Tunisia Loi de Finances 2024 (Loi Nº 2023-52) Article 33 — 4-Year CIT/PIT Exemption for Newly Created Enterprises 2024-2025

Mechanism

Loi Nº 2023-52 du 22 décembre 2023 (Finance Law for Fiscal Year 2024) was promulgated by President Kaïs Saïed and published in the Journal Officiel de la République Tunisienne (JORT) on 22 December 2023. It entered into force on 1 January 2024.

Article 33 — the investment-promotion core — grants a complete (100%) exemption from:

• Impôt sur les Sociétés (IS) — corporate income tax, and
• Impôt sur le Revenu (IR) — personal income tax (for sole proprietors / unincorporated enterprises)

for a period of 4 consecutive fiscal years starting from the date the enterprise commences effective activity, provided: 1. The enterprise obtained an investment declaration deposit certificate (dépôt de déclaration d'investissement) during calendar year 2024 or 2025 (declaration window closes 31 December 2025); 2. Effective activity commences within 2 years of the investment declaration date; 3. The enterprise maintains accounts under Tunisian accounting standards (Système Comptable des Entreprises / SCE).

The exemption is structured as a full-zero IS/IR rate — not a tax credit or deduction — meaning eligible enterprises file nil IS/IR for each of the 4 qualifying years. The first year runs from the start date of activity to 31 December of that year (a partial year if activity begins mid-year), followed by three full fiscal years.

Companion measures in the same law:

• CIT rate increase from 15% → 20% for the general corporate base (companies not benefiting from preferential regimes) — partially offsetting the fiscal cost of Article 33 and signalling the government's intent to pair new-entrant incentives with a broadened tax base from incumbents.
• R&D tax incentives for qualifying expenditures (deductibility and credits for research expenditure at certified centres and joint R&D with public laboratories).
• Extension of 10% concessional IS rate for totally-exporting / offshore-regime companies under the Loi 2016-71 Investment Law framework.
• Décret Gouvernemental 2024-182 of 4 April 2024 — amends Décret 2017-389 of 9 March 2017 on financial incentives under Loi 2016-71, operationalising the implementing financial-incentive parameters for Article 33 beneficiary enterprises.

Structural context

Why this matters for MENA/EU near-shoring: Tunisia sits on the primary EU near-shoring industrial corridor — automotive cable-harnesses (Leoni, Sumitomo Wiring Systems, Yazaki, Lear), electronics assembly (STMicroelectronics assembly/test in Tunis, TE Connectivity), medical devices (GE Healthcare), and aerospace sub-assemblies (Safran, Zodiac Aerospace, now Safran). These clusters run on a totally-exporting / offshore-regime model that already benefited from Loi 2016-71 incentives; Article 33 is targeted at the onshore new-enterprise tier — domestic-market-oriented or partial exporters who were underserved by the prior regime and represent the next wave of import-substitution + EU supply-chain deepening.

Investment-decline context: Tunisia suffered a sharp decline in FDI after the 2021 constitutional overhaul and 2023 IMF-EFF programme disruption. Reported FDI inflows fell from TND 2.8bn in 2019 to TND 1.9bn in 2022 (FIPA data). Article 33 is a deliberate fiscal re-baiting measure — re-establishing the 4-year IS holiday that Tunisia's 2016 reform had originally narrowed (the 1993 Code des Incitations aux Investissements had offered 10-year IS exemptions; Loi 2016-71 replaced this with shorter, regime-specific packages).

Maghreb positioning: Article 33 positions Tunisia in direct competition with Morocco's post-Décrets 2-23-1/2/3 (implementing the 2022 Investment Charter Loi-cadre 03-22, which offers 5%-15% territorial premiums + 10% integration premium + strategic-project regime) and Algeria's Loi 22-18 of 24 July 2022 (which offers total IS exemption for 3-5 years + renewable 10-year total IS exemption for strategic-sector projects). The 4-year CIT/PIT holiday is structurally weaker than the Algerian 5-year baseline but administratively simpler and better suited to the SME/startup tier.

Excluded-sector carve-outs: The exclusion of financial services, mining, conventional energy, commerce, real estate, and telecoms reflects both (a) existing preferential fiscal regimes for those sectors that would interact unpredictably with a blanket IS holiday, and (b) political economy constraints (protecting incumbents in banking/telecom from loss of tax revenue on new entrants during the IMF austerity cycle).

Downstream implications

• The 2024-2025 declaration window creates a time-bounded FDI-attraction signal: investors must register by 31 December 2025 to qualify for the 4-year IS/IR holiday beginning on commencement date.
• Automobile component makers, PCB assemblers, and agro-processing exporters targeting EU near-shoring frameworks (EU-Tunisia Association Agreement + potential ALECA upgrade) are the primary beneficiary tier.
• The simultaneous IS rate increase (15%→20%) for the general base makes Article 33 even more valuable on a relative basis — new entrants face a 20-point IS delta versus incumbents, making the exemption regime structurally significant for greenfield-versus-expansion decisions.
• The Décret 2024-182 implementing regulation links Article 33 to the Loi 2016-71 financial-incentive machinery, meaning qualifying enterprises can stack Article 33 (IS/IR holiday) with Loi 2016-71 financial grants for job creation, regional-development premiums, and technology-transfer incentives.
• Renault's 2024 supplier-diversification push (post-Sandouville-2 model decision) and Stellantis' Tunisia harness-expansion capex are the most visible near-term FDI pipelines likely to rely on Article 33 at the SME-supplier tier.

Open questions

• Whether the 2025 declaration-window deadline will be extended if the IMF-EFF programme resumes (the government has signalled openness to a Loi de Finances Complémentaire 2025 extending the window).
• Whether the IS rate increase (15%→20%) for the general base will deter expansion-capex in incumbent Loi 2016-71 beneficiary companies once they exit their prior incentive windows.
• The interaction with the Global Minimum Tax (Pillar 2 / GloBE): Tunisia has not yet enacted Pillar 2 legislation, so Article 33 IS holidays remain fully operational — but MNC subsidiaries of Pillar 2 in-scope groups (€750m revenue threshold) will face top-up taxes in parent jurisdictions regardless of Tunisia IS exemption.