Naturalisation decree alert: get an email the day your decree is published in the Official Journal

That is what the AlertJO alert does: every time the Official Journal publishes an issue containing a naturalisation decree, the document is read and your ministerial number is looked for in it. If it is there, you get an email the same day. The alert is a one-off payment, with no subscription and no automatic renewal.

The principle is simple: you give your ministerial number (the number commonly called the “REZE number”) and your email address once, and then you have nothing left to do. AlertJO follows Official Journal issues on Légifrance, spots the ones containing a naturalisation decree, reads the published extract and compares every file number in it with yours.

That reading is automatic: it does not depend on anyone opening a page, and it is done for every issue, whatever the department that processed your file and whatever category your file falls under in the decree. The day your number appears, the email goes out — usually within hours of the issue going online.

We do not promise a guaranteed result, and we would rather say so plainly: detection relies on machine-reading the document as published. If the Official Journal goes online late, or if the published extract cannot be read automatically, the alert can arrive later. What is guaranteed is that monitoring continues, with no time limit, until your decree is published.

The three steps

1. 01Search for free firstEnter your ministerial number in the free search. If a decree already published contains it, you see it straight away and you do not need an alert at all.
2. 02Turn on the alert if your decree is not out yetYou add your email, pay once, and monitoring starts with the next Official Journal issue.
3. 03Get the email on publication dayThe email states the date of the Official Journal issue and links to it on Légifrance, so you can check the official document yourself.

Search by number

The Official Journal has no official publication time: it goes online on Légifrance early in the morning, Tuesday to Sunday. There is no Monday issue. Naturalisation decrees, though, do not appear in every issue: they come in batches, at an irregular rhythm, with no schedule published by the government.

That rhythm is something we can measure, because we keep the date of every issue we have read. It is the only honest basis for answering “when will the next decree be published?”: gaps observed in the past, not a promised date.

Across the 120 publication days AlertJO has analysed, the median gap between two naturalisation decrees is 5 days. The most recent issue analysed is dated October 31, 2026.

Every Official Journal publication day is processed: there is no day without monitoring, no weekend pause, and no queue behind other users. A decree published on a Sunday is read like a decree published on a Tuesday.

Next decree

Turning on an alert takes one thing: the number that identifies your naturalisation file. It is written as the year of your file, then a letter, then a six-digit number — for example 2026X 012345. You will find it on the filing receipt given to you by the prefecture and on letters from the Ministry of the Interior.

Be careful not to mix up two different numbers. The prefectural file number is issued locally, when you file your application at the prefecture; it is used for local tracking. The ministerial number, commonly called the “REZE number” because the sub-directorate for access to French nationality (SDANF) that processes the files is based in Rezé, is issued during central processing.

It is the ministerial number, not the prefectural one, that appears in the decrees published in the Official Journal. So that is the number AlertJO uses, both for the search and for the alert. If all you have at hand is your prefectural number, look through the letters you received from the ministry: the ministerial number appears there, as year + letter + six digits.

A mistyped number is the first reason an alert never fires. A free tool checks the shape of your number before you turn on an alert: it performs no search and stores nothing, it only checks that the format matches the numbers found in decrees.

Check the format of a REZE number

The AlertJO alert is sent by email, and by email only. That is the only alert channel in service today: there is no SMS alert, no phone call and no push notification.

The email is sent on publication day. It states the date of the Official Journal issue and links to it, so you can open the official document on Légifrance yourself. Do check your spam folder in the days following an issue: a transactional email can be filed there by your mail provider.

One email address is monitored per alert. If several applications were filed in your family, each ministerial number needs its own alert: a decree can mention one file without mentioning the other.

The search is free and unlimited: you can check your ministerial number as often as you like, with no account and no payment. Only the automatic alert is paid for, and it is a one-off payment: no subscription, no automatic renewal, no monthly charge.

That payment covers monitoring of your number until your decree is published, with no time limit. If your decree comes out six months after you turn the alert on, you pay no more; if you delete your account, your data goes with it.

AlertJO works on a file number, not on an identity. To turn on an alert we need neither your surname, nor your first name, nor your date of birth, nor your address: a ministerial number and an email address are enough.

Searching by name is not offered. The Official Journal extract that contains personal details has restricted access on Légifrance and the names in it are not indexed: a search by name would be both unreliable and needlessly intrusive. The ministerial number identifies a file uniquely, which also avoids confusion between people with the same name.

Decrees published in the Official Journal are public documents, but that does not license any use of them: we publish no directory of names and we sell no data. You can delete your account and your data at any time from the dedicated page.

Publication in the Official Journal is a step, not the end of the road. First thing to remember: a naturalisation decree takes effect on the date it was signed, not on the date it was published in the Official Journal. The signature date is the one that counts for your paperwork.

Then come the practical steps: requesting your birth certificate from the central civil status service (SCEC) in Nantes, obtaining a certificate of French nationality if needed, then applying for your national identity card and passport, and registering on the electoral roll. The ampliation — the official copy of the decree sent to the naturalised person — arrives by post, sometimes several weeks after publication.

A dedicated guide covers each step in order, with the documents to provide and the administrations to contact.

After the decree