Tunisia Statutory social-insurance contributions

What this value means

WHAT A PAYROLL ENGINE GETS WRONG IN TUNISIA. 1. THE HEADLINE RATE CHANGED ON 1 JANUARY 2025 AND CNSS'S OWN PAGE STILL SHOWS THE OLD ONE. Article 17 of the loi de finances 2025 added a 0,5% employer and 0,5% employee contribution to a new fund insuring against loss of employment for economic reasons. RSNA employer 16,57% to 17,07%; employee 9,18% to 9,68%; global 25,75% to 26,75%. The CNSS contribution page still prints 25,75% and is stamped as last updated in June 2019 — the authority's own page is stale, and corroborating from it alone will produce the pre-2025 figures. 2. THE HEADLINE RATE EXCLUDES OCCUPATIONAL ACCIDENTS. 17,07% is not the employer's cost. Add the accidents du travail charge, which is employer-only and runs from 0,4% to 4% by activity under décret n° 95-538 du 1er avril 1995. Real employer cost is roughly 17,5% to 21,1%. Any comparison of Tunisia with a country whose headline rate is all-inclusive is invalid unless this is added. 3. NOTHING IS CAPPED IN THE MANDATORY SCHEME. There is no plafond on the RSNA: every branch runs on the whole assiette. Do not import Morocco's 6 000 MAD logic, and disregard any figure circulating as a Tunisian contribution ceiling. The only threshold in the system is a FLOOR-AND-SLICE one: the voluntary régime complémentaire bites only on the part of pay above six times the SMIG. 4. THE ASSIETTE IS BROAD BUT NOT EVERYTHING. CNSS assesses contributions on all elements of salary, emoluments, indemnities and other advantages in cash or in kind attaching to employee status, but advantages in the nature of expense reimbursement, indemnification, or social, cultural and sporting action for the employee are wholly or partly excluded. The list, the rates and the exemption thresholds sit in décret n° 2003-1098 du 19 mai 2003 — an engine that grosses up every benefit in kind will over-contribute. 5. THE EMPLOYEE PAYS INTO FAMILY BENEFITS. 0,89%. This surprises engines built for schemes where family benefits are an employer-only charge. 6. THE EMPLOYEE-SIDE HISTORY MOVES INDEPENDENTLY OF THE EMPLOYER SIDE. Employee 7,75% (to 2007), 8,47% (July 2008), 9,18% (July 2009), 9,68% (January 2025); employer 16,57% throughout from 2007 until January 2025. An engine that carries a single "total social charge" figure and splits it by a fixed ratio will be wrong in every one of those years. 7. CONTRIBUTIONS ARE QUARTERLY, NOT MONTHLY. CNSS declarations and payment are due by the fifteenth day of the month following the expired quarter; the twentieth for building and public-works firms with more than 50 employees and dispersed sites; the twenty-fifth for wholly exporting firms. Late payment carries 1% per month or part-month, with a further 0,5% per month where no salary declaration was filed at all. 8. THE SUPPLEMENTARY PENSION SCHEME IS NOT COMPULSORY AND NOT UNIVERSAL. 6% employer / 3% employee, but only where the establishment has adhered AND only on the slice of pay above six times the SMIG. Do not apply it by default and do not apply it to the whole salary. 9. EMPLOYEE CONTRIBUTIONS COME OFF BEFORE INCOME TAX. IRPP on salary is computed after the CNSS employee withholding. The employer's share is cost of employment and is not a deduction from the employee. SUB-NATIONAL VARIATION: none. Rates are national across all 24 gouvernorats. The only differentiation is by ACTIVITY (the occupational-accident rate under décret n° 95-538), by SECTOR (this record covers the régime des salariés non agricoles; agriculture, fishing and domestic employment have their own régimes and their own rates) and by ESTABLISHMENT (adhesion to the régime complémentaire). WHAT WE DO NOT PUT A NUMBER ON: I put no number on the following, deliberately. THE OCCUPATIONAL-ACCIDENT RATE — rate_employer stays null. CNSS states only the 0,4%–4% band; the per-activity table sits in décret n° 95-538 du 1er avril 1995, which was not opened for this record. The band is served; the class table is not. THE CONTRIBUTION SOCIALE DE SOLIDARITÉ (CSS) — not modelled as a branch. It is levied on the income-tax base rather than as a social-insurance contribution, is administered by the tax authority rather than by CNSS, and belongs with the income-tax series; including it here would double-count it against a payroll engine that already applies it inside IRPP withholding. THE SMIG AMOUNT — the six-times-SMIG threshold for the supplementary scheme is stated as a rule, not a figure, because the SMIG belongs to the minimum-wage series and is revalued on its own cycle. THE AGRICULTURAL, FISHING AND DOMESTIC REGIMES — separate régimes with separate rates, out of scope for an ordinary non-agricultural private-sector employee. ALREADY LEGISLATED, NOT YET IN FORCE: nothing found. The 26,75% set has stood since 1 January 2025 and no later change was located in the loi de finances 2026 (Loi n° 2025-17 du 12 décembre 2025). WATCH THE ANNUAL LOI DE FINANCES: unlike Algeria or Morocco, where rates move by decree at any time, Tunisia's 2025 change arrived through the budget law with effect from 1 January. A December budget law is therefore the signal to re-verify, and the CNSS website should not be relied on to reflect it. Employee and employer shares are stated separately: the employee figure is what leaves the payslip, the employer figure is cost of employment and is not a deduction.

Get it programmatically

curl https://afriref.dev/v1/tn/social-contributions
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://afriref.dev/v1/tn/social-contributions/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/tn/social-contributions

Other Tunisia series: BCT key policy rate (taux directeur) · TVA standard rate · VAT registration threshold · SMIG · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax rate (IS) · Withholding tax rates · Legal interest (intérêt légal) · Personal income tax brackets (IRPP)

The same figure elsewhere: Uganda · Zambia · Algeria · Angola · Benin · all 34