What exactly is a working holiday?
Increasingly popular with young travellers, the Working Holiday Programme is still poorly understood. Here is what it is, how to obtain it, where you can go, and what alternatives exist for the United States.
Increasingly popular with young travellers, the Working Holiday Programme is still poorly understood. In this article we explain what it is, how to obtain it, where you can go, and what alternatives exist for the USA and the United Kingdom.
Working holiday: where, what, how?
The programme in brief
The Working Holiday Programme is a bilateral agreement between two countries allowing their nationals to:
- travel freely,
- work legally on site,
- generally for up to 12 months.
It also goes by the names:
- Working Holiday Visa (WHV)
- Working Holiday Permit
- Visa Vacances-Travail (VVT), in French
The programme is open to young people aged 18 to 30, and up to 35 depending on the destination.
📊 According to the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs , more than 46,000 young French people left on a working holiday in 2018.
Where can you go on a Working Holiday Visa?
To date, France has signed 14 working holiday agreements. The destinations available are:
- 🇦🇺 Australia (1st destination)
- 🇨🇦 Canada (2nd destination)
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand (3rd destination)
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇰🇷 South Korea
- 🇹🇼 Taiwan
- 🇭🇰 Hong Kong
- 🇷🇺 Russia
- 🇺🇾 Uruguay
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇦🇷 Argentina
- 🇨🇱 Chile
- 🇨🇴 Colombia
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
ℹ️ A 15th agreement with Peru has been signed but has not yet come into force.
How do you obtain a working holiday visa?
Each country sets its own rules, but the common conditions are as follows:
- Age
- 18 to 30 for most countries
- Up to 35 for Australia, Canada and Argentina
- A valid passport
- Proof of financial resources
- Between €1,000 and €3,000 depending on the country
- To cover your return journey and your first expenses
- A clean criminal record
- An extract or a sworn statement, depending on the destination
- A medical certificate or health questionnaire
- Compulsory international health insurance
Without insurance, entry to the country may be refused.
Watch out for quotas
Places are limited:
- 🇲🇽 Mexico: 300 visas a year
- 🇨🇦 Canada: 6,750 visas a year
⚠️ Canada is one of the most sought-after destinations, and often one of the hardest to obtain.
Where do you apply for a Working Holiday Visa?
Applications are made to the embassy or consulate of the country concerned, or online for some destinations (for example Australia, through the Department of Home Affairs).
Why go on a working holiday?
Funding your trip
The main advantage: being able to work legally to fund your stay. You do not need to work all year round — a few assignments are enough to set off again.
A real asset on your CV
Even with small jobs, professional experience abroad demonstrates:
- independence
- adaptability
- open-mindedness
- motivation
👉 Qualities that recruiters value highly.
Learning a language (for real)
A year abroad is a genuine accelerator: more fluent English, or a new language altogether (Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean…). Nothing replaces immersion.
Opening your mind
A working holiday also means learning to manage on your own, meeting travellers from all over the world, discovering other cultures and ways of life, and gaining perspective on yourself — and on your own country.
What about the USA and the United Kingdom?
The United States and the United Kingdom are not part of the working holiday scheme. But legal alternatives do exist for working there.
Working in the USA or the UK with Work & Travel
At Work & Travel we offer supervised programmes to:
- work legally in the United States (J-1 visa)
- or in the United Kingdom
For the length of a summer job or a season, you can:
- live a full cultural immersion
- improve your English
- fund your stay
- enrich your CV with valuable international experience
👉 An ideal alternative, with safe, supervised support.