Vital Card App Now Activates Without France Identité: Expanded to More Departments!

The rollout of the Vitale card app is progressing. Since March, it has been available nationwide for users of France Identité. For those without this digital wallet, another activation method has been introduced. Initially, this independent method of activation was only available in 23 departments. The coverage has now expanded.

We have been informed by the National Health Insurance Fund that “all the departments in the regions of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Grand-Est, Normandy, Pays de la Loire, and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, totaling 46 departments” are now included.

More specifically, activation is available for “anyone affiliated with a Health Insurance, MSA, or MGN organization in any of these departments, who has an insured account and a valid ID issued by the French government or a Belgian, Spanish or Portuguese identity card.”

If you do not live in one of these regions, you will need to use France Identité authentication to access the Vitale card app right now. And if you don’t have France Identité, you’ll need to be patient a little longer: independent activation will be available across the entire territory by this fall.

Activation without France Identité includes a facial recognition step which, during our trial at the end of 2023, was quite cumbersome — hopefully, it has improved since then.

The Vitale card app provides a digital version of your green card on your iPhone or Android smartphone and allows you to view your healthcare expenditure. However, be aware that not all healthcare professionals are equipped to scan the app’s displayed QR code. Check with your doctor, pharmacist, and other medical contacts to see if they support the app. By the end of April, it had reached one million activations.