Tunisia honour loan: conditions, documents and how to file

Most of what circulates about Tunisia's honour loan starts at the amount and stops there: five thousand dinars, no interest. But the amount is not what decides whether your application is accepted or rejected. Your legal capacity is, because capacity fixes both the ceiling and the documents. Confusing one capacity with another makes the application non-compliant before anyone reads it.

This guide follows the order the file actually travels inside the bank: capacity, then conditions, then documents, then drafting, then filing, then counting the decision deadline.

What you need before you start

• A valid national identity card.
• A bank account identifier (RIB) for an account in your name or your company's name.
• A clearly determined capacity: individual, small-project promoter, or small or medium economic enterprise or community company.
• The purpose of the financing written in one verifiable sentence.
• No earlier financing from the same line still outstanding.

Where this entitlement comes from

The source is neither a bank initiative nor a temporary programme. It is Article 412 ter of the Commercial Code, inserted by Law 41 of 2024 dated 2 August 2024 as part of the reform of the cheque regime, which created short-term financing lines with no interest and no guarantees, funded by the banks out of their annual profits.

Decree 148 of 2026, dated 23 July 2026 and published in the Official Gazette on 24 July 2026, then set the conditions and criteria for granting them: the categories, the ceilings, the deadlines, and the prohibitions imposed on the bank.

A note on the 8 percent. What the press repeated — that every bank must allocate at least 8 percent of the previous accounting year's profits — comes from Article 412 ter, not from Decree 148. The decree itself handles the procedural and distributive side: at least 50 percent of the line's credits directed to small and medium enterprises and community companies, and funding of the dedicated account within no more than fifteen days of the bank's general assembly. In practice the provisions took effect from the banks' allocation of 2025 accounting-year profits.

What that paragraph gives you directly: the line is not primarily aimed at consumption. More than half of it is reserved for enterprises. If you run a project, you are in the category that received the largest share, not at the back of the queue.

Step 1: determine your capacity — this is where the ceiling is decided

The decree sets three categories with three ceilings, and they cannot be combined in a single application.

The line between the second and third categories is numeric, not impressionistic:

• Small project: total investment not exceeding 150,000 dinars, working capital included.
• Small or medium enterprise: investment between 150,000 dinars and 15 million dinars.

The most common mistake is a small-project promoter filing under the "enterprise" capacity to reach the twenty-five thousand ceiling. The result is not a reduced amount — it is a mismatch between the declared capacity and the attached documents, a formal rejection ground the bank does not have to argue.

Step 2: check the eligibility conditions

Read this as a checklist, not as an explanation:

1. No interest. The financing carries none.
2. No guarantees and no guarantor. The bank is prohibited from requiring securities or guarantees of any kind for this financing.
3. No fees. No commission and no file-study charges.
4. Repayment within two years at most. The financing is short-term by nature.
5. A grace period of no more than six months before repayment actually starts — a possibility, not an automatic right.
6. No new financing before the previous one is repaid in full. This condition attaches to the person, not to the financial year.
7. A decision within ten banking working days at most, with written, reasoned notification if refused.

Watch point 4. Several posts claimed a financing term of up to six years. That is wrong: the text speaks of short-term credits repayable within a maximum of two years, and the six months are a grace period, not additional repayment time. Building a repayment schedule on six years is building on a figure that does not exist.

In practice: five thousand dinars over two years after a six-month grace period means roughly eighteen actual months of instalments, about 278 dinars a month. Know that figure before you write the amount, not after.

Step 3: prepare the documents

The decree does not set a closed list of documents. That matters: the list is built from the declared capacity, and each bank may request an additional item. Here is what the circulating model has settled on.

For an individual:

• A copy of the national identity card.
• A document evidencing professional status or source of income.
• A bank account identifier (RIB).

For a small-project promoter:

• Everything above.
• Evidence the project exists: registration in the National Business Register or the tax identifier.
• A simplified project study showing how the financing will be used.

For an enterprise or community company:

• A copy of the National Business Register registration.
• The tax identifier.
• A copy of the legal representative's national identity card.
• A bank statement in the company's name.
• Evidence of the legal representative's capacity and authority to bind the company.

One practical rule covers the whole chapter: every figure you write in the application must be backed by a document that establishes it. If you state that your project's investment is under 150,000 dinars, the supporting document is what stops your application being reclassified.

Step 4: draft the application

The application is itself a written document addressed to the bank, and it must contain the following without omission:

• The applicant's full identity: name and surname, national identity card number, date of birth, address, telephone number.
• The capacity under which the financing is requested — only one of the three.
• The financing amount in figures and in words.
• The purpose of the financing, specific rather than generic.
• The bank account details (RIB).
• A declaration of commitment to the eligibility conditions, referencing Decree 148 of 2026.
• The date and signature.

The "in figures and in words" requirement is the one most people get wrong, and also the one that is hardest to fix afterwards, since in case of divergence the amount written in words prevails. The amount in words tool writes it in its correct form, and the honour loan request tool generates the full application in the circulating form under Decree 148, filled with your data, ready to print or copy into the bank's platform.

If you want to understand the conversion rules themselves rather than just take the output, the tutorial writing amounts in Arabic words with TypeScript explains why most implementations get thousand-subunit currencies such as the dinar wrong.

Step 5: file in the right place

Something essential changed in August 2026: the application is not filed at a branch counter. The Central Bank of Tunisia directed banks to create secure electronic platforms through which applications are filed and tracked, with a timestamp on every application and mandatory fields including the bank account number.

Two practical consequences for you:

1. Touring branches will not move you up the queue. Order is settled by the recorded filing date and time, not by a personal relationship with a branch.
2. Do not file the same application at several banks or several branches. The platforms are designed to detect duplicates through the link to the central risk registry; multiple filings weaken your position rather than strengthening it.

The details of that shift and the actual start of lending are in Honour loan: applications move to bank platforms, lending from September.

Step 6: count the ten days precisely

The deadline is not ten calendar days. It is ten banking working days from the filing of a complete application. Three points settle the count:

• "Complete" means complete. If a document is missing, the clock starts when the file is completed, not at first filing.
• Banking working days exclude weekends and holidays, so ten working days may mean two calendar weeks or more.
• A refusal must be written and reasoned. A verbal, unreasoned refusal does not discharge the bank's obligation.

Keep the filing receipt or the timestamp issued by the platform. It is the only document proving when the deadline started.

Mistakes that get an application rejected before it is read

Questions people actually ask

Can the bank require a guarantor? No. The prohibition on securities and guarantees is express in the text, and it is the sharpest difference between this line and an ordinary consumer loan.

Are there file-study fees? No. Nor a commission.

If I meet the conditions, am I guaranteed acceptance? No. The conditions make your application formally admissible; the decision remains the bank's, within the credits allocated to the line. But a refusal must be reasoned in writing.

I have a small business: individual or enterprise? If the purpose is operational (raw materials, equipment, cash flow), the enterprise capacity is the matching one, and it is also the category to which at least 50 percent of the line's credits were reserved. The individual capacity covers consumption needs.

Can I split the need into two applications? No. No new financing before the previous one is repaid in full, and the platforms detect duplicates.

Next steps

If the financing is for a company, your obligations do not end at disbursement. Read the e-invoicing in Tunisia guide and the El Fatoora TTN registration guide, then check your withholding-tax file before filing it.

Conclusion

The honour loan is neither a grant nor luck. It is a process with a text behind it (Decree 148 of 2026), a ceiling that follows your capacity, documents that establish that capacity, and a measurable decision deadline of ten banking working days. Whoever settles capacity, documents and the amount in words before the platform opens files on day one, not in week three.

Start from honour loan request: choose your capacity, fill in your data, get the application ready. The tool runs inside your browser and your data never leaves your device.

Disclaimer: this guide is indicative, does not replace legal advice, and does not guarantee acceptance. Check the decree text in the Official Gazette and the document list with your bank.

And if you are on the other side of the table — a bank or institution building a filing platform with timestamps, duplicate detection and a measurable decision deadline — ask for a technical diagnostic before the tool is chosen for you.