Case Study · 06 of 06
Algeria ALCES & Single Window
First full-scale CMS in the Maghreb
Case Study · 06 of 06
From a customs office to a national trade gateway: Algeria's customs, digitized end to end.
Algeria ran customs on a legacy system, and trade permits still moved on paper. Traders visited several ministries for licences before goods could clear. The World Bank's Doing Business 2020 ranked Algeria 172nd of 190 economies for trading across borders, with document compliance taking 176% of the time and 154% of the cost seen in neighbouring countries.
In December 2018, during the Korean Prime Minister's visit to Algiers, the two customs administrations signed an MOU, and DGD contracted CUPIA to build a new national customs system on its own budget.
CUPIA did not transplant UNI-PASS. It rebuilt the system around Algerian law, local workflows and WCO standards, in French, and delivered it in two stages.
Stage 1 · ALCES. After business process reengineering, Phase 1 built the trade-facing core and Phase 2 the internal functions. Links to the port community system (APCS) and the SATIM payment network carry cargo data and e-payment.
Stage 2 · Algeria Single Window (KOICA). Built on ALCES, it brings 25 cross-border regulatory agencies and 91 permit types onto one portal — trader portal, agency portal, e-payment, data exchange and statistics. DGD engineers trained at Korea's customs operations centre, and CUPIA ran on-site source-code and technology-transfer courses so DGD can run the system itself.
ALCES went live in November 2023. Declarations, approvals, notifications and release now run without signatures or stamps, release documents carry QR codes, and headquarters monitors every customs office in real time. Within ten months, 70% of all declarations had moved onto ALCES.
The traveller service opened on 1 November 2024. In about ten months it issued 1.8 million vehicle temporary-admission permits and handled some 178,000 currency declarations, all electronically.
DGD officially declared the Single Window open in January 2025, and border agencies are joining in stages.
EWACS shows DGD, in real time, whether ALCES is healthy and whether it is doing its job. It combines three consoles: operations control (database, application and web servers), early warning (clearance, cargo and revenue volumes against normal levels) and security control (attacks such as DDoS).
Cumulative totals since go-live, as reported by DGD. 2024 figures count detailed declarations; the 2025 figure counts clearance files.
In the first half of 2025, customs revenue exceeded DZD 818 billion, up DZD 176 billion (about 27%) on the same period of 2024. Collection through settlements, auctions and enforcement also rose 16.66% in 2025, to more than DZD 52 billion.
| Period | Customs revenue (DZD) | Change |
|---|---|---|
| H1 2025 | 818 bn+ | +176 bn (≈ +27%) |
| H1 2024 | ≈ 642 bn | – |
| 2023 (baseline; ALCES live Nov) | 1,240 bn+ | +8.2% |
| 2022 (baseline) | 1,148 bn | – |
Figures are for Algerian customs as a whole, as announced by DGD; ALCES's share is not reported separately. H1 2024 is derived from the H1 2025 announcement.
“Our goal was never to bring UNI-PASS to Algeria. It was to build a world-class customs system made for Algeria.”
Jieho Lee — Director, CUPIA
