Where do you start in order to import into Algeria?

1) CNRC registration with the import activity, 2) NIF from the DGI, 3) A bank account authorised for international operations and a domiciliation file, 4) A check on sector authorisations if the product is a sensitive one. On the importer card: article 8 of décret exécutif no. 25-233 of 3 September 2025 provides that the Organisme algérien de l'importation may deliver an importer card, the list of its services being fixed by an order of the minister for foreign trade. That order does not appear in the issues of the Journal Officiel we checked, so we do not tell you who issues the card today: have the point confirmed before you build a timetable on it.

Do you need an import licence?

Not for every product. Categories under quota or restriction include vehicles, medical devices and sensitive foodstuffs. Check with the ministry responsible for foreign trade before placing an order.

How do you export from Algeria?

A trade register mentioning the export activity, the CACI exporter card, an authorised bank account, an export declaration to Customs, and a certificate of origin for preferential agreements. Since décret exécutif no. 25-234 of 3 September 2025, the authorisations and attestations attached to the operation are handled at the export single window created alongside the Organisme algérien des exportations, where Customs, the tax administration, the Banque d'Algérie, the CNRC and the export credit insurer CAGEX all sit.

What is bank domiciliation?

The obligation to open a domiciliation file with your bank for every import or export operation. The bank checks that the payments comply with the exchange regulations.

Which incoterms should you favour?

On import: CIF or FOB. On export: EXW or FOB depending on your logistics capacity.

What company structure do you need in order to import into Algeria?

A SARL or an EURL whose trade register mentions the import activity, with a NIF and a bank domiciliation opened in its own name. The auto-entrepreneur status is not enough: it is limited to the domestic market.

What taxes apply on import?

The common tariff has only five customs duty rates: exemption at 0 %, reduced at 5 %, intermediate at 15 %, increased 1 at 30 % and increased 2 at 60 % (article 3 of ordonnance no. 01-02, as rewritten by article 80 of the 2018 Finance Law, in force under the 2026 Finance Law). It is the ten-digit subheading of the goods that receives one of them. Import VAT is added, along with any additional taxes (DAPS) that can push the effective charge well beyond. Preferential regimes are possible with a certificate of origin. The exact rate on your line is verified at www.douane.gov.dz.

Import and Export in Algeria 2026

Importing into or exporting from Algeria? This guide covers the bank domiciliation, the documents required, the duties and taxes actually due, and the bodies you now file with since the September 2025 reform of foreign trade.

Content verified on August 21, 2026Our methodology

ByÉquipe UpGrowth, Algeria international trade specialists

Published on January 15, 2026Updated on August 21, 2026

Start importing or exporting, UpGrowth Trade

Licences, customs, banking and logistics, handled end to end

Start importing or exporting, UpGrowth Trade

Import steps

Open a bank domiciliation file.
Order the goods (proforma invoice).
Open a letter of credit or a documentary collection.
Receive the shipping documents.
Clear the goods through customs.
Pay the duties and taxes.

Since September 2025 imports have a body of their own. Décret exécutif no. 25-233 of 3 September 2025, published in Journal Officiel no. 60 of 7 September 2025, creates the Organisme algérien de l'importation, a public body under the authority of the minister for foreign trade. Its article 5 gives it a digital platform dedicated to tracking import operations and supporting importers, intended to make it easier to obtain the visas and authorisations issued by the sectors concerned, and its article 7 interconnects that platform with the Banque d'Algérie, the banks authorised for foreign trade and the Directorate General of Customs.

Export steps

Prepare the commercial invoice.
Obtain the certificate of origin (CACI).
Go through the export single window for the authorisations and attestations attached to the operation.
File the customs declaration (D15).
Arrange transport and shipping.

What changed in September 2025. This page used to send exporters to ALGEX for an attestation. ALGEX (the National Agency for the Promotion of Foreign Trade) was dissolved by décret exécutif no. 25-235 of 3 September 2025, published in Journal Officiel no. 60 of 7 September 2025, which also repeals décret exécutif no. 04-174 that had created it in 2004. Its assets, rights, obligations and personnel were transferred to the Organisme algérien des exportations, created the same day by décret exécutif no. 25-234. The transfer did not stay on paper: the inventory was approved by an interministerial order of 14 April 2026, published in Journal Officiel no. 41 of 7 June 2026.

Where you file today. Article 20 of décret exécutif no. 25-234 creates, attached to the Organisme algérien des exportations, a guichet unique de l'exportation, the export single window. Its article 21 gives it the purpose of letting an operator complete export procedures in one place, follow the granting of authorisations and of any document connected to the export activity, and receive the necessary documents in electronic or paper form. Its article 23 requires the administrations seated there to deliver, within the deadlines set by the regulations, every authorisation, attestation and document connected to export operations.

Who sits in the single window, per article 22: the ministries responsible for foreign affairs, industry, pharmaceutical industry, agriculture, domestic trade, transport, and tourism and crafts, together with the Banque d'Algérie, the Directorate General of Customs, the Directorate General of Taxes, the Algerian Centre for Quality Control and Packaging, the National Trade Register Centre and the Algerian Export Insurance and Guarantee Company. Articles 24 and 25 additionally provide for an exporter's digital platform, with remote follow-up of applications through a dedicated account.

The text itself, the dissolution and what to do with a file built on pre-2025 templates: https://www.upgrowth.dz/en/algex-algeria

Liaison office, branch or subsidiary

You are a foreign company and you want to sell into or source from Algeria. The question is usually asked as "how do I open a commercial delegation". What actually gets decided is the form your company takes on the ground, and there are three. It is chosen before the representative is chosen, because it is what decides whether you can invoice, import and clear customs in your own name.

Liaison office: a non-commercial presence, for market study and promotion, authorised by the Ministry of Trade for 2 renewable years. It does not invoice. An import or export operation, however, requires a trade register mentioning the activity, a NIF, a CACI importer or exporter card and a bank domiciliation opened in the operator's own name.
Branch: the parent company operates in Algeria itself, without separate legal personality, with a full commercial activity and no local partner. Profits repatriated to head office bear a 15 % tax, reducible under a tax treaty.
SARL or EURL subsidiary: a company under Algerian law that you own, with its own trade register, its own NIF and its own bank domiciliation.
The point to watch on the import side: importing raw materials, products and goods for resale in the same state remains subject to a 51 % resident national shareholding. The governing text is article 49 of loi n° 20-07, the 2020 supplementary Finance Law, as rewritten by article 165 of loi n° 21-16, the Finance Law for 2022 (Journal officiel no. 100 of 30 December 2021). What the administration reads is the wording of the corporate purpose and the activity code entered in the trade register, both chosen at filing and not afterwards. The wording of the corporate purpose therefore decides the structure.
Liaison offices and branches of foreign companies operating in Algeria are registered with the tax administration and hold a NIF.

Full comparison of the three forms, criterion by criterion: https://www.upgrowth.dz/bureau-de-liaison-succursale-filiale-algerie

Import documents

Commercial invoice.
Bill of lading (B/L) or air waybill.
Certificate of origin.
Packing list.
Bank domiciliation.
Import licence (where applicable).

These cover the operation, not the product. Depending on what you import, the goods must additionally be recognised as compliant with Algerian requirements before they can be sold or connected to a network, and there is no single procedure: telecommunications equipment, a vehicle and a medical device fall under neither the same texts nor the same authorities. Settle this before committing to the order: https://www.upgrowth.dz/en/product-homologation-algeria

Export documents

Commercial invoice.
CACI certificate of origin.
Customs declaration D15.
Technical and sanitary certificates.

This list previously carried an "ALGEX attestation". We have removed it: the agency that would have issued it has not existed since décret exécutif no. 25-235 of 3 September 2025, and we hold no text that makes an attestation of that name a mandatory item. The authorisations and attestations genuinely attached to an export operation depend on the product and the destination country, and it is the export single window that has centralised them since article 23 of décret exécutif no. 25-234.

A file still addressed to the "Director General of ALGEX" is rejected outright. If you are reusing a template letter or a form that predates September 2025, change the addressee before filing.

Indicative costs

Customs duty: the common tariff has only five rates, 0 %, 5 %, 15 %, 30 % and 60 %, applied according to the ten-digit subheading of the goods (article 3 of ordonnance no. 01-02, as rewritten by article 80 of the 2018 Finance Law).
Import VAT: 19 % at the standard rate, 9 % at the reduced rate depending on the product.
Possible additional taxes (DAPS), which can push the effective charge well beyond the customs duty alone.

What we do not put a number on. Freight forwarding fees and the bank's domiciliation charges are commercial prices, set freely by the forwarder and by the bank, with no published schedule. This page used to quote ranges we cannot source: they have been removed. Ask your forwarder and your bank for a written quote before handing over the file, and compare at least two offers.

The exact rate on your tariff line is verified at www.douane.gov.dz, and how to read a ten-digit heading is explained here: https://www.upgrowth.dz/en/algeria-customs-tariff

Useful contacts

Customs: https://www.douane.gov.dz
CACI: https://www.caci.dz
Ministry of Foreign Trade and Export Promotion: https://www.mcepe.gov.dz

Why ALGEX is no longer listed here. The algex.dz address no longer resolves, re-checked on 21 August 2026, and the agency itself was dissolved in September 2025. The Organisme algérien des exportations and the Organisme algérien de l'importation that replaced it had no website of their own on that same date: they appear in their supervising ministry's menu with no active link. So we give the ministry's site rather than an address we could not stand behind.

Free import and export checklist

Sept. 2025 ALGEX has been dissolved and export files now go somewhere else. An application built on an old template is rejected outright: let us check the right counterpart with you.