Do you need a visa for a Paris CDG layover?

If you stay airside

Most connections at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) never meet French passport control, but some do, and it comes down to where you’re flying from and to. France belongs to the Schengen area: 29 European countries, most of the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, that don’t check passports between each other. Britain and Ireland aren’t members, and neither is anywhere outside Europe.

Your two flights	Passport control at Charles de Gaulle?
Both outside Schengen, such as New York to Delhi	No: you stay in the international transit zone
Outside Schengen, then a Schengen country, such as New York to Rome	Yes, on the way in, so you need permission to enter
A Schengen country, then outside Schengen, such as Berlin to Singapore	Yes, on the way out
Both inside Schengen, such as Rome to Berlin	No checks at all

That table assumes one booking with your bags checked through to the end: look for the yellow “connecting flights” signs when you get off the plane. Two separate bookings change everything (see below).

Airport transit visa

A short list of nationalities needs a French airport transit visa simply to change planes in the transit zone. It covers Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Sri Lanka, plus ordinary passports from a longer group that includes Cuba, Nepal, the Philippines, Senegal, Syria and Turkey. France-Visas publishes the full list: check it before you book if your nationality might be on it. India is not.

You’re let off if you already hold one of these: a valid residence permit from an EU or EEA country; a residence permit from Andorra, Canada, Japan, Monaco, San Marino, the UK or the US; or a valid visa for an EU or EEA country, Canada, the US or Japan.

What this visa can’t do: let you out of the airport, or cover a connection between two Schengen airports. Both need a Schengen short-stay visa.

If you want to leave the airport

Walking out of the terminal into Paris, even for a few hours, counts as entering France and the Schengen area.

Passport	What you need to leave Charles de Gaulle
US	Visa-free: stays of up to 90 days in any 180-day period
UK	Visa-free on the same 90-day rule, British Nationals (Overseas) included
EU and Schengen	A valid passport or national ID card
Canada	Visa-free: up to 90 days in any 180-day period
Australia	Visa-free: up to 90 days in any 180-day period
India	A Schengen short-stay visa, from France-Visas before you travel

Schengen short-stay visa

Indian travellers, and others whose passports need one, apply through France-Visas well ahead of the trip. The visa covers every Schengen country, for up to 90 days in any 180. There’s no way to get one at Charles de Gaulle: France doesn’t issue visas on arrival.

Passport validity

Your passport has to be under 10 years old and still valid 3 months after the day you fly out of France. Being visa-free doesn’t make entry automatic either: an officer may ask what you’re doing in Paris and how you’re paying for it, and your onward boarding pass answers both.

The EES and ETIAS

Since 10 April 2026, every non-EU visitor entering Schengen is recorded in the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES). On your first entry, instead of stamping your passport, the officer takes your photo and, if your passport needs no visa (US, UK, Canadian, Australian), scans four fingerprints. With a Schengen visa, as Indian travellers have, it’s the photo only, since your fingerprints were taken for the visa; children under 12 aren’t fingerprinted. The desks move more slowly than they used to. EU citizens aren’t affected.

ETIAS will be an online permit, costing €20, for visa-free visitors such as Americans, Britons, Canadians and Australians. It hasn’t begun, so nobody needs one for a layover yet. The EU expects to start it in late 2026 and will announce the date several months ahead, and even then there are transition and grace periods of at least 12 months. Before you travel, look at the EU’s ETIAS timeline to be sure.

If you’re on separate tickets

With two bookings, your bags almost always come off at Charles de Gaulle and you check them in again for the second flight. That means going landside, through French passport control and back, so you need the right to enter France, by passport or visa, even if Paris was never the plan. There’s a second risk too: if the first flight runs late and you miss the second, nobody has to rebook you, and a new ticket is at your own cost. Leave plenty of time for check-in, security and the border on the way back in.

At the border

From landing to sitting on the RER B, plan on about an hour. EU citizens show a passport or ID card; everyone else waits at a desk to be registered in the EES, with a photo and, for visa-free passports, fingerprints. A long queue shortens your time in Paris but doesn’t change when you must head back. On a 6-hour layover, if you’re still queueing well past the hour, staying at the airport may be the wiser choice. The train and the fares: getting into Paris.

Before you go landside

• Passport and onward boarding pass go with you, not in a bag you leave behind.
• Make sure your bags are checked through. If you’ve had to collect them, the left-luggage office in the Terminal 2 train station building takes them from 7am to 9pm.
• Your deadline is 90 minutes before departure, back at the terminal: enough for security and, on a flight out of Schengen, the passport desk. Still to check in or drop a bag? Come back earlier.
• Trains, fares and the way back: getting to the city.

Stopovers

Flying Air France, you can stretch a connection at Charles de Gaulle to between 27 hours and 4 nights when you book your flights, and add a hotel and transfer package from its partner Extime Travel. You still enter France, so the passport and visa rules above apply. With a visa-free passport or a Schengen visa, you can equally book a hotel yourself and stay as long as the rules above allow.