Removal from the Trade Register in Algeria: procedure, documents and cost

Removal is the entry that closes a trader's file in the register. Until it has been granted, the entity remains registered and is deemed to be trading, even if the premises have been shut for months and no invoice has been issued. That is the central misunderstanding on this subject: ceasing to trade and being removed from the register are two different things, and only the second one produces legal effects.

The consequence is immediately financial. A registration that is left in place keeps feeding the obligations that flow from it: periodic tax returns, the social security contribution of the manager or of the trader, the filing of the annual accounts for a company. Entrepreneurs discover years later a backlog built up over a period during which they genuinely believed they had stopped everything.

Removal is also the normal exit point of a dissolved company. It comes at the end of a sequence that begins with the shareholders' decision, continues with the notarial deed of dissolution and its publication, and ends with the entry in the register. The CNRC does not remove a company on simple request: it records a dissolution that has been properly decided and published.

Finally, removal can be imposed. Since law no. 26-12 of 8 June 2026, published in Official Gazette no. 44 of 18 June 2026, the court may order removal from the trade register where a trader has not regularised their situation within the three months following the administrative closure of their premises. This is the last step of an escalation detailed on our page devoted to amendments (/modification-registre-commerce-algerie).

The case of death deserves a clarification, because it places the heirs before a choice. They may apply for removal, and the file then includes the death certificate of the deceased. They may also wish to continue the activity, which falls under a formality other than removal. The two routes are not handled in the same way and the choice must be made before filing.

The case of dissolution is the heaviest, because it adds up steps taken outside the CNRC: the shareholders' resolution, the notarial deed, publication in the Bulletin officiel des annonces légales (BOAL) and in a national daily newspaper. Removal comes at the end of that chain, not at the beginning.

This is the document on which everything else depends. The fact sheet of the ministry of internal trade requires, for the natural person as well as for the legal person, an attestation de situation fiscale (tax clearance certificate) issued by the competent tax services. Without it, the removal file is not admissible at the CNRC.

That requirement explains why removal takes time in businesses that have let their filing obligations slide. The tax administration will not certify a position it is not in a position to assess. In practice, you have to be up to date with your returns before you can hope to obtain the certificate, which sometimes means regularising several financial years beforehand.

The order of operations is therefore counter-intuitive for many directors. You do not start with the CNRC and then inform the tax office. You start with the tax office, you obtain the certificate, and you then go to the CNRC with it. Any attempt to do the opposite ends in a rejected file.

It should be added that removal from the trade register and closure of the tax file are two distinct operations, each partly conditioning the other. A complete exit means carrying both through to the end, and not stopping at whichever one completes first.

As with an amendment, it is the original extract that is filed and not a copy, since the formality puts an end to the registration that the extract embodies. A lost extract must therefore be replaced before starting the removal, which adds a prior formality detailed on our page devoted to the extract (/extrait-registre-commerce-algerie).

For a legal person, the notarial deed of dissolution must be attached to the resolution that decided it. The two documents go together: the deed without the resolution is not enough, and neither is a resolution not followed by a notarial deed.

The two official sources do not give exactly the same amounts, because they do not cover the same perimeter: the ministerial fact sheet states the removal fee to be attached to the file, while the CNRC schedule shows the tariff charged at the counter for the formality. The basic registration duties, for their part, come under the order of 31 October 2016 published in Official Gazette no. 01 of 4 January 2017. Budget for the higher amount and have it confirmed at the competent counter.

These amounts represent only part of the real cost of dissolving a company. The notary's fees for the deed of dissolution, the cost of the notices in the BOAL and in a national daily newspaper, and where applicable the cost of the prior tax regularisation weigh considerably more.

No official source consulted sets a regulatory deadline specific to the filing of the removal application, and we will not claim to know of one. The timing pressure lies elsewhere: every month during which the registration remains active continues to generate tax and social security obligations for the entity, even though it no longer carries on any activity.

Expect the tax step to absorb most of the total time. A business that is up to date with its returns obtains its certificate without particular difficulty; a business in arrears must first catch up, which can represent several financial years.

Removal puts an end to the registration, not to every obligation. The one most often overlooked concerns the beneficial owner. Article 19 of executive decree no. 26-163 of 20 April 2026, published in Official Gazette no. 32 of 4 May 2026, provides that the information in the register of beneficial owners, the corresponding supporting documents and the basic information are kept for five years from the expiry, the dissolution or the removal of the legal person from the trade register.

Article 8 bis of law 05-01, as drafted by law no. 25-10 of 24 July 2025, requires for its part that the internal register be kept for a period that may not be less than five years from the dissolution of the legal person. Our dedicated page sets out that regime (/beneficiaire-effectif-algerie).

You also need to think about the annual accounts for the last financial year. A company dissolved during the year remains bound by the obligations that arose before the dissolution, including the filing of the accounts approved by the general meeting (/depot-comptes-sociaux-algerie).

Finally, the certificate of removal itself must be kept. It is the document that administrations, banks and where applicable social security bodies will ask for in order to establish that the entity has indeed left the register, and therefore to stop the clock on their side.

Removal is the formality where the gap between the apparent difficulty and the real difficulty is widest. On paper it is a file of six documents. In practice everything turns on the attestation de situation fiscale, and therefore on the state of the returns for past financial years, which the director rarely has in mind at the moment of deciding to stop.

UpGrowth Connect starts with a review of the tax position before committing anything at the CNRC. We identify what has to be regularised in order to obtain the certificate, we cost that regularisation, and we then run the complete chain: notarial deeds of dissolution for a company, notices in the BOAL and in a national daily newspaper, the CNRC file and collection of the certificate of removal.

We also work upstream, for directors still hesitating between de facto dormancy, which is often expensive, and a clean exit. The initial diagnostic is free and takes thirty minutes.

Our service commitments apply: a firm quote within 24 hours of the diagnostic, no hidden fees, and a WhatsApp reply within 4 working hours.