Free tool for foreign investors
Six questions, two minutes. You get the legal form and tax regime that fit your project, the incorporation steps with realistic timing, the obligations your profile triggers, and the exchange-control points to secure from day one. Everything is computed in your browser; nothing is sent unless you ask for it.
Where your group is based, what the Tunisian entity will do, where its customers are, the headcount planned for the first twelve months, how the capital will be held, and your target start date. Those six parameters are enough to orient the structuring decisions, the ones better settled before the articles of association are drafted than after.
For a wholly owned subsidiary, the SUARL remains the usual vehicle: a single partner, liability limited to the contribution, light governance. With a partner alongside your group, the SARL applies, and the approval clauses written into the articles become the heart of the negotiation. Above a certain size, or for an industrial project, the SA deserves a look: heavier governance, but a statutory auditor in all cases, which parent companies and banks value. A branch and a liaison office answer different needs: direct execution of contracts signed by the parent in the first case, representation without invoicing in the second.
Serving only customers outside Tunisia puts the entity within the scope of the totally exporting regime, which carries tax and customs advantages but imposes conditions that must be met continuously and caps sales on the local market. Serving the Tunisian market falls under the ordinary regime: corporate income tax at the standard rate of 20% (40% for banks and insurance, 35% for certain sectors, 10% reduced rate), VAT at 19%, 13% or 7%. Between the two, a partially exporting set-up is arbitrated on figures. Setting up in a regional development zone also carries incentives worth checking before signing a lease.
In Tunisia, total employer social charges represent roughly 21% on top of gross salary: CNSS at 17.07%, the vocational training levy, the housing levy and work-accident insurance. Employee social security is 9.68%. Our subsidiary cost simulator prices the whole package, including team, office and running costs.
The exchange-control file determines the future transfer of dividends and of any sale proceeds. It is built at the moment the funds enter the country: paid from abroad, in foreign currency, through a Tunisian bank, with the required declarations. A subsidiary that neglects this at incorporation can find itself, years later, profitable but unable to transfer its dividends.
See also: accounting firm in Tunisia · subsidiary compliance check · investing in Tunisia · request a proposal.