Your Pau move checklist

Same national route as the rest of France: the VLS-TS 'visiteur' long-stay visa requires stable passive income at roughly the French net minimum wage (SMIC ~€1,443/mo net as of Jan 1 2026; shown ~$1,650 USD), with some consulates expecting ~€1,550/mo per person and a couple to show proportionally more. Pensions, Social Security, IRA/401(k) and investment income qualify; healthy savings reinforce the file but don't replace income. You sign an attestation not to work in France and need private health insurance for the first year. Apply at a French consulate, validate online within 3 months of arrival, then renew annually at the Pau prefecture, building toward a multi-year card and eventual permanent residency.

Solid for a mid-size French town. The public Centre Hospitalier de Pau (Hôpital François Mitterrand) handles general and emergency care, and the private Polyclinique Pau Pyrénées (Marzet and Navarre sites, ~170+ beds at Marzet) covers surgery, oncology/chemo, cardiology, imaging (CT/MRI) and rehab. Residents access France's PUMA public system after ~3 months plus a mutuelle (~€30-70/mo each) for the gap. English-speaking doctors exist but are fewer than in Bordeaux; Doctolib helps. For the most complex/quaternary cases, the regional academic referral centers are CHU de Bordeaux (~2h) or CHU de Toulouse (~2h15), both reachable by road/rail.

France taxes residents on worldwide income, but the US-France treaty is favorable for American retirees: US Social Security and US-source pensions plus IRA/401(k)/Roth distributions are generally taxable only in the US (declared in France, where a credit usually offsets the French tax to near zero). US citizens still file in the US under the treaty's saving clause. French real-estate wealth tax (IFI) over €1.3M and CSG/CRDS social levies can apply to certain non-treaty income. Get cross-border tax advice for your specifics.

Pau-Pyrénées (PUF) is a small domestic-only airport: frequent short hops to Paris (CDG ~25/wk and Orly via Amelia, ~1h30) plus a few other French cities, but zero international service. Every US trip means connecting through Paris (then ~8-9h transatlantic to the East Coast) — realistically 14-17h door-to-door. Toulouse (TLS, ~2h15 by road/rail) and Bordeaux (BOD, ~2h) offer wider European links if PUF schedules don't fit.

Pau is a calm, residential university town generally regarded as safe, with low violent crime and a relaxed pace; petty theft is the main risk and is modest by big-city standards (Numbeo has thin Pau-specific data, so figures are perception-based and low-confidence). Typical precautions around the station, nightlife near the center, and parked-car break-ins apply. Women alone generally report comfort day and night in central areas. As with all of France, the country-level US State Dept Level 2 advisory reflects national terrorism risk and protests rather than any specific danger in Pau.

Temperate oceanic, famed historically for a 'mild' microclimate at the foot of the Pyrenees. Summers are pleasant (highs ~27-28C/80-83F, often clear); winters are cool and very damp (daytime ~10C/50F, January lows ~2-5C/36-41F, ~84% humidity). The big caveat is rain: ~1,400mm (55in) a year over ~187 rainy days, among the wettest in France — expect grey, drizzly stretches and the occasional Pyrenees fog.

Pau has a genuine historical Anglo tie — 19th-century British visitors made it a wellness resort, and oil/gas (TotalEnergies) sustains an international professional presence; guides cite a sizable foreign-resident population in the wider Béarn area (often quoted ~50,000, an estimate). The English-speaking community is real but smaller and more dispersed than Bordeaux's, so day-to-day French matters more. Expect a quieter, integrate-with-locals lifestyle, not an expat bubble.