Tunisia · Business & founder
Carte de Séjour — Investor
Open
Last verified July 2026
Open, but this is an ordinary administrative permit processed by the Investor Support Department, not a programme. There is no citizenship-by-investment, no residency-by-investment and no golden visa in Tunisia.
We include Tunisia to say plainly that there is nothing here for a UHNW family. It has no investor programme, its offshore regime is gone, and it is the only jurisdiction in this region that has actively expanded a wealth tax in 2026. The interesting fact about Tunisia is the direction of travel, not the opportunity.
Qualifying routes
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Certified investment project
no published minimum; requires investment-project certification, commercial register extract, JORT publication, fiscal card and an employment contract
The facts
- Total landed cost
- Low official cost; the burden is procedural rather than financial
- Timeline
- 3–12 months — one-year card, renewable annually — no long-term certainty
- Physical presence
- Substantial — this is a permit for people actually running a business in Tunisia
- Family
- spousedependent children
- Permanent residency
- No meaningful permanent residence route for investors; the card renews annually
- Citizenship
- 5 years' fixed residence, clean record, knowledge of Arabic, good health and character — investment confers no route of its own
- Language test
- Arabic
- Dual citizenship
- Not permitted — you would have to renounce
- Requirements
- certified investment projectcommercial register extractJORT publicationfiscal cardemployment contractclean criminal record
What can go wrong
- Tunisia moved against wealth in 2026. Finance Law 2026 Article 88 widened the wealth tax from immovable property only to cover movable assets, going concerns and bank deposits — 0.5% on TND 3-5m and 1% above TND 5m, levied every 1 January.
- The wealth tax has extraterritorial reach. Under the earlier framing it covered real estate located abroad for taxpayers tax-resident in Tunisia. Whether the 2026 movable-asset extension is similarly worldwide is not clearly established — which is itself a reason for caution, not comfort.
- Dual citizenship is a genuine trap: Tunisian nationality may be automatically lost where another nationality is acquired without prior authorisation. Birthright dual citizens are excepted, but naturalised Tunisians should take advice before acquiring anything else.
- The corporate rate was hiked from 15% to 20% by Finance Law 2025, with 40% for banks and insurance and 35% for telecoms, hypermarkets, car dealers and franchisees. A new permanent 4% sectoral contribution applies from 1 January 2026.
- The 'Tunisia offshore company' is a legacy artefact. The offshore banking and export regimes were abolished with grandfathering ending 31 December 2020. The corporate form survives; the tax advantages do not.
- Top personal rate is 40% from TND 70,000 — a very low threshold for a very high rate — plus the solidarity contribution rising to 1% from 2027.
- Annual renewal means annual risk. There is no long-term security of status for an investor.