Ordonnance n°2025/002 fixant les incitations à l'investissement en République du Cameroun
In force
Ordonnance n°2025/002 du 18 juillet 2025
Applies to both
Ordonnance n°2025/002 is dated 18 July 2025. Loi n°2025/015 of 17 December 2025 ratifies the ordinance. The ordinance fixes investment incentives for natural and legal persons, Cameroonian or foreign, resident or non-resident. The sectors eligible for the ordinance's advantages include the sector of infrastructure for storing and processing digital data.
The ordinance does not apply to the upstream petroleum, mining and gas sectors, which have their own texts, or to the commerce and distribution sector. A company developing a new project receives the incentives if it meets at least two of the criteria set out in Article 7. An approved new project receives the Article 10 advantages during an installation phase of at most five years from the date the approval is issued.
Those advantages include exemption from customs duties and taxes on imported materials and equipment directly tied to the investment programme. The operating phase of an approved new project cannot exceed five years.
In the operating phase, category A projects, with investment below 1 billion FCFA, pay a reduced customs duty of 5% on imported equipment and spare parts tied to the programme and receive a profit-tax credit equal to 25% of the investment made, capped at half of the profit declared for the year. In the operating phase, category B projects, with investment from 1 billion to 5 billion FCFA, pay the same reduced customs duty of 5%.
In the operating phase, category C projects, with investment above 5 billion FCFA, pay the same reduced customs duty of 5% and receive a profit-tax credit equal to 75% of the investment made, capped at half of the profit declared for the year. Managers of economic zones and the companies established in them receive an operating phase extended to seven years for their new projects.
A beneficiary must send the investment-promotion body an annual report on the investment programme within three months of the start of the fiscal year. An approved investor pays the investment-promotion body an annual fee of 0.1% of the amount invested, subject to a ceiling of 5 million FCFA and a minimum of 100,000 FCFA. Investors under a prior regime keep their advantages until that regime expires.
Article 51 repeals earlier provisions contrary to the ordinance, notably Loi n°2008/009 of 16 July 2008 on the tax, financial and accounting regime of partnership contracts and Loi n°2013/004 of 18 April 2013 on private-investment incentives, as amended by Loi n°2017/015 of 12 July 2017.
Source: Full text of law
Loi n°2013/004 du 18 avril 2013 fixant les incitations à l'investissement privé en République du Cameroun
Repealed
Loi n°2013/004 du 18 avril 2013
Effective 2013-04-18 · Applies to private
Cameroon's general private-investment incentives law, adopted by the National Assembly and promulgated by the President on 18 April 2013, was amended and supplemented by Loi n°2017/015 du 12 juillet 2017 and has been repealed. Article 51 of Ordinance n°2025/002 of 18 July 2025 fixing investment incentives in the Republic of Cameroon repeals the 2013 law as modified and supplemented by the 2017 law. Parliament ratified that ordinance by Loi n°2025/015 of 17 December 2025.
Under Article 47 of the ordinance, investors under a prior regime keep their advantages until that regime expires.
It aimed to favour, promote, and attract productive investment to develop activities oriented toward strong, sustainable, and shared economic growth and employment, and applied to investment operations involving the creation, extension, renewal, restructuring of assets, or transformation of activities by a Cameroonian or foreign, resident or non-resident, natural or legal person; it excluded sectors already governed by particular texts, notably the upstream petroleum sector, mining, and gas, as well as the general regime of partnership contracts.
An investor had to hold an agrément (Article 18), granted as amended in 2017 by the body in charge of promoting investment, or of small and medium enterprises, after the finance minister's opinion, which was deemed favorable if it was not given within fifteen working days (Article 19), to claim any incentive.
During an installation phase of up to five years from the agrément, the investor was exempted from registration duties on incorporation or capital-increase acts, registration duties on professional-use property leases and transfer duties on property acquired for the programme, VAT on foreign-sourced project-setup services, business licence tax (patente), and customs duties and import VAT on programme equipment, with direct customs removal of that equipment (article 6).
During an operating phase of up to ten years, the investor could obtain exemptions or reductions on the minimum-perception tax, corporate income tax, tax on income from movable capital on dividends, the special tax on income paid to foreign service providers during project development and construction, and customs duties on imported equipment, construction materials, and consumables without a local equivalent, plus a five-year loss carry-forward (article 7).
Non-compliance with the agrément's conditions drew administrative, tax, and financial sanctions, from a formal notice through a fine to withdrawal of the agrément, applicable only after a 30-day formal notice went unanswered (articles 27-28); the law itself stated no fixed fine amounts.
Source: Full text of law