Before you start

A valid residence permit and a French address
Your foreign licence, with a sworn translation if it is not in French
A vehicle registration document, for both stickers
An ANTS account for the licence exchange

Step-by-step

1
Check whether your issuing state has a reciprocity agreement with France
France exchanges licences only with states it has an agreement with, and for federal countries those agreements are concluded state by state or province by province. Two Americans from neighbouring states can get entirely different answers. The published list is specific.
OnlineWho: YouBefore the one-year window closes
2
Apply within one year of your residence permit taking effect
The exchange window runs one year from the start date of your first titre de séjour, not from the day you arrived. Miss it and the only route left is the full French test — code and practical, in French, through an auto-école.
OnlineWho: YouWithin 1 year of the permit's start date
3
Submit the exchange through ANTS
Entirely online, with a sworn translation of your licence, proof of residence, identity documents and a compulsory EUR 40 electronic tax stamp. Your foreign licence is surrendered when the French one is issued.
OnlineWho: You
4
Order a Crit'Air sticker from the official government site
The Eurométropole's ZFE-m covers every one of its communes, applies to all motorised vehicles and runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Which Crit'Air classes are banned tightens on a published schedule, so check the current step before buying a car rather than after. The sticker itself costs a few euros from the official service and is posted to you; lookalike commercial sites charge many times that for the same document.
OnlineWho: You
5
Buy a German Umweltplakette if you drive into German environmental zones
Kehl itself is not an Umweltzone, but Freiburg, Karlsruhe and Stuttgart are, and a French Crit'Air sticker means nothing to them. The German badge is bought separately, is cheap, and sticks alongside the French one. Anyone whose weekends involve the Black Forest or a German city should just get both.
OnlineWho: You
6
Try the tram, the bike network and the German trains before buying a car
Strasbourg has the densest cycle network of any French city, a tram that runs to Kehl on an ordinary ticket, and German regional trains from Kehl into the Black Forest. Between them, a car in this city is a weekend object rather than a daily one for most residents.
In personWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Foreign driving licence with a sworn translation
Residence permit
Justificatif de domicile
Passport
Vehicle registration document, for the Crit'Air and Umweltplakette applications

Things most newcomers don’t know

France and Germany run incompatible emissions stickers, and you need both.

The French Crit'Air vignette classifies vehicles for French low emission zones; the German Umweltplakette does the same job for German Umweltzonen. Neither recognises the other, and enforcement in both countries is by camera or by roadside check against the sticker on the windscreen. From Strasbourg, where a drive into Germany is routine rather than exceptional, the sensible answer is to buy both at the outset and stop thinking about it.

Source: certificat-air.gouv.fr / German environmental zone rules

The one-year exchange clock runs from your residence permit, not from your arrival.

The window to exchange a non-EU licence is one year from the date your first titre de séjour takes effect. People count from when they landed and discover too late that the only route left is the full French test through an auto-école at a cost well into four figures. Diarise the date the day the permit is issued.

Source: service-public.fr

For federal countries the reciprocity agreement is per state, not per country.

France concluded its licence exchange arrangements with the United States, Canada and others state by state and province by province, so a licence from one American state may be exchangeable and one from the state next door not. The published list is specific and takes five minutes to check. It is the single most misunderstood point about French licence exchange.

Source: service-public.fr — échange d'un permis de conduire étranger

The tram crossing the Rhine is not a novelty — it changes the arithmetic of car ownership.

Line D has run to Kehl since 2017 on an ordinary Strasbourg fare, and German regional trains continue from there into Baden. Combined with the densest urban cycle network in France and a compact centre, this removes most of the reasons people in comparable cities give for keeping a car. The residual case is the Vosges in winter, and hiring for those weekends is cheaper than owning.

Source: Eurométropole de Strasbourg / CTS

Common mistakes to avoid

Driving into a German environmental zone with only a French Crit'Air sticker.
Counting the one-year exchange window from arrival rather than from the permit's start date.
Assuming a country-level reciprocity agreement when France concludes them state by state.
Buying a Crit'Air sticker from an unofficial reseller at several times the price.
Buying a car before testing the tram, the bike network and the German trains for a month.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.