Guide to the unemployment allowance in Algeria 2026: conditions, amount, duration and registration

The allowance is 18,000 DA a month since 1 January 2026, after two increases since it was created. The amount was not raised by the finance laws but by executive decrees amending article 7 of décret 22-70:

Holders of the allowance are entitled to the benefits in kind of sickness insurance, and the cost of that cover is borne by the State. Article 7, in its new wording, also sets the social-contribution share levied on the allowance at 7% of its amount, a share itself borne by the State and not by the holder, that is 1,260 DA a month on a base of 18,000 DA. The text puts two descriptions in the same sentence – the share is "prélevée sur l'allocation chômage" and it is "à la charge de l'Etat" – without expressly settling whether the holder receives the full 18,000 DA and the State pays the contribution on top, or whether it is deducted from the allowance. Pending the joint order that will set the terms, what the text does establish is that this share is a charge on the State and not on the holder.

Article 7 in its original form mentioned no duration at all: it said only that the allowance "est versée mensuellement" and left the terms to a joint order. Décret 26-87 wrote the duration into the text itself: the allowance is paid monthly for one (1) year, renewable once only, that is two years as the basic entitlement. Renewal is subject to strict compliance with the obligations set out in article 4.

The same decree added an article 7 bis, which grants an extra year in two cases:

• Holders active within the scheme whose seniority is twenty-four (24) months or more: an allowance for one (1) extra year is paid to them.
• Holders active within the scheme whose seniority is under twenty-four (24) months: the extra year is paid once the remaining part of their entitlement has run out, within a limit of two (2) years.

Décret 26-87 amended the obligations on which keeping and renewing the allowance depend: it rewrote four of them and left the rest unchanged. There are five of them today:

1. Validating the registration every six (6) months, through the digital platform set up for that purpose or in person at the National Employment Agency offices for the place of residence.
2. Answering the National Employment Agency's summonses.
3. Not refusing one (1) job offer matching your qualifications. Before 2026, the text spoke of two (2) offers.
4. Actively looking for qualifying or certified training.
5. Not refusing training intended to improve your employability. Décret 26-87 did not rewrite this obligation and left it in its original 2022 wording, under the words "le reste sans changement" (the rest unchanged).

Article 5 provides that a holder directed towards training keeps drawing the allowance throughout the training period, in accordance with the decree, that is within the entitlement period laid down, while abandoning the training cancels the allowance. To explore the specialities on offer and the training establishments in your wilaya, see the vocational-training guide.

Article 9, as amended in 2026, lists six cases in which payment of the allowance stops:

• The holder or their spouse being placed in a job, or in one of the public schemes supporting the creation and expansion of activities.
• At the holder's own request.
• The holder refusing one (1) job offer matching their qualifications.
• The holder refusing training intended to improve their employability.
• The holder or their spouse receiving an income of any kind whatsoever.
• The death of the holder.

The arrêté interministériel of 21 February 2022 commits the ministry of labour, employment and social security, through the National Employment Agency, to set up a digital platform on which first-time job seekers can register, then to process the registrations and select the successful applicants by cross-checking the databases of the national social insurance fund for salaried workers (CNAS), the social insurance fund for non-salaried workers and the national pension fund (CNR), then to invite the successful applicants and give each an appointment at which to supply their file, and to sign a partnership agreement with Algérie Poste to make the payments easier. That platform is Minhati (minha.anem.dz), and it alone is the authority on the screens and the steps currently in use.

We were not able to use the platform ourselves; specialist sites, SFN Emploi among them, report the following registration steps, and what the platform itself shows at the time of registration remains the authority:

1. Enter your job-seeker registration number with the National Employment Agency and your national identification number (NIN).
2. Enter the details of the postal current account (CCP) the allowance will be paid into.
3. Pick an appointment from the slots offered.
4. Print the undertaking-and-obligation document and the appointment slip, and bring both on the date given.

The documents required are set by article 9 of that same arrêté interministériel, and that is the official list published in the Official Journal:

If something is wrong with the file, or the allowance is refused or suspended, the Insat platform (insat.anem.dz) lets you, according to those same sites, lodge a query or an appeal, attach the supporting documents and follow the answer. The two official platforms remain the authority wherever they differ from what is published elsewhere.

Many people run together two schemes that are entirely different in who they are for, which body pays them and how much they pay. The table sums up the difference:

So if you are an employee who has lost their job, the payment that concerns you is CNAC benefit, governed by décret législatif 94-11 of 26 May 1994, not this allowance: use the unemployment insurance benefit calculator to estimate how long it runs and how much it pays.

• The eligibility decision: the National Employment Agency alone examines the file and decides, after cross-checking the databases of the social security and pension funds.
• Any conditions the undertaking-and-obligation document signed at registration may add: we have not read its text, so we report here only what the decree provides.
• The terms for applying article 3 on detainees who have served their sentence: the decree leaves them to a joint order that is not among the texts cited here.
• The payment dates and the registration-validation deadlines: the National Employment Agency publishes those as they come, and the decree does not fix them.