Naturalisation decree search by number: check whether you have been naturalised

The AlertJO search starts from the other end: your ministerial number, the one that identifies your file uniquely in the decrees. It is free, unlimited, and needs neither an account nor a payment. If an issue already analysed contains your number, you see it immediately.

Enter your ministerial number as year + letter + six digits (for example 2026X 012345). The search compares that number with every naturalisation decree AlertJO has already analysed and answers straight away.

Two numbers circulate in a naturalisation file, and they do not serve the same purpose. The prefectural file number is issued locally when you file your application at the prefecture: it identifies your file in local tracking. The ministerial number, commonly called the “REZE number”, is issued during central processing by the sub-directorate for access to French nationality, based in Rezé.

Only the ministerial number appears in the decrees published in the Official Journal, so it is the only one a search can use. You will find it on the filing receipt given to you by the prefecture and on letters from the Ministry of the Interior. It starts with the year of your file, then a letter, then a six-digit number.

If the search returns nothing although you believe your decree is out, start by checking the format of your number: a wrong year, a missing letter or one digit too many is enough to make the comparison fail. A free tool checks the shape of a number without storing or searching anything.

REZE number

A naturalisation decree published in the Official Journal has two parts. The decree itself states the decision and carries a signature date. The annexed extract, with restricted access on Légifrance, lists the people concerned: surname, first name, date and place of birth, category, and the ministerial number of the file.

Two dates appear in a decree, and confusing them is common. The signature date is when the decree takes effect: that is the date of your naturalisation. The Official Journal publication date is when the decree becomes enforceable and publicly available. For your paperwork, the signature date is the one that counts.

Every Official Journal issue also carries a JORF number, which identifies it within the year. That number, together with the date, is what lets you find the issue on Légifrance and open the official document.

For decrees published since 2016, Légifrance restricts access to the extract with the names: it asks you to solve a small puzzle before the document opens. That is not a bug, it is a safeguard for the personal data the extract contains.

In the extract published in the Official Journal, each person is attached to a category, shown as a three-letter code. The codes found in decrees are these:

NAT

The code used for people naturalised by decree: the naturalisation procedure itself.

EFF

Collective effect: the minor children named in the decree, who become French at the same time as their parent.

REI

Reinstatement in French nationality, a procedure distinct from naturalisation.

In the decrees analysed by AlertJO, the codes recorded are: NAT, EFF, REI and LIB.

The letter inside your ministerial number (the “X” of 2026X 012345) is something else: it identifies the file. We have found no official source documenting what it means, and we would rather not interpret it than pass on an invented explanation.

The AlertJO search does not filter by category: every category is covered, and a file falling under collective effect is treated like any naturalisation file.

Searching by number answers one precise question: “is my file in a decree?”. But it is sometimes useful to look at a whole issue — for instance when someone tells you a decree is out and you want to check which one.

Every issue AlertJO has analysed has its own page: the Official Journal date, the JORF number, the number of people naturalised, the split by category, by country of birth and by processing department, plus the link to the official document on Légifrance. Issues are also grouped by month and by year in the archives, and the “latest decree” and “next decree” pages give respectively the most recent issue and the usual window for the next one, computed from past gaps.

These pages do not replace the search by number: they give context. The decree that concerns you may well be an old issue, if your file was processed long ago.

• Decree archive
• Latest decree
• Next decree

A number that does not come up means, in the vast majority of cases, that your decree has not been published yet. Decrees come out in batches, at an irregular rhythm, with no published schedule: no result is not bad news, it is simply no news.

Before drawing any conclusion, three checks are worth making. Check the format of your ministerial number, character by character. Then check your ANEF account: since 1 February 2023, the publication date of your decree appears there. Finally, check that you are using the ministerial number and not the prefectural one.

If your file seems unusually slow, you can write to the sub-directorate for access to French nationality, at the address given by service-public.gouv.fr, or contact the prefecture that received your file. AlertJO has no access to the progress of your file: we read published decrees, nothing more.

Lastly, you can stop checking by hand. The email alert reads every new Official Journal issue and tells you the day your number appears in it, with no time limit.

Checking yourself means reopening Légifrance for every issue, picking out the naturalisation decrees among the individual acts, then opening the restricted extract with the names. It is doable, but it means starting over several times a week, for months, with no way of knowing when to stop.

The email alert does that checking for you: every new issue is analysed and you get an email the day your ministerial number appears in it. It is a one-off payment, and monitoring continues with no time limit until your decree is published.