 22. And so it proved. No protestation that the photo on the carte de séjour demonstrated that it was mine was accepted. Without the carte, I didn’t exist and if I didn’t exist I couldn’t have the carte . It’s a Descartes thing, “ J’ai une carte de séjour donc je suis .” Kindly neighbours had warned me of this and told me how to manage it. First, you have to go through at least twenty minutes of this circular argument, then, and only then, can you deliver the coup de gras: “C’est mon droit absolu” - it is my absolute right (to the carte). Capitulation was total and immediate, it was returned with no further discussion, a biscuit for the dog and the full gallic shrug.
I’m surprised that your passport was not considered as suitable… but perhaps it depends what nationality of passport you hold… 
Ha, that’s almost as frustrating as when you receive a phone call from your bank and they ask you to identify yourself as part of their security checks… Err, I know who I am. How about you identify who you are?!? 
Just playing Devil’s Advocate here… I don’t think a CdS does count as an official form of ID, does it? I know a carte d’identité is, but a CdS is different to that. You can’t use a CdS as ID to travel, for example.
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I was asked by some bank person on the telephone what my mother’s maiden name is, and I said they didn’t know what my mother’s maiden name because I hadn’t told them, so what was the point of asking me. So tedious.
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In this case it wasn’t about identity, it was about procedure. Any correlation between the two is purely coincidental. Just like the banks.