CNAS Certificate in Algeria: clearance, online filing and employer duties

The Caisse Nationale des Assurances Sociales des Travailleurs Salariés covers employees in the economic sector. The attestation de mise à jour establishes that the employer is in good standing at the date of issue: activity declared, employees affiliated, contributions declared and paid.

It is the social document that contracting authorities, banks and partners ask for before entering into a contractual relationship. It differs from the affiliation certificate, which concerns an individual employee, and from the non-affiliation certificate, which proves the absence of any attachment.

The CNAS runs a public online service for verifying clearance certificates. It lets a third party check a document's authenticity simply by entering its number. The service states that it is valid for all certificates issued after 7 July 2020: https://teledeclaration.cnas.dz/checkMAJ.jsp

This is the most widespread confusion, and it costs entire companies time. The CNAS runs two distinct spaces that do not serve the same audience.

The employer space, where filing and payment take place, is the télédéclaration portal. It allows contribution bases to be declared, contributions to be paid online by e-payment, annual salary and employee declarations to be checked and filed, the list of employees and the filed returns to be viewed and downloaded, and affiliation requests for new employees to be registered: https://teledeclaration.cnas.dz

The El-Hanaa space, by contrast, is for insured persons: reimbursement history, notifications, information on the insured and their dependants, verification of an affiliation or non-affiliation certificate, and verification of a certificate of salaries declared by the employer: https://elhanaa.cnas.dz

The fund's institutional website brings both together, along with the employer page detailing the obligations: https://cnas.dz/fr/

A security point to know before logging in: the employer portal has strengthened its authentication. After entering the username and password, you must enter and confirm a telephone number in Algeria, or an email address for people residing abroad, then enter the verification code received.

The obligation arises with the first hire. The CNAS states that any individual or legal entity must declare its activity to the social security body as soon as it employs one or more workers, whatever the legal nature, duration and form of the employment relationship, or as soon as it employs staff on its own account as domestic workers, drivers, cleaners, gardeners, caretakers or nurses.

The activity declaration file is lodged at the CNAS agency covering the place where the business or activity is established, within the 10 days following the recruitment of the first employee.

Article 8 of law no. 83-14 of 2 July 1983, as amended and supplemented, requires the employer to declare to social security any person, whatever their nationality, who carries on a remunerated activity, whatever the amount or nature of the remuneration, whether full time, part time or occasional.

The fund defines the terms: full time corresponds to the statutory weekly working time of 40 hours, part time to a duration below 40 hours but not below 20 hours, and occasional work to temporary activities remunerated by task, by piece, on turnover or by fee.

Article 10 of the same law sets the deadline: employers must send an affiliation request for social security beneficiaries within the ten days following the worker's recruitment. Higher education, technical and vocational training establishments and similar bodies have twenty days from the students' enrolment.

Article 12 organises the practical sanction: where the affiliation request has not been sent within the prescribed deadlines, the employee's affiliation is carried out ex officio by the social security body, on its own initiative, following an administrative inspection, or at the request of the person concerned, their dependants, the trade union organisation or any other person.

An employee's affiliation file comprises an affiliation request for the insured person, a birth certificate n° 12 or a copy of the insured person's S12 if not already registered, and a family record sheet if the insured person is married. The full list of obligations appears on the fund's employer page: https://cnas.dz/fr/employeur/

Article 21 of law no. 83-14 sets the rhythm: the employer must declare and pay its employees' social security contributions to the wilaya agency it reports to within the thirty days following the due date, that of each quarter where it employs fewer than ten employees, that of each month beyond. The declaration is made online on the télédéclaration portal, or on a paper form known as the contribution base declaration.

Article 14 organises the annual return. The employer must send to the collection body, within the 30 days following the end of each calendar year, a nominative declaration of salaries and employees showing the remuneration received between the first and the last day of the year, by quarter, together with the amount of contributions due. Annual returns are transmitted electronically, software being made available to employers to extract the file.

A separate obligation never to be forgotten: the employer must declare any workplace accident within forty-eight hours of becoming aware of it.

The contribution base is made up of all elements of salary or of income proportional to work output, excluding family-related allowances, allowances representing costs incurred by the worker such as meal or transport allowances, exceptional allowances such as redundancy or retirement payments, and certain allowances linked to particular residence and isolation conditions.

Two floor rules frame the base. The monthly salary subject to contributions may in no case be lower than the national guaranteed minimum wage. And for special categories, the contribution base is the SNMG in force.

In the general case, the fund states a contribution rate of 34.5 %, split into 25 % of the base borne by the employer, 9 % of the base borne by the employee and 0.5 % of gross payroll for social works. Reductions on the employer's share are also provided for new recruitments.

Failure to meet the obligations exposes the employer to surcharges and late penalties. But the heaviest consequence lies elsewhere: the fund has special enforced collection procedures, organised by law no. 08-08 of 23 February 2008 on social security litigation.

Before any action, the creditor body sends a formal notice inviting the liable party to regularise its position within thirty days. After that period it may resort to enforced collection through three routes: the rôle, the constraint order and attachment of postal or bank current accounts.

A detail worth knowing, because it shows how the administrations interlock: in the rôle procedure, the statement of amounts due is signed by the director of the body, then endorsed and made enforceable by the wali. The rôle is notified in accordance with the tax procedures code, and it is enforced by the territorially competent tax services. An unpaid social debt therefore ends up in the hands of the tax collector.

Remedies exist. Wilaya agencies host qualified local preliminary appeal commissions, seized by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt or by petition lodged against a receipt, within fifteen days of receipt of the notification of the contested decision, failing which the appeal is inadmissible. Challenges relating to surcharges and late penalties go directly to the national commission where their amount is equal to or greater than one million dinars.