Can you remove your husband’s surname as your ‘nom d’usage’?

Reader question: For women in France who kept their family name after marriage: has your husband’s surname been listed as your 'nom d’usage' by the tax office, CAF or Assurance Maladie without your choosing to use it? How did you ask for the 'nom d’usage' to be removed while keeping your marital status correctly recorded as married?

When a woman gets married in France, she does not need to change her surname. 

The legal family name remains the one recorded on the birth certificate and other civil-status documents. 

However, you can choose to use your husband’s surname, either on its own or alongside your own, as a nom d’usage.

This is an optional name for everyday, professional and administrative use. It does not replace your legal family name and it does not mean you are required to use it just because you are married. 

So, if you found that your husband’s surname has been listed as your nom d’usage by the tax office, CAF or Assurance Maladie, the French state health insurance system, without your choosing to use it and this is not something you want, you can contact the relevant administration and ask for it to be removed. 

All you need to do is inform the organisations concerned. You do not even need to provide supporting documents to stop using a nom d’usage. 

For Assurance Maladie, you can request the change by logging into your online account, going to Mes démarches and selecting Nom d’usage.

For CAF, you need to send a written request by post to your departmental CAF office.

For your tax records, you can make the request through your online account on impots.gouv.fr, using the secure messaging service.

When making the request, explain that you wish to use only your own family name and no longer use your husband’s surname as a nom d’usage.

Finally, removing the nom d’usage does not affect your marital status in any way.

Some years ago, parliament passed a law laying down the fact that married women's birth names should always be used in official contexts unless the person otherwise requests. 

This may, therefore, lead to the opposite problem, in that some English-speakers used to using their married name - for example in a UK passport - may be unfamiliar with the fact that French bodies will usually use the maiden name on French documents, such as a driving licence.

As for tax declarations, these are usually made in your maiden name, but the forms include a line in which you can insert the nom auquels vos couriers seront adressés (the name to which your mail will be sent), which refers to the optional nom d'usage.