Auto-entrepreneur, EURL or SARL in Algeria: what changes in liability, tax and paperwork

“Should I stay an auto-entrepreneur or set up a company?” Almost everyone who outgrows a first freelance activity asks it. The three options are not three levels of the same thing. They differ on four points: who answers for debts, what you pay in tax, how much paperwork you carry, and what the law lets you do. This guide compares them from the texts, and says where we stop.

The short version

Auto-entrepreneur: light, but you are the business

Law 22-23 makes the auto-entrepreneur a natural person working individually (art. 2). That is why there is no separate estate to protect. The law gives one shield: the personal and family home that serves as the base of the activity cannot be seized for debts or damage linked to it (art. 8). For everything else, we found no text that separates you from the business.

In exchange: exemption from the commercial register, a simple register of receipts and expenses, a flat tax and a commercial bank account (art. 9). The tax is the IFU at 0.5% of turnover, with a minimum of 10,000 DA a year, and the ceiling is 5,000,000 DA. Liberal professions, regulated activities and craft activities are excluded (art. 2). After three consecutive years above the ceiling you are removed from the register (art. 14).

Details in the auto-entrepreneur guide, the ceiling article and the IFU and CASNOS article. Track your turnover with the ceiling tracker.

EURL and SARL: a company, a register, a manager

An EURL is a limited liability company with a single partner; a SARL has two to fifty (Commercial Code, arts 564 and 590). In both, the partners bear losses only up to what they put in. Since Law 15-20 of 30 December 2015 the capital is set freely in the articles (art. 566). Cash contributions must be paid up by at least a fifth when the company is formed, the rest within five years of registration (art. 567).

Three limits on “limited liability”, all in the code:

• The manager is a natural person (art. 576) and answers under ordinary law for breaches of the code, violations of the articles and management faults (art. 578).
• If the company goes bankrupt with too little assets, the court can ask managers or partners who took part in management to bear part of the debts (art. 578).
• A natural person can be sole partner of only one SARL (art. 590 bis 2). You cannot run three one-person companies.

Tax: companies pay the IBS on profit, at 19% for production of goods, 23% for building, public works, water and tourism (except travel agencies), and 26% for other activities. That page of the AAPI also mentions a 10% rate on reinvested profits under conditions. There is no flat tax on turnover as there is for the auto-entrepreneur. We do not cover how partners are taxed on what they take out of the company.

What it costs to create

The CNRC creation portal lists the steps for a legal entity: name reservation, articles of association and lease signed at a notary, a notice in the BOAL, the tax stamp, the register fee, the tax existence declaration and the CASNOS declaration. The costs it shows:

• BOAL notice: 6,110 DA in the CNRC example (3,000 DA a page plus 55 DA publication fee per language).
• Tax stamp: 4,000 DA.
• Register fee: according to the CNRC tariff, which depends on the activity (we do not quote figures we did not read).
• Notary fees: according to the notary scale, so ask for a written estimate.

The name you reserve stays valid six months if you do not register. Read how to read your register extract and activity codes before you choose the activities to register.

Which one for which situation

• Testing an idea, solo, in an eligible activity, under 5 million DA: auto-entrepreneur. Check the list first in the official ANAE activity list.
• Selling physical goods online: possible as an auto-entrepreneur for some activities, with conditions, see selling physical goods. If you want partners, a company is the way: the status is for one individual.
• You want to protect your personal estate beyond the home: EURL or SARL give limited liability, with the exceptions above, and that is the main reason to pay the extra cost.
• Two or more founders: SARL. An auto-entrepreneur cannot have a partner in the business.
• Regulated, liberal or craft activity: not eligible for the status (art. 2), so look at the company or the other registers.

What we could not confirm

• Whether the IBS rates changed in the Finance Laws after 2022: we read them on the AAPI page and did not check each law. That page also shows older IFU figures (5% and 8,000,000 DA) which we did not use.
• The social security regime of an EURL or SARL manager (majority, minority, not a partner). The CNRC portal says non-salaried persons include associate members of legal entities who work on their own account and tells you to declare the activity within ten days, but we found no official text on each case. Ask CASNOS.
• The accounting obligations of each form, beyond the yearly approval of accounts within six months of year-end for the SARL (art. 584), and the exact route to convert an auto-entrepreneur business into a company.
• Dividend taxation and later amendments of the Commercial Code.

Before you register, confirm with the CNRC and your tax office. Tools that help: NIF/NIS validator and the glossary.