GlobeQuest

Tunisia visas and residency

Who can visit Tunisia without a visa, and the 5 long-stay routes that let you actually live there.

Short stay

Visiting Tunisia, by passport

How the 198 passports we track get in. A visitor entry is never permission to work, study or settle — that is what the routes further down are for.

United StatesVisa-free · 90 daysUnited KingdomVisa-free · 90 daysIndiaVisa requiredCanadaVisa-free · 120 daysAustraliaVisa-free · 90 daysGermanyVisa-free · 120 daysFranceVisa-free · 90 daysNetherlandsVisa-free · 90 daysIrelandVisa-free · 90 daysSpainVisa-free · 90 daysItalyVisa-free · 90 daysPortugalVisa-free · 90 daysPolandVisa-free · 90 daysSwedenVisa-free · 90 daysSwitzerlandVisa-free · 90 daysSouth AfricaVisa-free · 90 days
Long stay

How you actually move to Tunisia

Work / sponsoredMedium confidenceVerified August 2026

Foreign employment contract and carte de séjour temporaire

Employees hired by a Tunisian company — most commonly in the offshoring and call-centre sector, engineering, and the French, Italian and German industrial base around Tunis, Sousse and Sfax.

What you need
  • An employment contract on the model form, visaed by the Ministry of Employment before you start — an unvisaed contract is not merely irregular, it exposes both you and the employer
  • Evidence that no Tunisian holds the required skills, unless a quota exemption applies
  • A residence visa (visa de séjour) and then the carte de séjour temporaire, applied for at the district or sector of the Sûreté Nationale covering your address
  • Passport, photographs, proof of address, and the visaed contract
How long it lasts
The carte de séjour temporaire runs no longer than the documents it rests on and in any case not beyond one year. The underlying contract for a foreign national is limited to one year and renewable only once, so the ordinary work route has a two-year horizon before you need a different basis.
Path to permanent residence
The carte de séjour ordinaire, valid two years and renewable under article 14 of loi 68-7. Article 13 sets out who may have it: among others, a foreigner who has resided legally in Tunisia for five uninterrupted years. That five-year figure is the number to plan around, and it is longer than the two-year horizon the employment contract itself allows — which is the central tension of moving to Tunisia on a job. The card remains a residence card; Tunisian nationality is a separate matter under the nationality code.
Cost
Administrative fees and fiscal stamps, modest in absolute terms. Employers normally handle the contract visa.
Processing time
The ministry's contract visa is the gate and takes weeks. The residence card afterwards is measured in weeks to a few months and often requires more than one visit.
Worth knowing
  • The one-year, renewable-once contract limit is the fact that changes plans. Anyone moving to Tunisia on a standard employment contract should know from day one what the third year looks like.
  • The investment law relaxes the quota rather than the contract: a company may employ foreign executives up to 30% of its total executives in its first three years, falling to 10% from the fourth year, with a floor of four foreign executives regardless of the percentage. Beyond that the Ministry of Employment must authorise each hire. If you are the fifth foreign hire at a small company, this is the constraint you have hit.
  • Tunisia has no digital-nomad visa. Remote workers paid from abroad have no route of their own; they either enter as visitors, which builds nothing, or set up a Tunisian or non-resident structure.
  • Working without a visaed contract is a criminal matter under loi 68-7, not an administrative slip.
Sources:Ministère de l'Emploi et de la Formation Professionnelle — emploi des étrangers en TunisieLoi n° 2016-71 du 30 septembre 2016 portant loi de l'investissementTunisia Investment Authority — guide de l'investisseurLoi n° 68-7 du 8 mars 1968 relative à la condition des étrangers en Tunisie
InvestmentMedium confidenceVerified August 2026

Investor / company-manager residence

Founders and managers who register a company in Tunisia — including the non-resident, fully-exporting structure that most foreign remote-service businesses here use.

What you need
  • A registered Tunisian company: statutes, publication in the JORT, registration and a tax identifier
  • Proof of accommodation in Tunisia
  • Valid passport, photographs, and the ordinary carte de séjour file at the Sûreté Nationale
  • For non-resident status: at least 66% of the capital held by non-residents and funded by importing convertible currency, or by debiting a foreign account in convertible currency or convertible dinars opened in Tunisia
How long it lasts
Carte de séjour temporaire initially, up to one year, renewed; the two-year carte de séjour ordinaire comes later.
Path to permanent residence
Through five uninterrupted years of legal residence to the two-year ordinary card under articles 13 and 14 of loi 68-7. There is no investment-for-citizenship programme and no investment shortcut to the ordinary card — the five years are the five years.
Cost
Company formation and annual accounting. The capital requirement is what it takes to make the business real rather than a published immigration threshold.
Processing time
Company formation is weeks; the residence card follows the ordinary timetable.
Worth knowing
  • The non-resident / fully-exporting regime is the genuinely important thing here and it is a currency status as much as a tax one: it lets the company hold accounts in foreign currency or convertible dinars and settle justified foreign transactions without prior Central Bank authorisation. For someone billing clients abroad from Tunis, that is the difference between a workable business and a permanent fight with exchange control.
  • Non-resident company status does not make you personally non-resident. Your own residence, tax and exchange-control status is assessed separately.
  • The Startup Act (loi 2018-20) label is a separate, narrower benefit — corporate tax exemption for a period and, importantly, a special foreign-currency account that can pay for cloud, advertising and software licences abroad without prior Central Bank authorisation. It is granted by a labelling committee on the merits of the project; it is not a residence permit and should not be planned as one.
  • Tunisia's 1976 exchange code is being replaced: a 91-article draft code was tabled in October 2025 and was still before the Assembly's finance committee in mid-2026. It is a bill, not law. Do not plan around its liberalisations until it passes.
Sources:Tunisia Investment Authority — guide de l'investisseurLoi n° 2016-71 du 30 septembre 2016 portant loi de l'investissementStartup Tunisia — Startup Act (loi n° 2018-20)Banque Centrale de Tunisie — réglementation des changes
StudentLow confidenceVerified August 2026

Student residence

Students at Tunisian universities and private institutions, including a substantial sub-Saharan African cohort.

What you need
  • Enrolment certificate from a recognised Tunisian institution
  • Proof of resources or a scholarship
  • Proof of accommodation
  • The carte de séjour temporaire file at the local Sûreté Nationale district
How long it lasts
Matched to the enrolment, renewed annually; never beyond one year at a time.
Path to permanent residence
Residence years count toward the ordinary card, but moving to work still means a visaed employment contract with the one-year, renewable-once limit.
Cost
Tuition plus modest administrative fees; public tuition is inexpensive.
Processing time
Weeks, but expect repeat visits and to be asked for documents not on the published list.
Worth knowing
  • Students are among the most exposed to the overstay penalty, because a card renewal that slips past the expiry date leaves you irregular in the meantime and the penalty is assessed at departure.
  • Working alongside study requires its own authorisation.
Sources:Loi n° 68-7 du 8 mars 1968 relative à la condition des étrangers en TunisieDécret n° 68-198 du 22 juin 1968 réglementant l'entrée et le séjour des étrangers en TunisieMinistère de l'Intérieur — services aux citoyens
FamilyLow confidenceVerified August 2026

Family route — spouse or close family of a Tunisian national

Foreign spouses of Tunisian nationals and foreign parents of Tunisian children.

What you need
  • A marriage registered in Tunisia — a foreign marriage generally needs transcription into the Tunisian civil registers, through a Tunisian consulate or the courts
  • The Tunisian spouse's identity documents and, in practice, their attendance
  • Proof of shared address and the ordinary residence-card file
How long it lasts
Temporary card initially, with the two-year ordinary card reachable on this basis without waiting out the five years other applicants face.
Path to permanent residence
The ordinary two-year renewable card. Article 13 of loi 68-7 names the qualifying family categories directly — it lists foreign WOMEN married to Tunisians, and separately foreigners who are the parent of a Tunisian child. The gendered wording is in the 1968 text; a foreign husband of a Tunisian woman should ask the district how it is applied in practice rather than assume symmetry. Tunisian nationality law provides a separate route for the spouse of a Tunisian national on conditions set in the nationality code — take advice rather than assuming a timeline.
Cost
Card fees plus the cost of legalising and transcribing the marriage.
Processing time
Governed by the transcription, which is the long part.
Worth knowing
  • Transcription of the marriage is what these files wait on. Start it before the residence question becomes urgent.
  • A spouse card does not automatically carry the right to paid employment; a visaed contract may still be required. Confirm with the district rather than assuming.
Sources:Loi n° 68-7 du 8 mars 1968 relative à la condition des étrangers en TunisieDécret n° 68-198 du 22 juin 1968 réglementant l'entrée et le séjour des étrangers en TunisieMinistère de l'Intérieur — services aux citoyens
RetirementLow confidenceVerified August 2026

Carte de séjour for visitors of independent means (retirees)

Retirees and people living on income from outside Tunisia who are not going to work here — a long-established, largely European and largely coastal population.

What you need
  • Proof of stable resources from outside Tunisia, evidenced over several months
  • Proof of accommodation — a registered lease or a property title
  • Private health cover, since you will not be inside the CNSS system without Tunisian employment
  • The ordinary carte de séjour temporaire file at the local Sûreté Nationale district
How long it lasts
One year at a time, renewed; the two-year ordinary card becomes reachable at five uninterrupted years of legal residence.
Path to permanent residence
The ordinary two-year card under articles 13 and 14 of loi 68-7, at five uninterrupted years. No dedicated retiree status and no fast track.
Cost
Administrative fees plus private medical cover, which is the real number.
Processing time
Weeks to months, and file-completeness dependent.
Worth knowing
  • Tunisia has no dedicated retirement visa and publishes no income threshold for this. The district assesses your resources; there is no figure to satisfy, which cuts both ways. Over-document rather than under-document.
  • This is the population most often caught by the three-month rule. Wintering in Tunisia for a season, leaving, and coming back is fine; more than three consecutive months, or more than six months in a year even in pieces, triggers the obligation to hold a card.
  • The exit penalty is real, and the two halves of it are very different sizes. Article 23 of loi 68-7 makes irregular stay a criminal offence carrying one month to a year's imprisonment and a fine of 6 to 120 dinars — a statutory fine set in 1968 and never indexed, which is why it is not the part that bites. What bites is the administrative penalty in fiscal stamps that the border police assess against the length of the overstay and require you to pay before you are allowed to board. It is widely reported at 20 dinars per week, subject to a ceiling introduced in 2017, and rising for long overstays; the Ministry does not publish a current table we could verify, so treat those figures as indicative. Check the rate with your district before planning a departure on an expired card, and do not assume the small statutory fine is what you will be asked for.
Sources:Loi n° 68-7 du 8 mars 1968 relative à la condition des étrangers en TunisieDécret n° 68-198 du 22 juin 1968 réglementant l'entrée et le séjour des étrangers en TunisieMinistère de l'Intérieur — services aux citoyensDouane tunisienne — devises et change
On the ground

Where you'd land in Tunisia

Tunis

The most relaxed Maghreb capital, with a real tech sector and a currency that cannot leave the country.

Full Tunis guide

Tunisia at a glance

Capital
Tunis
Population
12.3M
Languages
Arabic, French
Currency
TND