Offices and shops for rent in Tunis

Renting premises in Tunis rarely starts with the rent. You start from the business: a pharmacy needs footfall, a law firm needs an address and a lift, a wholesaler needs a door wide enough for a lorry, a service company needs air-conditioned offices and a parking space for its clients. Each delegation in the governorate meets one of these needs better than the others, and rents between an avenue in the centre and a neighbourhood street in Ezzouhour can easily differ by a factor of three.

The commercial premises for rent in Tunis published here come from owners and agencies: shops, street-level ground floors, practices, office floors and depots. You negotiate the lease directly with the advertiser. Supply varies from week to week, and is more plentiful in the centre and the business districts than on the outskirts.

Offices: Lac, Centre Urbain Nord, city centre

Companies looking for an office floor turn first to Les Berges du Lac and the Centre Urbain Nord. The buildings there are recent, with lifts, central air conditioning and underground parking, but service charges and security come on top of the rent. The city centre remains cheaper for a small outfit: a flat in Lafayette or on Avenue de Paris converted into an office is enough for an accountancy firm or a travel agency, with the metro and the station within walking distance. The page of offices and shops for rent in Bab El Bhar goes into the detail of these two markets.

The health professions have their own habits. Around the Bab Saadoun hospitals, in Le Bardo and in El Menzah, a practice that comes free is quickly relet. In Menzah and El Manar, the offices and premises for rent in El Menzah are often villa ground floors, valued for their separate entrance and parking that is easier than in the centre.

Shops: footfall comes first

For a shop, the rent follows pedestrian traffic. On the main avenues of the centre and around metro stations, a small unit with a shop window is expensive, and the owner often asks for key money. Le Bardo has its own shopping street, described on the page of commercial premises for rent in Le Bardo, with more reasonable rents as soon as you leave the avenue.

In the northern suburbs, La Marsa, Carthage and La Goulette partly live off the season: a café or a beach shop makes most of its turnover between June and September, while the rent is paid for twelve months. The premises for rent in La Goulette illustrate this balance. In the west and south, in El Hrairia, Sidi Hassine, El Ouardia or El Kabaria, a neighbourhood unit at the foot of a house remains the most affordable option for a grocery, a hairdresser or a workshop. Djebel Djelloud and the Béja road are where depots and hangars are concentrated.

The lease for commercial premises

Many people look for a commercial lease template before they have even found the premises. A template helps, but what matters is what you write in it. The lease must describe the premises and their floor area precisely, and set out the authorised activity, the rent, how often it is paid, the deposit, how service charges and repairs are shared, and the rule for reviewing the rent. Specify whether the rent is quoted before or after tax. Then have the lease registered at the tax office: without a registered contract, there is no business licence and no entry in the trade register.

The Tunisian commercial lease protects a tenant who has been running a business in the premises for several years: they acquire a right to renewal, and a refusal by the owner entitles them to compensation for eviction. This is why some landlords offer short leases or turn down certain activities. Discuss it openly from the first call, and have the contract reviewed by a lawyer or an accountant if the key money is high.

Visit before you sign

Come and see the premises at two different times, on a Saturday morning and on a weekday late afternoon, to gauge the real footfall. Check the electricity meter, the power available for air conditioning or a cold room, the drainage and the condition of the metal shutter. For a business open to the public, ask the municipality whether the use is compatible with the zoning. If you would rather own your premises, the page of offices and shops for sale in Tunis gathers the sale listings for the governorate.