Algeria
Africa's largest country and a large importer — where the main question is not the price but how you get paid
Algeria has forty-five million people, gas revenues and an industrialisation programme that translates into demand for machinery, technology and materials. It is also the most demanding payment environment in the Mediterranean. Imports are subject to bank domiciliation — every import operation must be registered with an Algerian bank before the goods are dispatched — and exchange regulation constrains when and how money leaves. The 51/49 rule, which for years forced foreign investors into a minority stake, was narrowed in 2020 to defined strategic sectors; outside them foreign ownership is unrestricted. Anyone going in needs patience, a local representative and secured payment — in that order.
Loading the indicators…
Setting up a company
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Legal forms
- ·Foreign ownership
Taxes
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Corporate income tax
- ·VAT
Visas and residence
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Short stay
- ·Work permit
Investment opportunities
Setting up a company and tax are the part of the profile you cannot assemble elsewhere in an afternoon. The rest of the page is open.
- ·Rules for a foreign investor
What it makes and needs
Hydrocarbons (the overwhelming majority of exports), petrochemicals, fertilisers, construction and infrastructure, food processing, pharmaceuticals — Algeria pushes systematically to replace imported medicines with domestic production. It imports machinery and equipment, transport equipment, grain, milk and industrial raw materials.
Money and payments
The dinar (DZD) is not freely convertible and repatriation is regulated. In practice: payment against an irrevocable letter of credit opened by an Algerian bank and confirmed by a bank in the Union, delivery time counted from the opening of the credit, and an express contract term that the supplier does not bear the risk of delay caused by exchange measures. Open account is not extended in Algeria, not even to a partner of many years.
Importing into their market
BANK DOMICILIATION — nothing happens without it. Every import operation must be registered (“domiciled”) with the buyer's Algerian bank before the goods are dispatched, and the bank thereby earmarks the foreign currency to pay for it. Goods shipped before domiciliation cannot be paid for and sit in the port. Domiciliation is the buyer's task; its reference appears on the shipping documents.
Food, medicines, cosmetics and some industrial goods require prior registration or a permit from the relevant ministry, plus technical inspection on entry. Algeria also repeatedly uses import restrictions and prohibited-item lists as instruments of trade policy — the list changes.
Outlook
What to watch: import restrictions and prohibited-item lists, which change and decide whether your goods can be imported at all; the central bank's foreign-exchange policy, on which the speed of payment depends; and the import-substitution programme, which is gradually closing the market in some categories while opening demand for production technology in others.
Write to us. Our representative for this market or our team receives it.
Tell us what you came to this page for and did not find. We will add it — with a source.
A visa, legalising a document, an invitation letter, the commercial attaché before a trade fair — these only go through a mission. Below are the official registers rather than transcribed addresses: missions move and consular hours change several times a year, so a link to the register stays current where a transcript would not.
Where a country has no mission in Bratislava or Prague it is usually accredited from Vienna, Berlin or Warsaw — the register says which.
Every figure names the authority that published it and the date the line was last worked on. This is not legal or tax advice — verify a figure with the named source before you act on it.