Tunisia's Startup Act — A Dedicated Legal Status Cutting Red Tape for Innovative Firms

Tunisia enacted the Startup Act in April 2018, creating a dedicated 'startup' legal label carrying time-limited incentives: exemption from corporate income tax during the label period, reduced employer social-security contributions, streamlined customs procedures and easier access to foreign exchange for eligible innovative firms, administered through the Startup Tunisia portal run by the Ministry of Communication Technologies.

The World Bank separately backed the ecosystem with a US$75 million line of credit from 2019, alongside Expertise France support during the COVID-19 period, while the Ministry continued to administer labelling and eligibility.

By 31 December 2021 the programme had granted 650 startup labels — 65% of its 2024 target of 1,000 — up from 192 new labels awarded in 2019 to 245 in 2021, supporting the creation of 4,500 jobs (45% of a 10,000-job target, 45% of them held by women) and TND 240 million (about US$77 million) in cumulative startup revenue, built from TND 48 million in 2019, TND 71 million in 2020 and TND 120 million in 2021 alone. Independent tracking outside official government reporting put the labelled-startup count above 900 by 2023, closing in on the 1,000 target. A 2025 World Bank / Journal of Development Economics quasi-experimental study (Ali, Cali & Rijkers) compared marginal label recipients to near-identical rejected applicants using a difference-in-differences design and found the label increased firm survival and job creation, concluding the programme is cost effective.

Geographic and gender reach remain uneven: about 70% of labelled startups are concentrated in greater Tunis, 21% of founders are women, and only 2–5% of startups are exclusively women-led. The programme remains behind its 2024 job and revenue targets even as its startup-count trajectory has kept pace, and benefits stay concentrated in the capital region.