If you have been told there is a new tax on telephones, the law does not say that. What exists is a way of collecting customs duty that was always owed on an imported handset and was almost never paid, because a phone arrives in somebody's pocket rather than in a container.
The instrument is article six of the Finance Law for 2023, Law No. 2022/020 of 27 December 2022, which amends article seven of the Finance Law for 2019. We hold that law and we read the article. It is short, and this is what it does.
What the article actually provides
Importers of mobile telephones, tablets and digital terminals must declare them when crossing the border and pay the customs duties and taxes due, by any authorised means of payment.
Customs, or its mandated agent, sends the identifying details of the imported devices to the local telephone companies electronically.
On the basis of that register, the telephone companies must configure their systems to prevent any connection by a device that Customs has not listed, except those used temporarily by tourists and visitors on a short stay in Cameroon.
Imported telephones, tablets and digital terminals get a 50% abatement on the taxable import value, for a period of twenty-four months.
Devices already connected to a local network before the mechanism takes effect are treated as cleared and receive a tax amnesty.
The second paragraph of the article leaves the operating rules to separate texts, and that is the first thing worth knowing: the law sets up the machine and says nothing about how you pay, where you pay, what proof you get, or what happens if the register is wrong.
What it costs
The duty itself is not in the Finance Law. It is in the customs tariff, and we hold the Commission's own copy of it.
| Line | What it covers | Duty |
|---|---|---|
| 8517.12.00 | Telephones for cellular networks and other wireless networks | 10% |
| 8471.30.00 | Portable data processing machines under 10 kg, which is where a tablet sits | 10% |
| 8517.70.00 | Parts | 10% |
On top of the duty come the charges that ride on every import: VAT at 17.5% plus the 10% council surtax, which is 19.25% in practice, the community integration tax at 1%, and the OHADA levy at 0.05%. Our import duty page sets out what each is calculated on, because they are not all calculated on the same base.
A worked example
A handset whose value on arrival is 300,000 FCFA, with the 50% abatement applied.
| Line | How it is worked out | FCFA |
|---|---|---|
| Value on arrival | Declared or assessed | 300,000 |
| Taxable value | Half of it, under the abatement | 150,000 |
| Customs duty | 10% of the taxable value | 15,000 |
| VAT with the council surtax | 19.25% of 150,000 + 15,000 | 31,763 |
| Community integration tax | 1% of the taxable value | 1,500 |
| OHADA levy | 0.05% of the taxable value | 75 |
| Total | 48,338 |
That is 16.1% of what the phone is worth. Without the abatement the same handset carries 96,675 FCFA, which is 32.2%.
The figure moves with the value, and the value is the one the administration accepts rather than the one on your receipt.
The thing nobody is publishing: the abatement may already have expired
The abatement runs "for a period of twenty-four months". The law does not say twenty-four months from what.
If it runs from the Finance Law that created it, the period began on 1 January 2023 and ended on 31 December 2024, which is fifteen months before the collection mechanism started operating. If it runs from the day the mechanism takes effect, it began in April 2026 and has until 2028.
We cannot settle it from the text. What we can say is that when the legislature means a period to run from a law, it says so in those words: article five of the 2026 Finance Law extends a health equipment exemption "for a period of twenty-four months", attached to a law that starts on a known date. On that reading the handset abatement is over and the base is the full value.
So the worked example above may be the best case, and the figure you are asked for at a counter may be double it. We are publishing the reading, not pretending to resolve it, and we would rather you walked in knowing the question than discovered it at the till.
The amnesty, which is wider than people think
Any handset that had already connected to a Cameroonian network before the mechanism took effect counts as cleared. Not discounted, not deferred: cleared, with a tax amnesty written into the law.
That covers almost every phone in the country on the day it started. It is the part of the article that protects ordinary users, and it is the part least often quoted.
Tourists and short-stay visitors are outside the system entirely. The law requires the operators to let their devices connect.
What we could not verify, and it matters
The law says the operating rules are set by separate texts. We have not been able to read those texts. That means everything operational about this scheme rests on documents we cannot put in front of you:
The dates. Collection is reported to have started on 1 April 2026. The telecoms regulator is reported to have frozen a cut-off set for 25 May 2026 and sent Customs and the operators back to negotiate. A finance ministry communiqué of 20 August 2026 is reported to have set blocking from 1 September 2026, for devices connecting for the first time after 1 April 2026. Every one of those is from press reporting. None of them is a text we hold.
The procedure. How a traveller declares a handset, what the payment produces, how an IMEI is checked, and what you do when a device you legitimately cleared is blocked anyway.
The mandated agent. The article allows Customs to act "or its mandated agent". Who that is, on what contract, and what share of the collection they keep, we do not know. On the passport, where the same structure exists, the contractor takes 82.40% of the fee. We are not saying that is the case here. We are saying it is the question to ask.
The revenue target of about 25 billion FCFA a year, which is quoted everywhere, comes from press reporting of government statements and not from the law.
Sources
Every document was read on 21 October 2026 unless another date is given.
- Law No. 2022/020 of 27 December 2022our copy, Finance Law for 2023, article six, which amends article seven of the Finance Law for 2019. Certified true copy filed at prc.cm, held in this repository. This is the instrument the scheme rests on and the only one quoted above.
- Law No. 2025/012 of 17 December 2025, Finance Law for 2026. Certified true copy, held in this repository. Read page by page over its customs chapter, articles five to fifteen, to confirm that it does not amend the handset article. It does not. Article five is cited above for how the legislature writes a twenty-four month period.
- Finance Laws for 2024 and 2025, held in this repository, read for the same reason and carrying nothing on handsets.
- Tarif des douanes de la CEMAC, the January 2009 edition published by the CEMAC Commission, for headings 85.17 and 84.71. Held, and not republished: see the note on our import duty page.
- General Tax Code, 2026 editionour copy, articles 142 and C 83, for the VAT rate and the council surtax.
- Press reporting for the dates and the revenue target, which is marked as such above and is not treated here as a source for any figure.
Page updated 21 October 2026