Tax on Your Savings and Investments in Cameroon: How the IRCM Works (2026)

One flat tax, not the salary bands

If you earn a salary in Cameroon, your tax is worked out on bands — 10%, 15%, 25%, 35% — and you can read how that machinery works in our guide to income tax in Cameroon. Money your savings and investments earn does not go through that machinery at all.

Interest, dividends and gains on shares fall into a separate category the General Tax Code calls revenus de capitaux mobiliers, and they carry a single flat rate that is taken off before the money reaches you. The tax is libératoire: once it has been withheld, that income has met its liability. It is not added to your salary and it does not push you into a higher band.

That is good news and bad news. The good news is that a large dividend cannot drag your salary into the 35% band. The bad news is that the flat rate applies from the first franc, so there is no tax-free slice the way there is on the first slice of salary — the reliefs come from a short list of exemptions instead, and they are worth knowing.

What counts as investment income

Article 35 of the Code puts four things in this category:

Products of shares and capital holdings — dividends and anything treated like them.
Bond income.
Income from receivables, deposits, guarantees and current accounts — this is the big one for ordinary savers. Article 41 catches interest on deposits "at call or at fixed term, whatever the depositary and whatever the purpose of the deposit". A fixed deposit at a commercial bank and a term account at a microfinance institution are both inside it.
Gains on the disposal of shares, bonds and other capital holdings.

The rates

What you receive	Rate in the Code	With the 10% council surcharge
Interest, dividends and gains — the standard case (Art. 70(1))	15%	16.5%
Dividends regularly distributed by a company with turnover of 3 billion FCFA or less (Art. 70(2))	10%	11%
Any of the above paid to a person domiciled or established in a tax haven (Art. 70(1))	30%	33%

The surcharge is not optional and it is not a bank fee. Article 71 adds 10% to the tax calculated under Articles 69 and 70 as centimes additionnels communaux — council additional cents. So the real cost of the standard rate is 16.5%, not 15%, exactly as the CAC works on salary.

Two special rates sit outside that table. Article 111 fixes 10% on dividends and on interest from bonds of under five years' maturity where the securities are listed on the Bourse des Valeurs Mobilières de l'Afrique Centrale, and 5% on interest from company bonds of five years or more. Article 111 sets these "by derogation from Article 70", while Article 71's surcharge is written as applying to Articles 69 and 70 — the Code does not settle on its face whether the surcharge rides on top of the Article 111 rates. Do not accept a number from an intermediary on that point. Ask for the withholding certificate, which shows what was actually applied.

What is genuinely tax-free

Article 43 exempts a short, specific list from personal income tax:

Interest on savings accounts, for placements not exceeding 50 million FCFA. For the overwhelming majority of savers in Cameroon, this means bank savings interest is simply not taxed. Note the wording: the Code puts the ceiling on the placement, not on the person, and says nothing about whether several savings accounts are added together. If you are anywhere near that level, get your bank's position in writing before you assume.
Interest on housing savings accounts (comptes d'épargne logement) — with no ceiling stated.
Interest on bons de caisse.
Interest on negotiable debt securities issued by the State and by decentralised local authorities.
Net overall capital gains of 500,000 FCFA or less in the year.
Interest on external loans of at least seven years.

Article 111(2) adds the exemption for net gains realised on the Central African securities market.

The 2026 change worth knowing

The 2026 Finance Law widened one of those exemptions, and the Director General of Taxation's circular of 2 March 2026 sets out exactly how far. The exemption that used to cover interest on Cameroonian government bonds now covers negotiable debt securities issued by any CEMAC member state — Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad. It reaches Treasury bonds (OATs), Treasury bills and sovereign paper issued by public offering under the regional market's rules, and it applies wherever the coupon is paid, so long as you are resident in Cameroon.

Practically: the paying institution should take no IRCM off the coupon at all, and you record the amount on your annual return as exempt income, where it has no effect on your taxable base. Keep the evidence — the circular expects the security's ISIN, proof the issuer is a CEMAC state, proof the payment was interest, and the depositary's statements. Without them the exemption can be withdrawn on audit.

You are taxed on the gross, and the tax is taken before you see it

Article 44 is blunt about the base. Dividends are taxed on the gross amount paid. Interest is taxed on the gross interest. Bank charges, custody fees and management costs do not come off first. The one place your costs count is capital gains: a gain is the sale price less the purchase price, losses in the year are netted against gains of the same class, and a net loss carries forward against gains for the following four years.

Collection is by withholding. Article 85 makes whoever pays you responsible for deducting the tax and remitting it within 15 days. Two pieces of paperwork are yours by right, and most savers never ask for either:

A withholding certificate — an attestation de retenue à la source, which the Code requires to be generated from the tax administration's own IT system, not typed up by the payer.
An annual statement by 15 March, under Article 74 bis(5): whoever paid you must give you a detailed recap of everything paid in the previous calendar year and the tax withheld on it.

If a bank or a company cannot produce these, that is a reason to press, not to shrug. They are also what you need to fill in your return.

Money earned abroad is still Cameroon's business

If you live in Cameroon and hold assets overseas, Article 86 applies. Where a Cameroonian intermediary pays you the foreign income, it withholds. Where you are paid directly abroad, nobody withholds — and the obligation moves to you: you must show it on your annual return and pay the tax yourself. Foreign platforms do not do this for you and will not warn you.

The return most savers do not know they owe

Article 74 bis requires non-professional taxpayers who receive investment income, rental income or any passive income to file an annual recapitulative return at the tax centre for where they live. The deadlines run by category:

31 July — senior public figures on the list fixed by MINFI, and public and parapublic sector employees.
30 September — employees of private-sector taxpayers managed by the DGE, the CIME or the specialised tax centres.
31 October — everyone else.

It can be filed online. You state, per category of income, what you received, what was already withheld or paid on account, and any balance. If it shows an overpayment, that is refundable or creditable against future tax on request.

New in 2026: 30% back for putting cash into a Cameroonian SME

Article 124 décies, introduced by the 2026 Finance Law, gives individuals tax-domiciled in Cameroon a credit against IRPP for cash subscribed to the capital of a small or medium enterprise — either at formation or in a capital increase. The circular sets the terms:

The company must have its seat or effective management in Cameroon, must not be listed on a financial market, and must have annual turnover excluding tax of 3,000,000,000 FCFA or less.
The contribution must be cash actually paid up — bank transfer, certified cheque or cash into the account. Contributions of equipment, patents or goodwill do not qualify, and neither does setting off a debt.
The credit is 30% of what you pay in, capped at 10,000,000 FCFA per taxpayer. Anything above your IRPP for the year carries forward for four years.
You must hold the shares for at least five years. Sell, redeem or otherwise lose ownership earlier and the credit is clawed back — except on death.
It is claimed on the Article 74 bis annual return.

The DGI's own worked example: subscribe 20,000,000 FCFA against gross IRPP of 4,500,000 FCFA, and the credit is 6,000,000 FCFA — enough to clear the year's tax and carry 1,500,000 FCFA forward.

What the Code does not yet say

Article 42 bis states that the rules for taxing income from digital assets are to be set by a separate act of the Minister in charge of Finance. The Code itself sets no rate and no base for them. Until that act exists and you have read it, treat any crypto tax figure quoted to you for Cameroon as unsourced.

Frequently asked questions

Is the interest on my ordinary bank savings account taxed? Not if the placement does not exceed 50 million FCFA. Article 43 exempts it outright.

My fixed deposit interest had tax taken off. Is that right? It depends what the account is. Article 41 brings term deposits into the taxable category, and only savings accounts get the Article 43 exemption. Ask for the withholding certificate and check what rate was applied.

Do I still file a return if everything was already withheld? Yes. Article 74 bis requires the annual recapitulative return from non-professional taxpayers with investment income, and the withheld amounts are declared on it.

Is a njangi payout taxed under these rules? A rotating contribution scheme returns your own money; it is not interest, a dividend or a share disposal. See our guide to saving and investing in Cameroon for where a njangi sits alongside formal products, and to growing your money in Cameroon for the order to build in.

Does deposit protection cover my invested money? No. FOGADAC covers deposits at a failed credit institution, not investment losses — see how FOGADAC works.

Sources

Code Général des Impôts, édition officielle mise à jour au 1er janvier 2025, Direction Générale des Impôts — Articles 35, 41, 42, 42 bis, 43, 44, 70, 71, 74 bis, 85, 86 and 111. Read 6 September 2026 at impots.cm.
Circulaire n° 008/MINFI/DGI/LRI/L du 2 mars 2026, Director General of Taxation, specifying how the Finance Law for 2026 (loi n° 2025/012 of 17 December 2025) applies — paragraphs 211 to 220 on the CEMAC securities exemption and 324 to 335 on the Article 124 décies credit. Read 6 September 2026.
Loi de finances 2026 and its Exposé des Motifs, Ministry of Finance / Direction Générale du Budget — used to establish which articles of the Code the 2026 Finance Law amended. Read 6 September 2026 at dgb.cm.

Rates and thresholds in Cameroon are reset by the Finance Law each December. Check the figure against the current Code before acting on a large amount.