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This article analyzes links between LETS (Local Exchange and Trading Systems) and a civil and solidarity-based economy. LETS are defined as associations in which persons exchange services and goods by means of an internal accounting held in its own currency. The first LETS appeared in 1983. LETS and the new social economy shares some common purposes. Indeed, by their actions, LETS aims at the institution of new economic relations based on solidarity, proceeding from relational and spatial proximity. Market exchanges and State redistribution do not answer to these needs. However, the solidarity purpose of LETS is threatened by some features like, first, the risk that politics instrumentalize it, second, the legal and social constraint.