The textile industry generates a large amount of wastewater containing various pollutants (dyes, heavy metals, salts, etc.), which cause severe problems to the environment. The treatment of these effluents by classical methods (activated sludge and physico-chemical) is very expensive for developing countries. In this context, alternative low-cost technology may be investigated. Among others, the treatment efficiency of a perforated intermittent sand filter was studied on a textile industry effluent in Abidjan. Various filter configurations (perforation area: 150, 300 and 600 cm2) were used. Conductivity, pH and light absorbencies at 436, 525 and 620 nm of the effluent and the filters filtrates were followed up. The relevant results are a decrease of pH from 11 to 6 and 9, desalination and a discoloration of about 45 % of the raw effluent at 436 nm. The best pretreatment of the raw textile effluent was obtained with the perforated intermittent sand filter having 150 cm2. The intermittent filtration of textile industry effluent on a perforated sand filter wise an area of 150 cm2 seems to be a promising alternative for the pretreatment of textile effluent.