Payments

Importing a service into Algeria: the platform, the fifteen frameworks and the paperwork

Your company buys a software licence from abroad, hires a foreign engineering firm, or pays an annual subscription to a cloud service. The money is ready and so is the bank — but the transfer does not go through without an authorisation from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Export Promotion, requested on a single online platform. This guide sets out exactly what is asked of you, in what order, and why most files come back.

The short answer for a business owner

The platform is not your first stop: in 13 of the 15 frameworks you first need a visa from the sector ministry your activity falls under, certifying that the service is not available from an Algerian operator and approving the amount.
The request form does not open at all until the company file is complete — CNAS, CASNOS, tax roll extract and the latest fiscal balance sheet — and until at least one bank is added on the banks page.
Choosing the right framework out of the fifteen is what determines which documents you owe. Falling back on the “other services” framework when a more precise one exists is a repeat cause of files being returned.
There are three templates, not one, and the software template takes the amount in dollars only, with no currency column — the trap for anyone filling tables out of habit.
The request document is uploaded once for the whole file; element documents are uploaded per service line. Confusing the two sends the request back.

The fifteen frameworks in six families, and what each one asks for

Every service import must fall under one of these frameworks. The table groups them into families and separates what is filed once from what is filed for each service line.

Family	Frameworks it covers	Request document	Documents per element
Software and licences	Software acquisition and updates · subscription and licence renewal	The stamped service-import request table — with a software-specific Excel template for the first framework	Contract with the local customer · contract with the supplier · technical documentation · invoices — or the subscription contract and invoices
Consulting, studies and legal	Consulting · engineering firm fees · legal services · other services	Contract, invoice or proforma invoice (price offer) + the stamped table	No further documents at element level
Salaries of foreign staff	Transfer of foreign workers’ salaries · salaries of players and technical staff	The transfer request table stamped by the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security — or by the Ministry of Sport’s services	A fixed-term employment contract stamped by the labour inspectorate, for each worker or player
Dividends and franchise rights	Distributed dividends · franchise rights	The transfer table stamped by the sector concerned	Monthly tax position certificate for each element
Subscriptions and surplus revenue	Subscriptions · transfer of airlines’ surplus revenue	The transfer table stamped by the sector concerned	Contracts — or a monthly tax position certificate and air navigation fee settlement certificates
Training, trade fairs and public contracts	Training costs · participation in economic events abroad · the transferable share of international public tenders	Training contract or proforma invoice · the table stamped by the sector concerned	List of training participants · invoices and proforma invoices · certificate of existence of the foreign company

What the platform is, and who uses it

“services.mcepe.gov.dz” is a government digital platform of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Export Promotion, dedicated to managing and tracking service-import operations electronically. It is the single gateway: you file the request, it is examined, then the authorisation is issued and lets you complete the transfer through your approved bank.

The account is a company account, not a personal one. Registration and sign-in run on the commercial register number; the system verifies it automatically and pulls the company’s details from the national register. An individual will find no way in.

Step zero: what keeps the form shut

Before you even think about the request, the platform hides the form page until your file is complete. The four documents required are the CNAS certificate for employees’ social security, the CASNOS certificate for the self-employed, a tax roll extract, and the latest year’s fiscal balance sheet.

A fifth condition is often forgotten: at least one bank must be added from the banks page. Until then you cannot add any element to the request. If the add button appears dead, this is almost always why.

The core rule: the platform is not your first stop

The thing to understand before anything else: the pivotal document in this process does not come from the platform, but from another ministry. It is the “service-import request table, stamped in agreement on the service’s local unavailability and on the financial value to be transferred, by the sector concerned” — required in 13 of the 15 frameworks.

In practice: before filing anything, you must obtain the visa of the sector ministry your activity falls under. That visa certifies that the service is not available from an Algerian operator and approves the amount to be transferred. The body that decides the substance of the file is therefore not the body that receives it.

The template itself is ready inside the platform: after choosing the framework you download the model Excel file from the platform, fill it in, then upload it signed and stamped. Do not build a table of your own.

The map of the fifteen frameworks

Every service import must fall under one of these frameworks, and choosing the right one determines the documents you owe:

Software acquisition and updates
Subscription and licence renewal
Consulting
Engineering firm fees
Legal services
Other services
Transfer of foreign workers’ salaries
Salaries of players and technical staff
Distributed dividends
Franchise rights
Subscriptions
Training costs
Transfer of airlines’ surplus revenue
Costs of participating in economic events held abroad
The transferable share of international tenders for concluded public contracts

Two frameworks that break the rule

The foreign workers’ salaries and the players and technical staff frameworks do not pass through the local-unavailability condition. The visa there comes from a different sector ministry: the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security for the first, the Ministry of Sport’s services for the second — and the table uses a salary-specific template.

The surplus revenue framework is the only one reserved for a single sector, airlines, and asks for air navigation fee settlement certificates issued by the national air navigation authority. The international tenders framework, meanwhile, is the only one that explicitly demands a certificate of existence for the foreign company under contract.

Three templates, not one

This is where the mistakes concentrate. The platform does not use a single table but three templates that differ in column count, language and how the amount is written:

General services template — it covers 11 frameworks, in nine columns: commercial register number, company name, tax identification number, imported service, exporting country, service value, currency, invoice number, attached technical files. Bilingual Arabic/French, with an independent currency column.
Software template — sixteen columns: product, version, reason for acquisition, acquisition framework, beneficiary entity, proforma invoice, amount, product type, publisher, supplier with its site and capacity, supplier country, country of origin, licence type, technical characteristics. The amount is in dollars only — there is no currency column — and every cell is free text with no dropdowns.
Salary template — around forty-eight columns, and not a platform document at all: it is the General Labour Inspectorate’s table for tracking the stamping of foreign labour contracts, in Arabic, with three header levels. It breaks out base pay, allowances and benefits in kind, then the “transferred share” as both an amount and a percentage — meaning what gets transferred is a portion of the salary, not the whole of it.

What you actually fill in on each request

The request has two parts. A header carrying the request name, the framework and the approved bank or banks. Then the elements: one line per service, holding the heading, sub-heading, imported service, quantity, unit, service origin, service exporting country, unit price and notes. The available units are unit (U), man/day, day, month and hours.

Watch the difference between “service origin” and “exporting country”: the first is the country the service originates in, the second the country of the entity that invoices you. They can differ — an American program bought through a reseller in Dubai, say — and confusing them is a common reason for a file to come back for correction.

The life of a request, from draft to authorisation

A request passes through four states. Draft: you build and save it without sending, and can return and edit it whenever you like. Sending: once confirmed it leaves your account and enters the processing queue. Processing, then awaiting authorisation: the file is under review, then moves to issuance. Processed: the request is accepted and authorised, and you move on to your bank to complete the operation.

A fifth state is worth knowing before it reaches you: “to amend”, or needing correction. The administration returns the file with specific remarks; you correct and re-file without starting over. A returned file is not a rejected one.

Technical limits that stall complete files

Small details stop files that are otherwise ready. Attachments are accepted in PDF only, the maximum size per file is ten megabytes, and fifteen frameworks are currently available.

Three platform behaviours surprise first-time users. First: some frameworks only open if you already hold an accepted request of the same type — if that message appears, the route starts with a different framework. Second: the framework list is dynamic, and one can disappear while you are editing a draft, forcing you to pick another; review old drafts before sending them. Third: the request cannot be saved or confirmed before at least one complete service line has been filled in.

A checklist before you press “confirm”

Eight points to run through before sending, covering most of the reasons files are returned:

Company file complete: CNAS, CASNOS, tax roll extract, fiscal balance sheet.
At least one bank added on the banks page.
The right framework is chosen — no falling back on “other services” when a more precise one exists.
The model table is downloaded from the platform, filled in, and stamped by the sector concerned.
Element documents are attached to each service line separately, not to the request as a whole.
Every attachment is a PDF and none exceeds ten megabytes.
Service origin and exporting country are correctly distinguished.
The amounts on the platform match exactly the amounts stamped on the table.

If you get stuck: the official contacts

Before asking in a Facebook group, the platform has declared support. These are the official channels:

Platform: services.mcepe.gov.dz
Support: support@mcepe.gov.dz
Phone: +213 21 99 32 25 — from 8:00 to 16:30

Where the time actually goes

Most of the delay does not happen inside the platform but outside it: in obtaining the sector visa and assembling the documents. Filing itself is a matter of minutes once the file is ready.

That changes the order of your work: start with the sector ministry and your accountant, not by opening the platform. And if your company repeats this several times a year — licences, cloud subscriptions, professional fees — it pays to keep an internal record of contracts, invoices and renewal dates so you are not starting from nothing each time.

Questions business owners ask

Can I register as an individual?

No. The account is a company account; registration and sign-in run on the commercial register number, which the system verifies automatically before pulling the company’s details from the national register.

Is it enough to file the request and wait?

Not in most cases. Thirteen of the fifteen frameworks require a table stamped by the sector ministry certifying the service’s local unavailability and approving the amount. That step precedes the platform and does not happen inside it.

What if none of the frameworks fits my service?

There is an “other services” framework for that case. But do not use it to escape a more precise framework where one exists — that is a repeat cause of files being returned for correction.

Which currency do I write the amount in?

It depends on the template. The general services template has an independent currency column; the software template takes dollars only and has no currency column at all.

My file came back “to amend” — do I start again?

No. The administration returns it with specific remarks: you correct what is flagged and re-file, without rebuilding the request.

Do these conditions change?

Yes, and at any time — the framework list itself is dynamic inside the platform. Treat this guide as a map for understanding, and always go back to the official platform, your bank and your accountant before acting.

The next step

A free five-minute diagnosticFifteen questions that place your organization, with no sign-up and no email address.Digital consulting and diagnosticA session and a written report that order your priorities before any spending.Custom ERP systemsOne record of contracts, invoices and renewal dates instead of scattered files at every transfer.Digital Algeria 2030Digitizing administrative procedures is an axis of the national strategy — this platform is one of its faces.