Dropshipping in Tunisia: What Is Legal, What Works and How to Start (2026 Guide)

Dropshipping in Tunisia means selling online a product you do not hold in stock: the customer orders on your store, a Tunisian supplier packs and ships the parcel, and the customer pays cash on delivery. The model that works is local. Importing single units from AliExpress runs into customs, foreign-exchange rules and delivery times.

In short: dropshipping is legal as long as you have a legal status and follow the e-commerce law. Work with Tunisian wholesalers or makers who ship single units, sign a written agreement on returns and stock-outs, and calculate your margin per delivered order: the supplier keeps a share, so the margin is thinner than with your own stock.

What does dropshipping look like in Tunisia?

The principle is the same everywhere: you sell, someone else stores and ships. What changes in Tunisia is where products come from and how you get paid.

	”Classic” dropshipping (AliExpress)	Local dropshipping in Tunisia
Supplier	Platform or factory abroad	Tunisian wholesaler, importer or maker
Paying the supplier	In foreign currency, before shipping	In dinars, often after cash is collected
Customer payment	Online payment	Cash on delivery
Delivery time	Several weeks, customs included	A local delivery company, often 24 to 72 h
Refusals and returns	Return abroad rarely possible	Parcel goes back to the supplier or to you
Who does what	The supplier does everything, you never see the product	You can see, photograph and test the product

For a seller based in Tunisia, the second column is the realistic one: you sell the catalogue of a local wholesaler or maker, who packs the parcels and hands them to the carrier.

Why is AliExpress dropshipping so hard from Tunisia?

Three obstacles, all tied to Tunisian regulation.

1. Paying the supplier in foreign currency. The dinar does not leave the country freely. The international technology card (CTI), which many sellers use for advertising, is governed by BCT circular 2016-9: its list of authorised transactions covers hosting, advertising, subscriptions to foreign websites, online training and software. Buying goods is not on the list. The cap is 1,000 TND a year for an individual. Paying for products to resell with this card falls outside its authorised use.

2. Customs. According to Tunisian Customs, all international postal items go through the Tunis-Carthage sorting centre. Items sent to individuals with no commercial character are exempt from foreign-trade and exchange formalities and taxed on a flat basis. Goods imported as part of a commercial operation, however, are subject to foreign-trade and exchange formalities, a detailed declaration and normal duties and taxes. Reselling products imported one by one is a commercial operation.

3. Delivery times and returns. A Tunisian customer paying on delivery expects the parcel within days. An international parcel waits for customs clearance; if the customer then refuses it, the product never goes back to the supplier and stays on your books.

Direct import remains possible, but as a proper import business, with stock, volume and often a customs broker. That is no longer dropshipping.

What is the legal frame for selling without stock?

Selling without stock does not change your status: you are a seller. You need a status that fits your turnover (auto-entrepreneur under 75,000 TND a year, above that a trading licence or a company), and the 3% withholding on cash collected by delivery companies applies if you have no tax ID. All of this is covered, with sources, in our guide to selling online legally in Tunisia.

Two points weigh more in dropshipping:

• Law 2000-83 targets you. Your store informs the customer (price, delivery fees, returns) and you handle withdrawals, even when the supplier shipped the parcel.
• The supplier’s stock-out becomes your problem. Article 35 of law 2000-83 requires you to notify the customer within 24 hours when an ordered product is unavailable. Without stock of your own, this happens more often.

How much can you earn dropshipping with cash on delivery?

Less than with stock, and the gap only shows when you calculate per delivered order. The supplier charges more per unit than a wholesale purchase, advertising is paid on every order, and refused parcels cost a round trip.

Worked example with our margin model (product sold at 89 TND, no VAT, delivery 8 TND, 13.5 TND of advertising per shipped order, 12 TND per refused parcel, 0.300 TND per order received on Yalla Souk):

Scenario	Purchase cost	Refusals	Total cost per delivered order	Net margin per delivered order
Stock bought wholesale	32 TND + 2 TND packaging	25%	64.40 TND	24.60 TND
Local dropshipping	45 TND, packaging included	25%	75.40 TND	13.60 TND
Local dropshipping, high refusals	45 TND, packaging included	35%	80.69 TND	8.31 TND

Purchase prices are illustrative assumptions, not market prices. The takeaway: in dropshipping, 10 more points of refusals can cut the margin by almost 40%. Run your own numbers in the margin calculator and read our guide to calculating margin and selling price.

Two levers matter more than the purchase price:

• Confirming orders before shipping, which lowers refusals. Our phone confirmation script is built for that.
• The selling price. A dropshipped product sold at the same price as a competitor who buys wholesale only holds up if you get far fewer refusals than they do.

What should the supplier agreement cover?

A verbal deal is enough to start with a wholesaler you know. It stops being enough at the first dispute. Put it in writing, even as a simple signed document:

Point	What to agree
Price	Dropshipping unit price, packaging included or not, and for how long
Preparation time	Order cut-off time for same-day or next-day dispatch
Stock	How you hear about a stock-out (daily list, message)
Parcels	Neutral packaging, no supplier name or price, your store name if possible
Carrier	Who creates the shipment, under which account, and who receives the collected cash
Refusals and returns	Who pays outbound and return, restocking time, damaged products
Payment	When you pay the supplier: per order, on delivery, weekly
Exclusivity	Whether other sellers have the same catalogue and photos

The carrier point matters most. If parcels ship under your account with the delivery company, you collect the cash and pay the supplier afterwards. If they ship under the supplier’s account, the supplier collects and pays you your margin: you then depend on their cash flow.

What are the risks of dropshipping in Tunisia?

• Refusals. They exist across Tunisian cash-on-delivery e-commerce, but in dropshipping each refusal costs a round trip on an already thin margin. Our cash on delivery guide covers return fees and ways to reduce refusals.
• Stock-outs. You are selling stock you do not own, which other sellers sell too.
• Quality. You do not see parcels leave. A faulty batch is discovered by your customers.
• Competing on the same photos. If ten sellers use the same wholesaler’s catalogue, customers compare and pick the cheapest. Take your own photos.
• Dependence. A supplier who changes prices or drops a product can stop your store overnight. Have at least two suppliers for your best sellers.

How do you start dropshipping in Tunisia, step by step?

1. Pick a category and products that make sense in one photo and survive transport. Our guide on what to sell online in Tunisia covers categories, traps and supplier leads.
2. Find two suppliers who agree to ship single units, and order one product from each to your own address: timing, packaging, quality.
3. Sign the agreement with the points in the table above, especially returns and the carrier.
4. Get compliant: legal status, terms of sale, return policy.
5. Build your store with your own photos, firm prices and delivery fees shown before checkout.
6. Calculate your margin per delivered order before launching any advertising, then set your budget with the ad budget calculator.
7. Confirm every order by phone or WhatsApp before passing it to the supplier, and track the refusal rate per product every week.

How does Yalla Souk help you sell without stock?

Yalla Souk is not a dropshipping platform with a supplier catalogue: it is your store, with your products, your prices and your own suppliers. What helps directly in dropshipping:

• a supplier record per partner, purchase orders and supplier payment tracking;
• cost price per product and profit per order in the reports;
• the order confirmation step (call attempts, callback, refusal reason) and the COD Shield reliability card to spot risky customers;
• More than 100 Tunisian delivery companies and growing, more than 20 of them connected automatically (Navex, First Delivery, A2B Delivery, Colissimo, Aramex, Intigo…).

The store is free forever and 200 orders are on us at sign-up. After that you pay per order received, from 0.300 TND down to 0.090 TND by volume, with credits that never expire and 0% commission. Compare the options in our Tunisian e-commerce platform comparison.

Sources

Checked on 20 October 2026.

• Tunisian Customs: postal parcels (formalities, shipments of a commercial nature) (French)
• Ministry of Technologies: “International technology card” fact sheet (BCT circular 2016-9, authorised transactions and caps) (French)
• Law no. 2000-83 of 9 August 2000 on electronic exchanges and commerce (CMF, French)
• Intigo: delivery price grid and return fees
• Decree-law no. 2020-33 of 10 June 2020 on the auto-entrepreneur regime (Ministry of Employment, French)