Guide 18 · valid as of 22 October 2026 · getsahla.com
Having clients pay into your brother’s account in France or your aunt’s in Canada is very common, but it means keeping your earnings abroad: an exchange-control offence. Legally, the money also belongs to your relative, with all the risks that brings for them and for you. The legal route is your own foreign currency account in Algeria.
Take Karim, an illustrator in Sétif. His clients pay into his brother’s account in Marseille, and his brother sends money home now and then “for the family”. One day, the brother’s French bank asks him to explain the regular payments from foreign companies he’s never heard of.
Why it’s a problem
- Under Algerian law, your earnings aren’t brought home. They stay abroad, under someone else’s name. That’s an exchange-control offence (Ordinance 96-22, art. 1Ordonnance 03-01 modifiant l'ordonnance 96-22 (JO n° 12 de 2003), p. 14; Regulation 07-01, art. 8Règlement 07-01 du 3 février 2007 relatif aux règles applicables aux transactions courantes avec l'étranger et aux comptes devises (version d'origine), p. 2 and 57; guide 17).
- For your relative’s bank, these are business payments received by someone who never invoiced the work. The bank can ask questions, hold funds or close the account.
- For their tax office, the money can look like their own income. They’re the one who has to explain it.
- For you, the money is in their name. In a falling-out, a death, a divorce or a seizure, you have no established claim to it.
The methods
A relative abroad who receives your payments
This is Karim’s case. For a resident, it’s an exchange-control offence, punished by two to seven years in prison and a fine of at least twice the amount (Ordinance 96-22, art. 1Ordonnance 03-01 modifiant l'ordonnance 96-22 (JO n° 12 de 2003), p. 14 and 1 bis), even if prosecutions are rare. Good faith is no excuse.
Sending the money “back” doesn’t fix anything: a family transfer or cash brought back from a trip isn’t a declared export receipt (guide 7).
A relative who sells your currency on the square
A common variation: the relative receives the euros abroad, and someone in Algeria pays you the equivalent in dinars at the square rate. That’s currency exchange outside the official system (Ordinance 96-22, art. 2Ordonnance 03-01 modifiant l'ordonnance 96-22 (JO n° 12 de 2003), p. 14; guide 30), and prime scam territory (guide 27).
A relative in Algeria whose foreign currency account receives your payments
A resident’s personal foreign currency account can receive transfers from abroad (Regulation 07-01, art. 22Règlement 07-01 du 3 février 2007 relatif aux règles applicables aux transactions courantes avec l'étranger et aux comptes devises (version d'origine), p. 4). But this is your income, not theirs: it isn’t credited to your professional foreign currency account “for the needs of [your] business” (art. 57), and your relative’s bank can ask where the money came from. No text provides for this set-up. It isn’t an official route, and both Payoneer and PayPal refuse withdrawals to someone else’s account.
Your own professional foreign currency account
- Register as an auto-entrepreneur (guide 5) and open a professional foreign currency account in your name (guide 6).
- Declare each project to the bank (guide 7).
- Have clients pay by SWIFT transfer into that account, or through Payoneer withdrawn the same day (guides 2 and 11).
If a relative abroad wants to help, they can give you a real gift from their own money. But a gift mustn’t be a way to route your earnings.
Key points
- Money received by a relative abroad stays abroad: an exchange-control offence.
- Legally, that money is theirs, not yours.
- A professional foreign currency account in your name solves the problem.
Sources
- Bank of Algeria Regulation 07-01 of 3 February 2007: art. 8, assets abroad, p. 2; art. 22, foreign currency accounts, p. 4, original text read on 22 October 2026.
- Bank of Algeria Regulation 21-01 of 28 March 2021: art. 2, new article 57 of Regulation 07-01, p. 2, original text read on 22 October 2026.
- Ordinance 96-22 as amended: Ordinance 03-01, art. 2 (new article 1, offences) and art. 4 (article 2), Official Journal no. 12 of 2003, p. 14; Ordinance 10-03, art. 1 bis (penalty), Official Journal no. 50 of 2010, p. 8, read on 22 October 2026.
- Payoneer, withdrawing to a bank account: FAQ (account in the holder’s name), read on 22 October 2026.