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Defense Cooperation

Country Clearance Information

IMPORTANT: All official DoD/USG visitors who will meet with host nation counterparts or industry officials must submit a country clearance request to the Office of Defense Cooperation in France.  

The Process:

  1. Review the France portion of the Foreign Clearance Guide (DoD 4500.54-G) and complete your Country Clearance Request accordingly. Click here for a country clearance request.
  2. ODC only processes country clearance requests submitted via the following two sites:

    a.     Aircraft and Personnel Automated Clearance System (APACS). To sign up for an account click here

    b. Electronic Country Clearance System (eCC)
  3. Your security officer should send in requests through the above automated systems no later than 35 days before the visit (for September visits, allow 60 days).

Additional Information:

ODC will coordinate visit requests with the French Ministry of Defense (MoD) when:

a.  Visits involves classified material/discussions;
b.  Visits last more than (5) five days;
c.  Visits involves the French government (MOD, DGA, military departments etc…); or
d.  Visits involving access to controlled areas and sites

All other cases will be coordinated directly with the French Point of Contact (identified in the country clearance) of the organization to be visited. If the visit takes place entirely at a conference center or hotel, please state this plainly in the message.

Country clearance approval will come back to you via APACS or eCC.

Approval for country clearance for France cannot be assumed.

The Top (10) Ten Country Clearance Request Errors 

  1. Failure to provide precise location information. Organization, name, city and correct address are needed.
  2. Failure to meet time requirements for submitting clearance requests. Thirty-five (35) days is the minimum lead time. For September visits, 60 days must be allowed.
  3. Omitting visitor’s date of birth, place of birth, security clearance level and passport number.  This is particularly important when visitors need access to controlled areas as this information is needed for the French authorities to grant access.
  4. Failure to provide a Point of Contact (POC) and their location in France. This is the person who will pass your visit information to the organization's security office. Visit requests cannot be forwarded to organizations without a POC name, phone and fax number for each organization to be visited.
  5. Failure to provide a correct phone and fax number. France's country code is 33. French phone numbers are 10 digits long and begin with a zero. Outside France, a phone number would read: (33) 1.xx.xx.xx.xx. Within France, the same phone number would read: 01.xx.xx.xx.xx. Depending on the region/city you are calling, the beginning number may change, i.e. 1 in this example is for Paris.
  6. Failure to confirm visit itinerary details in advance. Due to the large number of requests, ODC cannot coordinate your schedule requests with your host in France. Your request will be denied if your host is not previously informed of your visit.
  7. If you already have an official POC at the US embassy, it would be helpful to have that information listed on your country clearance.
  8. Failure to provide a reliable home POC during your visit. It is imperative that Item 8 of the Country Clearance request form, "Traveler's Point of Contact at Origin", be filled in completely with the details of a POC who will be available during your stay in France in the event of an emergency.
  9. Full name is crucial for us to approve a country clearance. Sometimes ODC receives country clearance requests with ONLY the last name of the traveler or travelers, this is a big NO-NO! 
  10. If you get into difficulties on how to fill the APACS request, please, first use the APACS help by clicking either on the tutorial or the help icon on the left of the APACS homepage.  Since we are APACS “approver” we may not have the proper information on how to solve “requesters” issues and problems.

If you have questions, please contact Gilles S. Roserens our ODC country clearance manager by email at RoserensGS@state.gov or via phone at +33 1 4312 2609