Fax to the CNDA and OFPRA: Asylum Deadlines

Short answer: before the Cour nationale du droit d'asile (National Court of Asylum Law, CNDA) as before OFPRA (the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons), fax is not the normal way to file an appeal — the CNDA pushes applicants and lawyers towards its CNDém@t online service and accepts registered mail, while OFPRA only receives applications through the single-desk procedure and then by post. But both institutions work with hard deadlines of one month, sometimes fifteen days, and a case often turns on a document that is still missing the day before expiry. In that specific situation, fax is still used: it delivers today a supplementary brief, a legal aid application, a change of address, a medical certificate or proof of identity, with a time-stamped trace. Golden rule: you fax a document into a case that is already registered, never an asylum application or an initial appeal, and you always duplicate it through the official channel the same day.

Why asylum is the field where a single hour really counts

Asylum litigation is among the tightest in French law. Three figures are enough to understand why.

• An appeal against an OFPRA refusal decision must be lodged with the CNDA within one month of notification of the decision (Article L. 532-1 of the code de l'entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d'asile (Code on the Entry and Residence of Foreign Nationals and on the Right of Asylum), CESEDA). This deadline cannot be extended and it runs even if the applicant does not yet have a lawyer.
• Under the accelerated procedure, or where the application has been declared inadmissible, the case is heard by a single judge within five weeks; under the normal procedure, the full panel rules in principle within five months.
• The legal aid application must be filed within fifteen days of receiving the acknowledgement of receipt of the appeal for the one-month deadline to be interrupted and then start again. Fifteen days is the time it takes for one failed round trip in the post.

On top of these deadlines comes the reality on the ground: the applicant is often housed in a CADA or HUDA reception centre or with a third party, has no printer, their asylum application certificate is about to expire, and the support association holds office hours two half-days a week. Registered post takes two to four days, and the postmark is not always worth what people think: in administrative litigation, it is in principle the date of receipt by the court registry that counts, unless provided otherwise. Hence the value of a channel that delivers within the hour and leaves a dated transmission report.

A fax does not create a new right. It gets a document there on time that, arriving too late, would have cost the case.

What the CNDA accepts, and what it does not

The appeal itself: CNDém@t or post

The CNDA has rolled out CNDém@t (its own electronic filing application), which is mandatory for lawyers and open to applicants. An appeal lodged by a lawyer outside this application is, in practice, regularised and then firmly redirected. An applicant acting alone may still send the appeal by post (registered with acknowledgement of receipt, strongly advised) or file it at the reception desk of the Court, in Montreuil. Fax is not a filing method provided for by law: an appeal sent by fax alone risks a request for regularisation, and nobody wants to gamble a one-month deadline on a regularisation.

The logic is the same as at the administrative court, where Télérecours citoyens (the Citizens' Electronic Filing service) has replaced the fax — we covered it in detail in Faxing the administrative court: still admissible?.

Documents during proceedings: that is where fax helps

Once the appeal is registered and the case number allocated (typically in the format 24XXXXXX), the registry handles a constant flow of documents. That is where the fax keeps its usefulness:

Two precautions apply to every line above. First, the case number and the name as it appears in the Court's records must appear at the top of each page: at the CNDA, identical names and varying transliterations of surnames are common, and a document without a case number ends up in an unidentified pile. Second, any document written in a foreign language must be accompanied by a French translation; the Court is not required to examine a document it cannot read.

OFPRA: an even narrower scope

At OFPRA, an asylum application is never filed remotely: it goes through the guichet unique pour demandeurs d'asile (single desk for asylum seekers, GUDA) and then by sending in the form within twenty-one days. No fax opens a file. On the other hand, the relevant geographical division and the protection division (the one that issues civil status documents to protected persons) receive documents continuously: proof of change of address, a spouse's birth certificate, a family reunification request, a missing document requested in a letter from the Office. The official channel remains the post, or the online service where one exists; fax is only used as a backup, for a document requested with a looming deadline.

Step-by-step procedure

1. Check the number first of all

Contact details for the CNDA and OFPRA have changed: the Court moved premises, chambers were created, divisions were reorganised. A number copied from a 2019 forum post will send you nowhere, with nothing to warn you — a fax sent to a line that has become a voice line or been cancelled often produces a terse failure report, and sometimes nothing at all. Check the number on the official letter you received (the letterhead of the acknowledgement of receipt of the appeal or of the summons), on the court's website, or by calling the registry. Our directory lists the official fax numbers published by the authorities: see the fax number directory and, for the checking method, Finding the right fax number for a French authority.

2. Prepare a legible transmission

An asylum file typically contains fragile documents: photocopies of stamped passports, arrest warrants, handwritten medical certificates, screenshots. Fax is a black-and-white, low-resolution channel: anything light grey disappears, anything too dense turns into a blot. Three habits:

• scan at 300 dpi in greyscale, then convert to high-contrast black and white; a portable sheet-feed scanner does this job far better than a phone photo for flat documents;
• photograph documents flat and without shadows, placing the sheet on a light surface — a simple desktop smartphone tripod avoids the blur and keystoning that make a stamp illegible;
• reassemble everything into a single paginated PDF with our PDF file assembly tool, then check legibility on screen at 100%.

We have detailed the settings that save a document in Illegible fax on arrival: preparing a PDF that gets through.

3. A cover sheet that identifies you unambiguously

The cover sheet is not a courtesy: it is what allows the clerk to attach your pages to the right file. It must carry the CNDA case number or the OFPRA number, the surname and first name spelled exactly as on the decision, the date of birth, the total number of pages, the subject in one line ("Supplementary document – hearing of 14 January"), and your contact details for a call back. The cover sheet generator produces this format in a few clicks; the template is annotated in Fax cover sheet: the template that stands as proof.

4. Send, then duplicate the same day

The fax arrives within the hour, but it does not replace the official channel. On the same day:

• the lawyer uploads the same document to CNDém@t;
• an applicant without a lawyer sends the original by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt;
• in both cases, keep the transmission report showing the date, time, number dialled and number of pages sent.

5. Archive the proof

Asylum litigation can last for years, continue on appeal to the Conseil d'État (Council of State), then start again with a re-examination. Keep the transmission report, the cover sheet and the PDF you sent in a single folder. An encrypted external hard drive or a hardware-encrypted USB stick is preferable to a consumer cloud service for this kind of material: an asylum file contains information about political opinions, religion or sexual orientation — that is, sensitive data within the meaning of Article 9 of the GDPR. Reasonable retention periods are set out in Archiving your fax receipts: for how long?.

The four mistakes that cost a case

Faxing the appeal and leaving it there. This is the fatal mistake. The one-month deadline is a strict time bar: once the date has passed, the CNDA dismisses the case by order without a hearing. A fax on its own, not regularised, is no guarantee.

Forgetting legal aid. Many applicants think a lawyer will simply be appointed for them. The legal aid application must be filed within fifteen days of receiving the acknowledgement of receipt of the appeal, failing which it no longer interrupts the deadline. The form is the same as for other courts, but it must be sent to the CNDA legal aid office, not to the one at the judicial court.

Failing to report a change of address. At the CNDA as at OFPRA, the summons to the hearing and the decision are notified to the last known address. A change of accommodation, an association-provided domicile that expires, and notification is deemed to have been made: the subsequent appeal deadline runs without your knowing it. A change of address sent by fax, duplicated by post, is one of the most useful uses of the fax in this field. Also consider getting a custom self-inking address stamp or, failing that, writing the address in block capitals: an address misread on a fax means a summons lost.

Sending at 11.50 p.m. the night before without checking. A "failed" transmission report at midnight cannot be put right. Start the transmission in the middle of the day, check the report, and if the line is busy, try again within the hour: registry lines are often jammed at the end of a deadline period, when everyone has had the same idea.

And if the CNDA no longer has a working fax?

This is an increasingly common scenario: many courts have scrapped fax in favour of their online service. If the number does not answer, there are three solutions, in this order:

1. the online service (CNDém@t for the CNDA): it is the safest route and the only one whose registration date is beyond dispute;
2. filing in person at the Court's reception desk against a receipt, or at a tribunal judiciaire (judicial court) that forwards it — ask for a dated stamp on your copy;
3. registered post sent from a post office, keeping the receipt, bearing in mind that delivery can take several days.

Specialist associations — France Terre d'Asile (France, Land of Asylum), Forum réfugiés (Refugee Forum), la Cimade, GISTI — hold drop-in sessions and have scanners and fax machines. Maisons France Services (France Services centres) also help with scanning and sending a file, as we explain in France Services: getting help to fax a file.

Frequently asked questions

Is an asylum appeal sent by fax admissible before the CNDA?

It is not a route provided for. The CNDA works through CNDém@t, post or in-person filing. An appeal sent by fax alone may be treated as an application requiring regularisation, and that regularisation must take place within the one-month deadline. In other words: fax can be used to alert the Court, never to replace a proper filing.

Can I fax my legal aid application?

Yes, as a backup, so that the filing date falls within the fifteen days — but the signed form and its supporting documents (income, household composition, asylum application certificate) must follow as originals by post. An incomplete application is refused, and a refusal does not give you the deadline back.

Does OFPRA accept an asylum application by fax?

No, never. The asylum application is registered at the prefecture single desk, then the form goes to the Office. Fax can only be used to send a document into a file that is already open, quoting the OFPRA number as a reference.

How many pages can be faxed at once?

Technically, several dozen, but reliability drops beyond twenty to thirty pages: a cut-off mid-transmission means starting all over again. It is better to split it into batches of ten to fifteen pages, numbered "1/3", "2/3", "3/3", each with its own cover sheet.

Do foreign-language documents need to be translated?

Yes. Before the CNDA, a document not translated into French may be set aside. An informal translation is often enough for background material, but a civil status record or a court document is better translated by a sworn translator.

Does a fax prove that the CNDA received my document?

The transmission report proves that a call went through to a given number, at a given time, for a given number of pages. It is prima facie evidence, freely assessed by the judge. It is not an acknowledgement of receipt. The topic is covered in detail in our article on the evidential value of a fax.

In summary

• An appeal against an OFPRA refusal is filed via CNDém@t, by registered post or at the desk — never by fax alone, the one-month deadline being absolute.
• The legal aid application has its own fifteen-day deadline after the acknowledgement of receipt of the appeal: this is one of the rare cases where faxing the same day genuinely saves the situation.
• Fax is for documents in a case that is already registered: supplementary brief, certificate, summons, change of address, request for an interpreter or for an adjournment.
• Case number, exact name, date of birth and number of pages must appear on every cover sheet: without them, the document is attached to nothing.
• Any foreign document must be translated into French to be examined.
• Always duplicate the fax the same day through the official channel, and keep the transmission report, cover sheet and PDF you sent for the whole duration of the proceedings, including any re-examination.
• If the line no longer answers, switch to the online service, in-person filing against a receipt, or registered post — and get help from a specialist association or a France Services centre.