Episode 14: Payroll in Tunisia

Luisa Rollenhagen (00:07):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Payroll Around the World! I’m your host, Luisa Rollenhagen. 

Payroll Around the World is your all-inclusive guide to understanding how payroll operates across different countries. Each episode spotlights a specific country and features interviews with ADP experts on the ground, as well as locals who share their perspectives on work and pay in their homeland. 

After all, payroll can’t truly be global if it isn’t local as well. 

Today, we’re heading to Tunisia. As Africa’s northernmost country, Tunisia represents a bridge between the Mediterranean and Africa’s Maghreb region, with French influences in its legal system echoing its colonial past. The ancient city of Carthage, one of the most affluent of the Ancient World—and birthplace of Hannibal, one of the most storied military figures in history—is located in what is now modern-day Tunisia, and the country has been a crucial hub for civilizations in the region ever since.  

Fast forward to today, where Tunisia is a growing market with a diversified economy and a young, highly skilled workforce.  

Sonia Khachlouf (01:22): 

The Tunisian talent pool is highly educated and multilingual with strong skills in engineering, IT, and business. So the mixture, and based on my experience, this mixture of language plus skills is really important.  

Luisa Rollenhagen (01:39): Its strategic location on the Mediterranean has also shaped its identity as a multicultural, cosmopolitan country that honors its various roots.  

Maher Gaida (01:48): 

We are somehow a little bit occidental, a little bit Arabic, a little bit African. We are a little bit a mixture, a lovely mixture of all of these worlds and with lot of tolerance, a lot of welcoming foreign people as you know because we are very touristic country and this is making the cultural particularity of Tunisia. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (02:07): Events like Ramadan, the month of fasting observed by Muslims worldwide, play a significant part of public life in Tunisia, with many employers making accommodations to allow employees to observe the religious practice of fasting and breaking their fast at nightfall. 

Ons (02:24): 

We have to eat at a certain hour when the sun goes down after the Maghrib prayer. And so if you have your normal working hours, it would be too late to break your fast. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (02:40): Tunisia is truly a dynamic country full of potential, but those who wish to access its dynamic markets need to leave their assumptions at the door and trust the experience of local experts when it comes to navigating payroll.  

Luckily for us, we’ve got two of those experts right here with us today. You’ve just heard a snippet from them just a second ago, so let me formally introduce Sonia and Maher. Welcome! Would you like to introduce yourselves? 

Sonia Khachlouf (03:07): 

My name is Sonia Khachlouf, general manager, ADP in Tunisia and General Manager Center of Excellence, EMEA. I’m based in Tunisia and I have been with ADP for 13 years now. 

Maher Gaida (03:19): 

Hello everybody. My name is Maher Gaida. I am CEO of ABC Audit & Business Consulting. I am a chartered accountant, but also I’m very happy to be part of this big family, which is ADP, since 2010. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (03:34): Thank you so much for joining us today. I’m excited to dive into the world of Tunisian payroll. To start, could you give me an overview of what the Tunisian economy is like today? 

Sonia Khachlouf (03:44): 

The main pillar in the economy for Tunisia is the service sector, which includes areas like telecommunication, finance sector, IT, and tourism. Traditionally, tourism has been a vital source of revenue and employment, and then we noticed a shift to another sector maybe, which is the IT sector. The Tunisian labor market is experiencing a dynamic transformation, particularly within the IT sector.  

There are a couple of initiatives that help to boost the IT sector in Tunisia. I will mention a couple of them. The implementation of the national transformation strategy 2025 has been instrumental in this progress as it includes a couple of initiatives to modernize the digital infrastructure in Tunisia across the country, helping to boost the technology. And I remember that there was a project what we call IPv6 technology and it helps position Tunisia as the third country in Africa, it was ranked among the top three countries in Africa when it comes to the deployment of global digital integration. 

I would say in summary, the IT sector in Tunisia is driven by strategic initiatives and what we call a forward-looking approach for digital transformation, helping to build the workforce and to boost the talent in place. 

Maher Gaida (05:14): 

Tunisia has a very diversified economy. It means tourism, as you know, we reached more than 11 million tourists. We have a very good and strong and diversified industry, especially for a spare part for aerospace, spare parts for automotive, spare part for autos. 

I think the IMF World Bank and others are putting that the growth is present again, we have two or three times the growth rates more than the European average rate. So I think yes, despite all those problems, Tunisia is really, really strategically well-positioned to have new investment in this territory. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (05:50): And what’s the workforce like? 

Maher Gaida (05:52): 

Tunisia has very high skilled young people. It means more of 60% of the population is less than 30 years old and they are high graduated, most of them.  

Sonia Khachlouf (06:03): 

The Tunisian talent pool is highly educated and multilingual with strong skills in engineering, IT, and business. So the mixture, and based on my experience, this mixture of language plus skills is really important. So it’s not only language but the mix of language plus IT, business, whatever, which help company to find the talent in order to train them or whatever and get them in the direction they want, which is I think that’s really important and I see it for all the multinational or all the company that are based here. Our associate for example, I have associates speaking five and six languages. 

Maher Gaida (06:41): 

We really have highly skilled, we have people present in many big companies. The guy who is leading the program for NASA to Mars. It’s a Tunisian; the person who is leading the program for the solar program is also a Tunisian. So we have very highly skilled people present in many multinational organizations. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (07:02): Oh wow, that’s a very valuable asset for a country to have. I would imagine that the fact that Tunisians are represented in various industries both at home and abroad also facilitates a flow of information and expertise. 

Maher Gaida (07:14): 

Tunisian are used to find solution in very complex situation. It means since we are dealing with complex environments, young people find solutions, whatever, they are used to finding solutions, whatever is the situation. And this is typically when they go to Europe, where everything is much more organized and much more easy, they find much more, let’s say, facilities because they are used to finding solutions where people say no, there is no solution. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (07:43): Right, so there’s an adaptability and resourcefulness in the workforce that’s uniquely primed for problem-solving. 

Let’s switch gears a bit: What are some common challenges that you see multinational companies encountering when they first come to Tunisia? 

Sonia Khachlouf (07:57): 

So I think that when international companies consider entering in the Tunisia market, they should consider a couple of, I would not say challenge but a couple of particularities first. The first one comes from the regulatory and regular complexity. Tunisia regulatory environment can be complex for foreign companies. So in order to navigate the challenging environment and those stronger requirements, which can be facilitated in my opinion by relying on experimented advisory legal firm that can fix this challenge. Second, language barrier: While Arabic is the official language in Tunisia, still French is widely spoken and it’s used for business and all what we call official communication when it comes to our sector, the payroll pay slips are in France in general system tools. So this particularity should be taken in consideration by multinational, particularly when English is the first language. 

Something else that’s really important in Tunisia which is the bureaucratical process, the admin process, can be considered as slow in some cases, manual still. So the bureaucratic complexity must be considered as a point for attention and maybe outsourcing can be the solution in this case that helps multinational of course to get right of this complexity. And there is something that to me it’s always important when it comes to starting business in different country, is understanding the particularity of the cultural differences. So what we call cultural nuance, it’s really important and it’s not only for Tunisia everywhere, we have been talking about Tunisia as Arab African country, but Tunisia has a lot of particularity. You don’t compare Tunisia to other African country. It’s not true. You don’t compare Tunisia to other Arab country. There are a lot of particularity and I think that having skilled and strong local expert from the country can help navigate and understand the local culture and help the company to deal with these cultural challenges. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (10:08): That’s a really key point. You can’t make any assumptions about how things in Tunisia will work compared to other Arab or African countries. 

Sonia Khachlouf (10:15): 

Tunisia is an Arab country, but if you look at our daily language, we do speak a lot of French, English, whatever, so it’s not like other, I don’t know, Arab country that the language is basically Arabic. Okay. So it’s a mix. Our language, our dialect is a mix of languages. In Tunisia, we are very tolerant when it comes to the culture, maybe the openness of Tunisia, it’s close to Europe, to all the other countries. We are very open so we have some particularity that makes the country different from, if you compare it to African culture is different. If you compare it to the, I will say Middle East region, we are different. So taking in consideration particularly when it comes to managing people, so I’m taking it in this respect, to manage people, to engage people, to deal with talent. I think that having the strong, and we talked about the expert in Tunisia, we have a strong local expert so relying on those local strong experts can help any multinational to deal with this culture aspect. To me it’s really the solution when it comes to starting a new business in different country. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (11:22): Can you dive deeper into this cultural aspect you mentioned? 

Maher Gaida (11:25): 

So since you cross the Mediterranean, so please take with you lot of patient and lot of patience. So patient because you have passionate people here but also be patient because things are different. 

We have a different tempo, maybe less stressed than in European countries. So don’t be stressed, things will be done with their natural tempo. We have somehow our way to manage time, and this is important, this is cultural, time doesn’t have the same metrics. 

Sonia Khachlouf (11:56): 

Maybe we can say that we have a couple of challenges, but it’s easy to overcome them with the expertise that you can find locally. So I think that this is the best summary that we can give a couple of challenges but not very difficult. One easy to overcome and you can be supported because we have the right talent in place. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (12:15): I think that’s really at the heart of it, isn’t it? Relying on local experts to guide you through the ins and outs of doing business in a country you’re not so familiar with becomes invaluable. 

What, in your experience, are some specific payroll challenges that are common in Tunisia? 

Sonia Khachlouf (12:31): 

Payroll in Tunisia is complex and it’s not well documented. So this and in Tunisia as well, there is no specific training or specific academy program to gain the expertise in payroll. So we raise the expertise by doing. I mean, by the years of experience processing payroll, and I think that the strong expertise is not very common in the market, particularly with companies having diverse workforce category like expats or whatever. So the opportunity for outsourcing to me are really important. So the better solution for those kind of companies to outsource to professional company that have a strong basis in the domain and that can guarantee not only the accuracy but the compliance because we have been talking about complexity which is critical in the sector, not only in respect to the complexity of the process but also in respect to the quality of data that you are dealing with. So this is why I consider that the complexity or the manual payroll in Tunisia may be procedure. It’s not how we process payroll, but the procedures can create opportunity for outsourcing. So the best solution for companies in my opinion is to outsource to strong reputable companies that can deal with this kind of procedures. 

Maher Gaida (14:00): 

It’s better to rely on outsourced expertise with that have the mechanism that know how they interact with the administration that they are using, what is digital, what is not digital and this complexity will be managed by those experts. 

Sonia Khachlouf (14:15): 

There’s something else where Tunisia is pretty aligned to Europe, if we compare it as I mentioned it to other countries, is the compliance. 

What I mean by compliance is that Tunisia will take data privacy seriously. The country has a strong law in place on the protection of personal data, which is not the case of all, I don’t know, African or other Arab countries. I think that this framework helps to create a consistency when it comes to law. It helps make sure that people’s personal information are safe, not misused and there is a special organization in Tunisia, what’s called the INPDP, the National Authority for Personal Data, is working hardly in order to put the rules, the structure and as well putting a bit of recommendation when it comes to companies that would like to build around data privacy. I think that this is unique as well and it shows that Tunisia is pretty aligned to the European country when it comes to compliance in payroll or not payroll. I think that this is something really important when it comes to business in Tunisia. 

This organization, for example, that I mentioned, checks if companies follow the rules and helps protect data privacy for international data, so Tunisian workers follow the global standard, especially when working with foreign companies. So this make Tunisia, I do believe a trusted place for handling sensitive information, and a destination for multinationals coming, looking for talent, looking for the pool of talent and looking for proximity. So to me those rules helps as well and helps to push in this direction. 

Maher Gaida (15:52): 

I think something very important as says Sonya, we are a hub especially because many of our skilled peer person speak several languages, 3, 4, 5 languages. So this is very helpful for internationals but also we have a full range of legal internal rules that are matching the international law and this is very important when it comes to create an ecosystem that is internationally acceptable and Tunisia take the challenge to match both international law teaching at university and we teach the last standards existing in all aspects, in all techniques, in all standards. So basically yes, Tunisian are familiar with that. We are matching and trying to match what is requested by the international industry because it’s like that you can export and Tunisia is a really big exporting company with small resources but with big ambitions and that’s because we are talking the same language as international multinational companies and they think when they come here they find those skills and this is very supportive for them. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (16:57): Okay, so there’s an inherent level of complexity, but there’s also a high compliance standard that matches international norms. Sonia’s point about data privacy is a good one as well, since this is obviously very important for multinationals, and sometimes the infrastructure to ensure proper data protection just isn’t there.  

What about things like social security contributions? If I understood correctly, there are two distinct contributory social insurance schemes that employers need to know about. This is the CNRPS and the CNSS, I believe. Could you very briefly just explain what employers need to know about these two schemes? 

Maher Gaida (17:36): 

Tunisia follows the French logic regarding the state providence, un état-providence. It means they take care about the social security, the pension of Tunisians. So we have an administration who is in charge of that. It’s not like the United States model. So we have typically a social security that somehow collect the contribution from salaries and then distribute that as social assistance, as pension and so on. So in Tunisia we have this system based on two administration, one for public companies, governmental companies, and one for private. Governmental companies will be CNRPS and private companies will be CNSS. So most of the multinational will be taken charge by CNSS. They need to matriculate, to affiliate to this organization, CNSS. And basically our CNSS is not expensive. In Tunisia we have only 26.75% rate, which is not too much expensive. For example, in Algeria it’s 35%, whereas in Tunisia it’s only 26.75%. Basically it’s 70.07% on employer contribution and only 9.68% on employee contribution. So it’s not too much. Paying that contribution allow you to take benefits for pregnancy, for birth, for medical assistance, for your pension and so on. So it cover all the aspects of the employee when it deals with social questions and pension.  

When it comes for local employee we are talking about such contribution but when it comes for expatriates, Tunisia signed several conventions with other countries, about 21. So basically we rely on those regulations to say what is the rates, how it’ll be paid, where you pay it, do you pay it in Tunisia, will you pay outside Tunisia? Most of the case Tunisia will allow for expatriates to pay for the first year in their home country and then according to the convention with the country they can renew that for one years until three years. So basically they can reach six years where they contribute in their home country, otherwise they need to contribute in Tunisia using those rates where as you can see it’s very flat rate.  

It means we need to check, should we respect the international convention or should we respect the local legislation. So this is also a matter of expertise. It’s not easy, it’ll be complex and there are some complexity with the administration because the work permit, because the work labor permit and many things like that will require some administrative, let’s say procedures and this, let that to your expert. They know how to with doors knocks and how to handle that. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (20:27): I wasn’t aware of this dual country agreement for expatriates. Are there any other rules or regulations that apply to foreign workers in Tunisia? 

Maher Gaida (20:36): 

We had an investment law in 2017 who says that companies can hire for the first years 30% of their managing staff, 30% of them can be foreign for the three first years. After that they need to reduce them at 10%. 

So basically this to make sure that there is a Tunisification of the workforce, they give the opportunity to the companies to have their foreign support for managing, but at the end of the three years they should be at 10% but if this 10% is less than four employees, they are whatever authorized to have four foreign managers in their company. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (21:17): Good to know!  

What else can you tell me about Tunisia’s labor laws? Maher, you mentioned that the country’s social contribution system is modelled on the one in France. Is this also the case with the country’s labor laws? 

Maher Gaida (21:30): 

In Tunisia we are following up the Napoleonean legislation, which is the French logic since we have been colonized by France. So typically all the legislation is based on French logic. So we copy and pasted a lot of our local labor legislation. So we are very similar with French. So basically this, since we are doing like that, anything in payroll should be relying on a legal text. You cannot pay without referring to legal text. It means referring to the constitution, referring to international law, referring to local law, referring to local payroll rules, referring to local uses. So whatever you are doing in payroll, you need to give to auditors or whatever controllers, you are relying on which legal reference. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (22:20): I see. And how are all of these rules enforced? 

Sonia Khachlouf (22:24): 

In Tunisia I think that they do a lot of audit. This is what I noticed. I don’t know if it’s the case for all the companies, but we are pretty audited. I think that it happens that we receive audits from social security or whatever, which is good to make sure that we are aligned and if not they precise what should be adjusted. 

Maher Gaida (22:43): 

We have very high standards in audit in Tunisia. It means those companies are following up the international standard when it comes for audit. So basically on yearly basis there are audits that will check that those company are totally engaged to respect the local legislation and international legislation. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (23:02): Another reason why local expertise is so important. 

I want to briefly go back to this cultural aspect that Maher and Sonia addressed earlier. They’ve pointed out that Tunisia blends many cultures together, and Muslim holidays are, among others, a presence in the country’s public life in a way that multinationals coming from abroad might not expect. Perhaps the best example of this is Ramadan, the month of fasting that is observed by Muslims across the world. Muslims will fast from sunrise to sunset, with a nightly feast called iftar breaking the fast each day. It’s a time that’s spent together with family and friends and has a deep cultural significance for Muslim communities.  

While the end of Ramadan, known as Eid al-Fitr, is a public holiday in Tunisia, public administration working hours are adjusted during the entire month to accommodate fasting employees. Many private companies have followed suit by reducing their own operational hours during Ramadan. 

We were curious how employees in Tunisia felt about this, so we reached out to Ons, who works at a research institute in Tunis.  

Ons (24:13): 

I’m Ons. I’m 31 and I’m a PhD candidate. I work in a research institute in Tunis. 

During the month of Ramadan, we have the “unique seance.” It’s a time where we finish earlier, work at about 3:30, something like that. It depends, it depend on the organization, but ours, it’s 3:30. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (24:40): Ons is referring to the “séance unique,” where working hours in Tunisia are adjusted during Ramadan as well as during the summer, mainly in July and August. Although the “séance unique” usually applies to public administrations and local authorities, many private businesses do adjust their work hours as well. 

For Ons, being able to work on an adjusted schedule during Ramadan means that he can observe his fast while also being home in time for iftar. 

Ons (25:08): 

We have to eat at a certain hour when the sun goes down after the Maghrib prayer. And so if you have your normal working hours, it would be too late to break your fast. 

It’s very important. For example, I don’t know, I go out of work at 3:30. Traffic is very heavy in Tunis, so you take time to go home so you can have the time to lay off a bit, help out the kitchen, prepare a meal, and be ready to break your fast. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (25:48): Ons also points out that he ends up feeling more productive when he works through lunch and can enjoy a shorter workday. 

Ons (25:54): 

For one, you don’t have a meal break during the unique seance, so you don’t have the tiredness that you have when your belly is full. And the short days it’s a good thing. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (26:10): One thing that’s annoying, however? When you’re off, so is everyone else. And that’s pretty inconvenient if you’ve got some admin to do. 

Ons (26:19): 

The public sector is also in unique seance, so you have to adapt if you want to do, if you have administrative tasks to do, sign a paper, go fetch one, you just don’t, you just can’t after 3:30, well 2:00 PM sometimes. So you have to adapt. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (26:43): I wanted to know more about how employers in Tunisia accommodate religious and cultural observances, so I went back to Sonia and Maher to find out more.  

Sonia Khachlouf (26:52): 

In Ramadan, the days are not shorter since we don’t have the lunch to break. So the associate will work on a single continuous session. In between, they can have small break of 20 minutes or whatever, they still work the same number of hours. So generally they leave earlier because in Ramadan what is precious is to have a family dinner. So this is why the associates have the tendency to start early and to leave early. 

And there’s something that I didn’t mention that Tunisia’s workforce is really characterized by not only the diversity as you mentioned but also the engagement. This combination to me fosters like collaborative, inclusive, but creates this strong engagement level is helping to drive any opportunity for innovation as mentioned by Meher, commitment, and it’s really what we have experienced. So to say that the diversity, we create a way to accommodate to this diversity without impacting the productivity or whatever. 

Maher Gaida (27:56): 

Maybe something very interesting and this is a link, Tunisia make the link between the southern Europe and the northern Africa.  

We are somehow a little bit occidental, a little bit Arabic, a little bit African. We are a little bit a mixture, a lovely mixture of all of these worlds and with lot of tolerance, a lot of welcoming foreign people as you know because we are very touristic country and this is make the cultural particularity of Tunisia. 

Sonia Khachlouf (28:22): 

This is what I said, you need to understand the Tunisian culture when it comes to starting business in Tunisia because if you judge Tunisia as African country, you’ll be mistaken and if you considered Tunisia as Arabic country only as well.  

Luisa Rollenhagen (28:38): Absolutely. I really love that framing. You simply have to embrace this mix that defines Tunisia.  

We’ve talked a bit about the cultural aspects that define working life in Tunisia, as well as some legal and administrative details. It’s very clear that both of you are very passionate about Tunisia’s potential and its people. So, what do you two personally love about working in payroll in Tunisia? 

Maher Gaida (29:03): 

We love challenges. So basically definitely each implementation is a challenge because why? Because there are those local legislation as you know, but we don’t deal only with local legislation. We deal also with the group procedures, with the group scopes and requirements, with the international and IT complexity. And our job is more and more IT security oriented. We are managing diamonds, not gold diamonds. Personal data for us is diamond. So we need to have to have those safe box, electronic safe box with all the security. So yes, definitely we are moving more and more to much more technology oriented, let’s say expertise, but also we need to satisfy client requests because client are managing mens and womens. So it is human resources and human are very complex. So when there is retribution there, when there is allowances, when there is bonuses and so on, we are here to discuss, to orient, to make the tax optimization, to make the social optimization. And they rely on our expertise to say, Hey guys, what the release agent is saying, the group wants to do that, how we can do that? Is it possible to do or not? So definitely all those excite our intelligence, all those makes our team awake and ready to find solutions and we don’t have a unique answer because we have a lot of customization and a lot of customized requests where we need to provide a very personal answer to all our multinationals. 

Sonia Khachlouf (30:39): 

I would say that the sector is really important when it comes to importance. We are dealing with a very important topic, payroll. 

It’s growing fast and full of potential, and I really like this aspect, the evolution opportunities, and a lot of new things coming across. So to me, it’s all positive when it comes to the sector. 

Tunisia offers the skill, talent, the strong digital tools, and the cost-effective service as well. So it’s a smart place from where to manage payroll, this is why I consider that we have a lot of positive things, the sector is evolving, and we have the infrastructure to build a successful business as well. 

Maher Gaida (31:23): 

Yeah, maybe something to add. Very important: Payroll is a matter of trust. So really we are building a trust with employees, with regulatory, with administration, with employer, with the environment. So if you breach these trusts, you cannot stay alive. So basically on day-to-day basis it’s building of trust. You are not allowed to make mistakes on payroll otherwise you create social issues. 

Luisa Rollenhagen (31:50): That’s absolutely true.  

We’ve reached the end of the episode, so I want to thank both of you for joining us today and sharing your expertise and your passion for payroll in Tunisia.  

I loved learning about all the ways in which Tunisia embraces its mix of cultures and traditions, and how its modern, young workforce represents that mix and is driving growth and innovation in the country. 

I hope you got a bit more insight into the intricacies of payroll and the labor landscape in Tunisia today. If this episode has piqued your interest or your company is considering expanding into Tunisia, please visit adp.com to learn more about ADP’s global payroll services, including in Tunisia. 

And don’t forget to subscribe to learn more about payroll around the world with each new episode.  

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