🇹🇳Tunisia runs an IMEI registry, and a decree exempts the phone you bring

12 plans for Tunisia, from 1 GB at $3.99 to 20 GB at $18.99, plus 6 unlimited-data tiers. 5 GB for 30 days costs $7.99 — the cheapest of 35 in Africa, against a $25.99 median. Our retail prices from the operator catalogue, checked 28 September 2026.

Tunisia runs a national IMEI registry, and it is not a rumour

The registry exists, it is a government system, and it blocks handsets. It is the CEIR-N, presented to the public as Sajalni at sajalni.tn, and it is operated by CERT, the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherche des Télécommunications at the El Ghazala technology park. Its own notice states that CERT «se réserve le droit de procéder à des sanctions techniques (blocage des IMEI en cas d'utilisation frauduleuse des données personnelles)». We read that on cert.tn on 8 September 2026.

This is the Turkish shape travellers arrive braced for, so the differences matter more than the resemblance. Tunisia's registry is built around a passport number and a date of entry, and its published guide is written for a phone «importés individuellement par des personnes physiques», imported individually by natural persons. What it never says, anywhere we could read, is that an unregistered visitor's handset stops working. That silence is the honest centre of this page.

What the registry asks, in its own guide

CERT publishes a registration guide, and its general conditions are short enough to quote. «La demande d'enregistrement se fait uniquement depuis la Tunisie», the request is made only from inside Tunisia. It must be lodged by the person who imported the equipment. «Le nombre maximal de terminaux autorisés par entrée (voyage) ou par colis est deux (02).» Two devices per trip, and no more.

Two more conditions decide whether a request is even accepted. The date of entry into Tunisia of the person who imported the phone «doit être inférieure où égale à trois mois», three months or less. Processing takes «3 jours ouvrables», three working days. An accepted request puts the IMEI on the white list, and the reply tells you «Vous pouvez utiliser votre terminal mobile (téléphone ou tablette) sur le Réseau National de télécommunication Tunisien». We read the guide PDF on cert.tn on 8 September 2026.

The criminal article that comes closest to you

One article of the telecommunications code does reach whoever connects a handset to a Tunisian public network. Article 83 punishes with one to six months imprisonment and a fine of 1,000 to 10,000 dinars, or one of those, whoever manufactures, imports or sells the equipment described in Article 32, «ainsi que celui qui les raccorde à un réseau public des télécommunications sans avoir obtenu l'homologation». As well as whoever connects it to a public network without having obtained homologation. The second limb is not about sellers.

Article 32 then defines what needs homologation, and its own second limb has no commercial qualifier. Terminal equipment imported or made in Tunisia and destined for sale or public use falls under it, «ainsi que les équipements terminaux radioélectriques, qu'ils soient destinés ou non à être connectés au réseau public des télécommunications». Read on its own, a tourist's phone is radio terminal equipment and sits inside that sentence. We read both articles in the code hosted by the regulator INT on 8 September 2026.

The decree that takes your phone back out

The chain breaks at the decree, and it breaks cleanly. Décret gouvernemental n° 2020-48 of 23 January 2020 sets the homologation procedures, and its Article 12 lists what is exempt: «Sont exemptés de l'homologation… Les équipements terminaux des télécommunications et les équipements terminaux radioélectriques importés au profit des personnes physiques ou morales pour leurs besoins propres ou à titre temporaire.» Imported for natural or legal persons for their own needs or on a temporary basis. A phone in your pocket is both.

That matters because Article 83 punishes connecting equipment «sans avoir obtenu l'homologation». Where the decree exempts equipment from homologation, there is no homologation to have failed to obtain. What Article 12 does impose instead is «une vérification de conformité aux exigences techniques d'interfonctionnement», a conformity check, not a registration, a fee or a deadline. We read the official French text on the ministry's own domain, mtc.gov.tn, on 8 September 2026.

What we could not read, and it matters

The registry's legal basis is the one document we never saw. Ministerial circular No. 01 of 5 February 2024 is named in official material as the ground for registration, and we did not read it. The words IMEI, registration and roaming do not appear in décret 2020-48 at all, so the registry does not draw its rules from the text we did read. A system that blocks handsets should be readable, and this part of it was not.

The access failures were ours to report, not to hide. On 8 September 2026 sajalni.tn returned no connection at all from outside Tunisia, over https and http alike, which matches the guide's own instruction to apply from inside the country. CERT's page announcing the CEIR-N launch answered HTTP 404. The ministry's article on the launch returned only its homepage shell. Everything above therefore rests on the guide, the CERT notices and the two published legal texts.

The eSIM is not the subject of any of this

Every device rule above follows the handset, and none of them looks at the SIM inside it. The registry stores an IMEI, which belongs to the phone. Article 83 punishes connecting equipment, not subscribing to a service. Buying a Tunisian SIM at a shop instead of a travel profile would change nothing about the registry, and buying a travel profile changes nothing either.

One practical consequence follows for dual-SIM phones. CERT publishes a complaint route about «blocage du 2ième IMEI», the blocking of a second IMEI, for handsets whose first IMEI had to be activated before 1 February 2021. That notice is about the system's own rollout, not about visitors arriving today. It does show that Tunisian blocking works per IMEI, and a modern phone has more than one.

Nobody asks a visitor to register a SIM

On the subscriber side the picture is ordinary and quiet. Identity checks in Tunisia attach to the sale of a local SIM and the subscription contract behind it, and the enforcement sits on the seller and the operator. A roaming profile involves no Tunisian contract, no Tunisian counter and no Tunisian number. We found no rule requiring a visiting user to register anything.

App calls are not restricted either, and the decree people reach for is about something else. Décret n° 2008-2638 of 21 July 2008, Article 2, states that «L'exploitation commerciale pour le public du service téléphonie sur protocole Internet ne peut se faire que par les opérateurs des réseaux publics des télécommunications titulaires d'une licence». Commercial provision of internet telephony to the public is reserved to licensed operators. That is a rule about who may sell a phone service, not about who may place a WhatsApp call.

What the Tunisia profile actually is

You get data on Ooredoo and nothing else. The seller on our Tunisia catalogue record is El Jem Communications, checked 8 September 2026. No minutes come with it, no texts, and no Tunisian number in your name. Nobody asks who you are: the identity-check field on that record sits empty.

Leave your phone alone: the APN fills itself in on iOS and Android (same record, 8 September 2026). You get a year to install the profile after buying it. The days you paid for start counting from the first connection, not from checkout. On topping up the record says «Rechargeable online with no expiry».

Choosing between the ladders

Both ladders are full here, so the choice is genuinely yours. Metered sizes run 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 and 20 GB, with windows of 7 days, 15 days, then 30 days from 3 GB upward (our Tunisia catalogue record, checked 8 September 2026). Unlimited windows run 3, 5, 7, 10, 15 and 30 days on the same record. Metered plans end when the data ends. Day plans end on the date whatever you do.

Let the trip shape decide it. A week of Tunis, Carthage and Sidi Bou Said runs on hotel Wi-Fi and a light metered size. A drive south to Matmata, Douz and the Chott el Djerid is hours of live map with long gaps between towns. Set the window to close after your flight home, not on its day.

Before you fly

Get the install done at home, days ahead of the flight. Scan the QR from your order page, label the line, and leave it dark until you land. Buying early costs you nothing, since the profile waits a year to be installed (our Tunisia catalogue record, checked 8 September 2026). The taxi rank at Tunis-Carthage is no place to start reading instructions.

Bring the paperwork you would bring anyway, and know one address. Your passport is the document the Tunisian registry works from, and you will have it with you regardless. **If a handset ever stops connecting in Tunisia, the registration site is sajalni.tn and it opens only from inside the country.** CERT lists complaint routes by email at sajalni@cert.mincom.tn and staffed border offices.

Your first day

Switch the Tunisian line on, choose it for data, and open any web page. You type nothing on either platform (our Tunisia catalogue record, checked 8 September 2026), so silence means the roaming switch or a line you did not pick. Skip the call test; this profile answers none. Your emergency dialling stays with the home line or with the handset itself.

Separate a phone problem from a network problem on that first evening. Data failing in every app on one line, while your home line works, is a setting. A handset that gets no service at all on any SIM is the case where the registry becomes a live question rather than a background one. Nothing published tells us that happens to short-stay visitors, and we will not tell you it does.

Topping up

Recharge from the order page you already have open. Your profile is marked «Rechargeable online with no expiry» on the record, checked 8 September 2026, and no Tunisian rule touches the payment. Top up before you run dry; once you are dry, the café password comes first.

Check both numbers before a desert day. On a metered 30-day plan your gigabytes will run out before the month does. On a 3-day unlimited plan the date arrives while your signal is still fine. Neither one warns you, and the road to Douz is a bad classroom.

FAQ

Before you fly: the checklist

Sources and freshness

Code des télécommunications, Articles 32 and 83, published by the regulator INT (used in section 3, the FAQ and the checklist) — the document, read 8 September 2026.

Décret gouvernemental n° 2020-48 of 23 January 2020 on homologation procedures, Articles 6, 12 and 18, official French text on the ministry's domain (used in section 4 and the FAQ) — the document, read 8 September 2026.

CERT, Guide d'enregistrement d'un terminal mobile for sajalni.tn: the general conditions, the three-month entry window, the two-device limit and the reply texts (used in sections 1, 2 and 5, the FAQ and the checklist) — the document, read 8 September 2026.

CERT, Sajalni notices, for the technical sanction of IMEI blocking and the complaint routes (used in sections 1 and 6 and the checklist) — the document, read 8 September 2026.

CERT, Réclamations Sajalni, including the complaint about a blocked second IMEI and the border offices (used in section 6 and the FAQ) — the document, read 8 September 2026.

Décret n° 2008-2638 of 21 July 2008 on the conditions for providing internet telephony, Article 2 (used in section 7 and the FAQ) — the document, read 8 September 2026.

Our Tunisia catalogue record: operator, network, plan type, identity check, install window, activation, APN, recharge and the two package ladders, read 8 September 2026.

What we did not check: This page has more open questions than most, and they are named rather than smoothed over. Ministerial circular No. 01 of 5 February 2024, cited in official material as the legal basis for registration, went unread; we never found a published copy. sajalni.tn answered no connection at all from outside Tunisia on 8 September 2026, so we could not see the registration form, its wording or any exemption it might state. CERT's page announcing the CEIR-N launch answered HTTP 404 that day, and the ministry's article on it returned only a homepage shell, so the white and grey list descriptions circulating from those announcements are not something we verified in a document. We therefore do not know what happens to an unregistered handset belonging to a short-stay visitor, and we do not know whether the three-month entry window is a deadline for acting or only a filter on who may apply. The law on conformity assessment behind the «vérification de conformité» of Article 12 went unread. We found no published enforcement case applying Article 83 to a traveller, which is an absence in what we could search rather than proof that none exists. On the product side the record carries no fair-use or speed condition on the unlimited tiers, no Wi-Fi sharing field and no coverage caveat, and does not say whether a top-up extends the running window or opens a new one. We measured no speeds and tested no southern coverage, and silence in a record is not a measurement.