Foreign Exchange Rules in Cameroon: What You Can Send, Hold and Carry (2026)

Cameroon does not write these rules — CEMAC does

There is no Cameroonian foreign exchange code. Cameroon shares the Central African CFA franc with five neighbours, and the rules on what you may send, hold, carry and spend in foreign currency are written for the whole zone by the CEMAC Ministerial Committee and enforced by the regional central bank, the Banque des États de l'Afrique Centrale (BEAC), with COBAC supervising the banks.

The governing text is Règlement n° 02/18/CEMAC/UMAC/CM of 21 December 2018, in force since March 2019, with the detail filled in by Instructions signed by the BEAC Governor. Two of those Instructions cap what your bank may charge you, and almost nobody quotes them back at the counter. For corridors, operators and what actually arrives, see the complete guide to sending and receiving money in Cameroon.

The peg, and why your bank may not mark it up

Article 7 fixes the currency: 1 franc CFA = 0.001524 euro. Conventionally the same parity is quoted the other way round, 1 EUR = 655.957 FCFA. It is a legal parity, not a market rate, and it does not move.

That matters for pricing. Instruction n° 002/GR/2019, article 5, says the rate applied to transfers outside CEMAC in euro and other Franc Zone currencies "corresponds to the legally established parity and may not be the subject of any increase or reduction for any reason whatsoever". For other currencies — dollars, pounds, rand — the applied rate may not sit more than 3% away from BEAC's daily published rate. So on a euro transfer there is no exchange margin to hide a fee in: whatever your bank earns has to show up as a commission, and the commission is capped.

What your bank may charge to send money out

Outgoing commission: 1% of the amount, before tax, maximum (Instruction 002/GR/2019, article 2). That is the bank's own commission.
0.50% maximum where the transfer is work income covered by article 91 of the Règlement — salaries, fees, per diem, allowances and benefits sent out by a non-resident or a foreign resident. This is the expatriate-salary rule, not a general discount for anyone remitting a wage.
Minimum commission: 5,000 FCFA (article 3), meant to cover everything charged to you for the transfer, including BEAC's own commission. The one exception is genuine correspondent-bank fees, which must be passed on "without any mark-up" and disclosed to you before the transfer is executed.
BEAC's own commission: 0.5% before tax on outgoing transfers outside CEMAC (Instruction 002/GR/2020, article 2, in force since 1 January 2021). BEAC's text says this comes in addition to the bank's capped 1%.
Incoming transfers: 0.25% before tax, maximum (article 4). On money arriving for you, the deduction on this side is small and capped.

Two things follow. Article 6 requires every approved intermediary to display its outward-transfer conditions "visibly, legibly and easily accessibly" at every point of sale — if a branch cannot show you its tariff, that is itself a breach. And article 8 says that where the caps are exceeded, the excess is paid over to BEAC automatically, on top of penalties. These are ceilings, not guidance.

How much can leave without paperwork

Article 6 of the Règlement sets the free-flow line: current transfers abroad are free, but you must justify the origin of the funds and produce the documents the regulation asks for — except within 1,000,000 FCFA per month per economic agent, where a simple indication of where the money came from is enough (the bank still declares it to BEAC).

Above that line article 94 requires supporting documents with the request, and article 88 adds that any transfer abroad above 100,000,000 FCFA must be declared to BEAC and to the ministry responsible for money and credit at least 30 days before it happens.

Article 95 then lists transfers that are explicitly free on production of documents, and the list is broader than most people expect: foreign taxes and fines, social contributions, pensions and insurance, court-ordered damages, family support for illness, study or subsistence, gifts and inheritances, proceeds of asset sales, and donations to charitable, medical-research or humanitarian bodies up to 10,000,000 FCFA per year per payer.

Your card abroad, and your online subscriptions

This is the part that touches most readers and is almost never explained. Instruction n° 008/GR/2019 covers immediate-debit cards, deferred-debit and credit cards, and prepaid cards used outside CEMAC.

At foreign ATMs and card terminals: free up to 5,000,000 FCFA per person per trip (article 5). Above that you must justify the amounts, before or after (article 6).
Online and other remote payments: free up to 1,000,000 FCFA per month per person (article 7). Above that ceiling the payments are still allowed, but you must send the supporting documents to your bank, by any means that leaves a trace, within 30 days (article 8).

Card issuers report these transactions to BEAC monthly, itemised down to holder, amount, purpose, place and beneficiary (article 10). If your card keeps being declined on foreign sites, the article 7 ceiling — and how your bank implemented it — is the first thing to ask about, not the last.

Cash across the border

Two separate rules, often confused:

Notes and cash generally: an individual crossing a CEMAC border, in either direction, may carry up to the equivalent of 5,000,000 FCFA without declaring it — foreign currency and CFA francs counted together (article 78). Anything above that, including negotiable instruments, must be declared to customs. Customs may ask where the money came from, and if you cannot show them, they confiscate it and hand it to BEAC.
CFA coins: exporting franc CFA coins is prohibited outright. Residents may hold a maximum of 5,000 FCFA in coins when travelling (article 12).

Two more catch travellers out. Resident travellers entering CEMAC must sell the foreign currency they are carrying to an approved intermediary (article 78). And non-residents leaving may take out at most what they declared on the way in; with no declaration, they must justify anything above 5,000,000 FCFA (article 79).

Separately, article 77 caps the foreign currency your bank may issue you for a trip at the equivalent of 5,000,000 FCFA per person per trip, all payment methods combined — cash, transfer, bank card and prepaid card together. Above that, a properly justified request can still be met. Article 80 sets the paperwork: a valid travel document and a ticket for everyone, plus a professional card or attestation for business travel, proof of enrolment or a scholarship letter for students and interns, and a mission order for official travel.

Foreign-currency accounts: what a resident may and may not have

This is the strictest part of the regime, and the most misunderstood.

Inside CEMAC, opening a foreign-currency account for a resident is not authorised (article 43). BEAC can authorise a resident company to hold one; the permission is not written for individuals.
Outside CEMAC, the outright ban in article 41 is written for resident legal persons, credit institutions excepted. For individuals, article 42 sets a different duty: accounts held abroad by resident individuals must be declared to BEAC. The Règlement states the duty and publishes no form or deadline for individuals. In practice, ask your bank, which deals with BEAC's national directorate for Cameroon in Yaoundé, how it files the declaration on your behalf, make the request in writing, and keep the acknowledgement.
Where a resident foreign-currency account does exist it cannot be fed from CFA francs, cannot go overdrawn (article 44), and withdrawals from it to cover local spending are prohibited (article 45).
Underneath all of it sits article 36: foreign currency held in a member state, whoever owns it, is sold to or deposited with a credit institution — and article 37 requires residents to sell their bank all income cashed in foreign currency abroad or paid to them by a non-resident.

For the diaspora the mirror image is friendlier: non-residents may open both foreign-currency and CFA accounts in Cameroon freely, subject to the bank informing BEAC afterwards (articles 46 and 51). But watch article 50 — losing non-resident status automatically closes the non-resident account, and the balance moves into a resident CFA account. If you are moving home, that is a conversion to plan, not discover.

Whatever the account, deposit cover is a separate question — see how FOGADAC protects your money.

What it costs to get it wrong

Article 168 sets the money penalties on exchange and travel operations:

Refusing to sell foreign currency to a customer without a reason: 5% of the amount the customer asked for. That penalty is aimed at the bank, not you.
A resident failing to sell foreign currency to an approved intermediary: 10% of the amount not sold, and it still has to be sold.
A traveller failing to declare cash above the threshold: 15% of the excess, plus confiscation of the undeclared money and of anything used to hide it — and that is before the CEMAC anti-money-laundering rules are applied on top.

Article 170 adds 10% of the operation for failing to pre-declare a capital transaction, and article 157 allows a repeated breach to be fined at double or triple.

Questions people ask

Can I open a dollar or euro account at my bank in Douala? As an individual resident, no — article 43 does not authorise it. BEAC can authorise a resident company. If a bank offers you one, ask which authorisation it is operating under.

Is it illegal to keep money in a foreign bank? The Règlement does not ban an individual resident from holding an account abroad. It obliges you to declare it to BEAC (article 42) and to sell foreign income to your Cameroonian bank (article 37).

How much cash can I fly out with? Up to the equivalent of 5,000,000 FCFA, foreign currency and CFA francs counted together, without declaring it. Above that, declare it to customs and be ready to show the origin. CFA coins are capped at 5,000 FCFA. Customs publishes no dedicated currency form: make the declaration at the customs desk at Douala or Yaoundé-Nsimalen, or at the land border post, before you cross, and carry the bank withdrawal slip or other proof of where the money came from.

My bank charged more than 1%. What now? Ask for the breakdown and separate the bank's own commission from BEAC's 0.5% and any correspondent fee. If the bank's commission still exceeds 1% before tax, that is a breach of Instruction 002/GR/2019 — article 8 says the excess is payable to BEAC. Raise it with the branch in writing first.

Does any of this apply to mobile money? The exchange rules apply to transactions with countries outside CEMAC, whatever the channel. Domestic MTN Mobile Money and Orange Money charges are a different question — see how to cut your mobile-money charges.

Sources

Règlement n° 02/18/CEMAC/UMAC/CM du 21 décembre 2018 portant réglementation des changes dans la CEMAC — CEMAC Ministerial Committee, published by BEAC. Articles 6, 7, 12, 36-37, 41-45, 46-52, 77-80, 88, 91, 94-95, 157, 168, 170. Read 1 September 2026.
BEAC, Instruction n° 002/GR/2019 du 10 juin 2019 relative à la tarification des opérations de transfert, articles 2-8. Read 1 September 2026.
BEAC, Instruction n° 002/GR/2020 du 22 septembre 2020 relative à la commission de transfert hors CEMAC à prélever par la Banque Centrale, in force 1 January 2021, article 2. Read 1 September 2026.
BEAC, Instruction n° 008/GR/2019 du 10 juin 2019 relative aux conditions et modalités d'utilisation à l'extérieur de la CEMAC des instruments de paiement électronique, articles 2-10. Read 1 September 2026.
BEAC, index of exchange-policy Instructions, consulted 1 September 2026 to confirm these are the current texts and that the 2026 and 2022 instruments address the extractive sector rather than individuals.

Every figure above is quoted from the instrument that sets it, with the date it was read. Check the current text before acting on a large amount.