Algeria 10-year resident card

Law No. 08-11 allows a 10-year resident card for a foreign national who has resided in Algeria continuously and lawfully for seven years or more. The same card may be issued to the holder's children who live with them and have reached 18. The card is discretionary ("may be issued"), and the ministry asks for a legal justification for the request; for a mixed couple this is the marriage certificate, registered with the Algerian civil registry or with an Algerian consulate abroad.

Continuity matters: under the same law, a resident who stays outside Algeria for an uninterrupted year loses resident status.

On top of the standard resident card file (form, birth certificate, five photos, medical certificate, passport copy, tenancy contract), the ministry lists: a sworn statement, on a form supplied by the administration, that you have lived in Algeria continuously and lawfully for more than seven years; a fiscal stamp of DZD 30,000; a copy of your current resident card; the legal justification for the request; a tax clearance extract (extrait de rôle apuré) less than three months old; and a certificate of affiliation less than three months old from CNAS for employees or CASNOS for foreigners in commercial, industrial, craft or liberal activities.

The 10-year card is still a resident card: it can be withdrawn if a condition is no longer met, address changes must be declared within 15 days, and an absence of one uninterrupted year ends resident status. Official sources do not describe a separate permanent residence permit beyond this card.

Holders of the 10-year card have more time to challenge an expulsion order. Ordinarily a foreigner has five days to bring an action before the administrative urgent-applications judge; for 10-year card holders, as for foreigners married to an Algerian for at least two years and those who have lived in Algeria since childhood with resident parents, the deadline is 30 days and the appeal suspends the expulsion, except in cases of state security, public order, morals or organised crime.