Algeria's cash economy: what it means for your budget

How much cash circulates in Algeria

The Bank of Algeria's monthly statement at 30 November 2025 was published in the Official Journal of 31 May 2026. It shows 9 654.89 billion DA in notes and coins in circulation, out of a balance sheet of 21 113 billion DA. Cash therefore makes up 45.7% of the central bank's balance sheet. El Watan also notes that the figure rose throughout 2024, from about 8 215 billion DA in January to more than 9 000 billion DA by November.

The total moves from month to month. The statement at 30 September 2025, for example, showed close to 9 960 billion DA. Whichever month you pick, the order of magnitude holds: somewhere between 9 and 10 thousand billion dinars exists as physical notes and coins. Spread across the population, that comes to roughly 200 000 DA per person.

Electronic payment in Algeria: lots of cards, mostly used for withdrawals

Payment cards are now widespread. The 2025 report from GIE Monétique, the body that runs interbank card payments, shows how far they have spread and how they are actually used.

Card payments in shops doubled in a year, which is real progress. Even so, withdrawals were almost fifty times larger by value, and the average withdrawal came to about 18 700 DA. For most people, the card is simply the fastest way to turn a salary into notes. The bottleneck is acceptance: TSA counted about 80 000 terminals for 1.09 million merchants at the end of 2025, or roughly one shop in fourteen.

Financial inclusion in Algeria: what the World Bank data shows

Financial inclusion means that adults have, and use, an account at a bank, at the post office or with a mobile-money provider. The standard international measure is the World Bank's Global Findex , a survey of about 145 000 adults in 141 economies. Its 2025 edition found that 79% of adults worldwide had an account in 2024.

For Algeria, Global Findex puts account ownership at 35.3% of adults aged 15 and over in 2024, compared with 44.1% in 2021. The gap between men (51.9%) and women (18.1%) is wide. Read these numbers with some care. Findex asks people what they have, while card counts come from the issuers, and one person can hold several cards or a CCP account they rarely use. The two sources still agree on the main point: access has grown faster than everyday use.

Why Algerians still pay in cash

Habit is only part of the explanation. From an economist's point of view, cash survives because it still does several jobs better than the alternatives:

• It is accepted everywhere. A payment method needs a buyer who has it and a seller who accepts it. While few shops have terminals, a card is of little use for daily purchases, and while few customers pay by card, a terminal is of little use to the shop. Economists call this a two-sided network problem.
• It is final and costs nothing to use. Handing over notes settles the payment on the spot, with no network outage, no fee and no wait.
• It fits informal trade. The marché, the épicerie, the taxi, the tradesman paid by the day, the daret (a rotating savings circle) and credit at the corner shop all run on notes.
• It reflects caution and trust. Many families keep cash at home for emergencies, and some people simply prefer to see their money in hand.
• It is how wages are spent in practice. The salary may arrive in a CCP or bank account, but it is often withdrawn within days.

The supply side is changing. On 14 June 2025, Algérie Poste officially launched Baridi Pay, which lets CCP holders pay a registered merchant by scanning a QR code in BaridiMob, with no terminal needed. It was rolled out to pharmacies and neighbourhood shops first. How you pay is up to you. What this article cares about is your budget, whichever method you use.

What the cash economy means for your household budget

Cash affects spending in two ways. Behavioural economists describe a 'pain of paying': handing over notes feels more real than tapping a card, which can help you hold back. The other side is that small cash purchases leave no trace. Coffee, bread, a Yassir ride, a top-up at the hanout: none of it is recorded anywhere, and by the end of the month the money seems to have gone on nothing. Our article on mental accounting explains why this happens.

The most common bookkeeping mistake is to count an ATM withdrawal as spending. Here is an illustrative month for a household whose 72 000 DA salary is paid into a CCP account.

If you counted the withdrawals as expenses, you would add 55 000 DA of spending that never happened. Now suppose you count the notes in your wallet at the end of the month and find 4 500 DA, not 6 000 DA. The 1 500 DA difference is spending you didn't record. Write it down as 'untracked' rather than pretend it isn't there. That figure shows how much your tracking is slipping, and it usually shrinks within a month or two.

How to keep track of cash, Edahabia and CIB

Jibi was built for this kind of tracking. It is a free app in Arabic, French and English, available on the web, on iPhone and on Android. It has separate wallets for cash, Edahabia and CIB, each with its own balance, and you can add foreign-currency wallets at the rate you use. Jibi never connects to a bank, to Algérie Poste or to BaridiMob, and it never asks for card details. You note what you spend, and the monthly budget warns you when a category nears its limit. To see why that design matters, read about budgeting without linking a bank , or start with the monthly budget guide .

1. Open one wallet for each place your money is held: cash, Edahabia (CCP) and, if you have one, a CIB bank account. Give each its real starting balance.
2. Record every withdrawal or deposit as a transfer between wallets, never as an expense.
3. Note cash purchases on the same day. A rough note is fine: '1 200 DA, coffee and bread' is enough. Anything you leave out will be forgotten by Thursday.
4. Once a week, count the notes in your wallet and compare the total with the balance you expect. Record any gap as 'untracked' and move on.
5. Give each cash category a monthly limit (food, transport, children). If you prefer physical envelopes, the envelope method in dinars works well alongside this.