Losing Your Job in Cameroon: What Your Employer Actually Owes You (2026)

Cameroon has no unemployment insurance. When a job ends, what your employer hands over on the last day is the safety net — and the Labour Code treats it as up to four separate payments, not one. Most workers are paid one of them, told that is everything, and never find out otherwise.

The four are notice (or money instead of it), severance, the leave you never took, and — only where the dismissal was wrong — damages. Article 39(7) settles the point people argue about most: damages "merge with neither the indemnity for failure to observe notice, nor the severance indemnity". They stack. One does not buy out another.

Everything below applies to a contract of indefinite duration (CDI). A fixed-term contract is a different animal — under article 38 it can only end early by gross misconduct, force majeure, or written agreement between the parties.

Notice: the letter, and the day a week you are owed

Either side may end a CDI at any time (article 34(1)). But the side that ends it must give notice, and must notify the other in writing, stating the reason. A dismissal announced across a desk is not a compliant dismissal.

Three rules in article 34 do a lot of work and are widely ignored:

• Notice runs from the date of notification — not from when you were told informally.
• It may not be made subject to any condition.
• It may not be charged against your leave. An employer who sends you off on annual leave and calls that your notice period has given you no notice at all.

During the notice period, article 35(2) gives you one day off a week to look for work, taken in a block or hour by hour at your choice, paid at full salary.

How long is the notice? The Code leaves that to a ministerial order, which sets it by your professional category — the classification number on your contract or payslip — and your seniority.

Domestic workers are grouped with the 1st to 6th categories.

A collective agreement or your individual contract may set longer notice, and often does. Check your convention collective before accepting the statutory minimum.

If the employer skips the notice or cuts it short, article 36(1) makes them pay an indemnity equal to "the remuneration and the benefits of every kind" you would have received over the part not served. Not base salary alone — the housing, the transport, the responsibility allowance, all of it. The one exception is gross misconduct (faute lourde), and article 36(2) adds that the seriousness of the fault is for the court to assess. Your employer calling something faute lourde does not make it so.

Two warnings. Notice runs against you too: resign without giving it and you owe your employer the same indemnity. And if you are still on probation (engagement à l'essai), article 43 says the contract can be ended without notice and without either side claiming any indemnity.

Severance: the two-year rule

Article 37(1) sets exactly two conditions. Severance (indemnité de licenciement) is owed where:

1. the employer ended the contract — and not for faute lourde; and
2. you have completed at least two years of continuous service in that business.

Miss the two years and no severance is due, however unfair the exit felt. Meet them and it is owed on top of the notice pay — the Code says so in terms, "distinct from that of the notice".

Note the exact wording of the exclusion: faute lourde, the aggravated category. Ordinary serious misconduct (faute grave) does not remove severance, and the ILO's own worked example is of a worker dismissed for faute grave after 22 years who is still paid in full.

The amount is a percentage of your average monthly salary per year of service, rising in five-year bands:

Two details change the number materially. The base is your average monthly pay over the 12 months before the dismissal, so a recent raise pulls it up only partly. And allowances that merely reimburse expenses, plus benefits in kind, come out of the base — a transport allowance is not counted. Part-years count, down to the completed month.

Worked through: a person with eight years' service and an average monthly salary of 250,000 FCFA once the transport allowance is stripped out would be owed 20% for each of the first five years plus 25% for each of years six to eight — 250,000 FCFA plus 187,500 FCFA, so 437,500 FCFA.

Again, a collective agreement may be more generous. It cannot be less.

The leave you never took is money

Under article 89(1) you earn 1.5 working days of paid leave for every month of effective service — 18 working days a year — and article 90(3) adds two more working days for each complete five-year period of service.

While you are employed, article 92(5) forbids your employer from buying that leave out in cash. The moment the contract ends, the rule inverts: article 92(4) says a worker whose contract ends before the leave is taken receives an indemnity calculated on the rights accrued. Untaken leave is not forfeited on exit. It is converted.

You have three years from the day work ceases to claim it (article 92(3)).

When the dismissal itself was wrong

The most useful sentence in the Code for a worker is article 39(3): in every case of dismissal, it falls to the employer to prove that the reason it gives is legitimate. You do not have to prove you were wronged. Your employer has to prove it was entitled.

If it cannot, the dismissal is abusive and damages follow — and article 39(4) puts both a floor and a ceiling on them:

• never less than three months' salary, even for a worker with a single month's service; and
• never more than one month's salary per year of seniority.

The salary used is your average gross monthly pay over the last twelve months (article 39(6)). Dismissals motivated by your opinions, or by your belonging or not belonging to a union, are named in article 39(1) as abusive.

There is a lesser case. Where the employer had a legitimate reason but skipped the formalities — no written notification, no reason stated — article 39(5) caps the damages at one month's salary.

Redundancy has a procedure of its own

An economic dismissal (article 40(2)) is one for reasons unconnected with you personally: a post suppressed or transformed because of economic difficulty, technological change or internal restructuring. It carries a procedure, and skipping that procedure is itself grounds to attack the dismissal.

The employer must convene the staff delegates, in the presence of the labour inspector for the area, and look for alternatives first — shorter hours, shift rotation, part-time working, technical unemployment, reworking bonuses and allowances, even pay cuts. Those negotiations may not run beyond 30 clear days. A worker who refuses the agreed measures in writing is then dismissed with notice and, if qualifying, severance.

If cuts still have to happen, the order is set by three criteria in a fixed priority: professional aptitude first, then seniority and family responsibilities. The list goes to the staff delegates, who have eight clear days to reply in writing, and both documents go to the Minister in charge of Labour for arbitration. The burden of proving both the reason and the order sits with the employer. And for two years afterwards you have priority for re-hiring into the same business at equal aptitude.

The certificate of work

Whatever the reason for leaving, article 44(1) obliges your employer to hand you a certificate of work at the moment you go. Its content is closed: your start date, your leaving date, and the nature and dates of the jobs you held. Not the reason you left. An employer cannot brand the certificate with an accusation.

It is also exempt from all stamp and registration duty (article 44(2)) — nobody may charge you for it.

How to claim, and the free step people skip

Claims for termination money prescribe in three years (article 74(1)), which expressly treats termination indemnities as salary for that purpose. Crucially, article 74(2) stops that clock when you make a written claim to the labour inspector for the area. Put it in writing early: it costs nothing and it protects the deadline.

Then the route, which has one mandatory step:

1. Ask the labour inspectorate of your place of work to settle it amicably (article 139(1)). This is not optional. If you settle, the record signed by the inspector and the parties becomes enforceable once the court president has endorsed it.
2. If conciliation fails, the inspector draws up a non-conciliation record. Take it to the registry of the competent court and lodge your claim, orally or in writing.
3. Attach that record. Article 140(2) makes the claim inadmissible without it. This is the step most people skip, and it is why claims get thrown out before anyone examines the merits.
4. The court president must summon the parties within two days of receiving the claim, for a hearing within at most twelve (article 141(1)).

Two things make this more accessible than people assume. The procedure is free, at first instance and on appeal (article 138(1)). And you may be assisted or represented by a union representative, or by a worker in the same branch of activity (article 142(1)) — a lawyer is not required. The competent court is normally the one where you worked, but if you have since moved, article 132 lets you sue where you now live, provided both places are in Cameroon.

Questions people actually ask

My employer says I resigned. I did not. Say so in writing to the labour inspector immediately. Article 34(1) requires the party ending the contract to notify the other in writing with the reason, and article 39(3) puts the burden of proving a legitimate reason on the employer. Silence on your side is what makes a disputed resignation stick.

I was dismissed for serious misconduct — is my severance gone? Only faute lourde removes it (article 37(1)), and article 36(2) leaves the seriousness of the fault to the court, not to your employer's letter.

I have 18 months' service. No severance — the threshold is two years. But you are still owed notice or pay in lieu, payment for untaken leave, and your certificate of work, plus damages if the dismissal was abusive, where the three-month floor applies however short your service was.

Can my employer just pay me instead of working my notice? Yes, and article 36(1) says what that payment must be: the remuneration and the benefits of every kind for the whole unserved period. If the figure equals bare basic salary, it is short.

Related reading: understanding your payslip in Cameroon shows which of your pay elements are allowances and which are salary — the distinction that sets your severance base. Income tax in Cameroon covers how employment income is taxed while you are still earning it. And retirement in Cameroon explains what your CNPS record is worth once contributions stop.

Sources

• Loi n° 92/007 du 14 août 1992 portant Code du Travail (Cameroun) — official French text, read in full 4 September 2026. Articles 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44, 74, 89, 90, 92, 131, 132, 138, 139, 140, 141 and 142. Primary source; everything in this guide other than the two numeric tables comes from it.
• Arrêté n° 016/MTPS/SG/CJ du 26 mai 1993 (award and calculation of severance) — official text read in full on 24 October 2026 (FAOLEX copy of the gazetted text, cmr198306): article 1(a) two years' service and the faute lourde exclusion, "distincte de celle du préavis"; article 2(a) the base, "salaire mensuel moyen des douze (12) derniers mois précédant le licenciement"; article 2(b) the five bands, 20%, 25%, 30%, 35% and 40%; article 2(c) part-years "dans la limite du mois échu"; article 3 the exclusion of "indemnités représentatives des frais ou d'avantages en nature". The 25% / 35% / 40% scale that circulates in some summaries is not what the order says.
• Arrêté n° 015/MTPS/SG/CJ du 26 mai 1993 (conditions and duration of notice) — Journal officiel text as reproduced by juriafrica.com (lex 25767) and checked on 24 October 2026 against two further reproductions; all three carry the same table as the ILO guide below, with domestic staff grouped with categories I to VI, notice running from the day of notification (article 2) and the hand-over rule for staff responsible for funds, equipment or personnel (article 3). Together with Arrêté 016, the instruments that set the two tables above, made under articles 34(3) and 37(2) of the Code.
• Bureau international du Travail, Bureau de l'OIT à Yaoundé, "Guide du travailleur au Cameroun" — read 4 September 2026; reproduces both arrêté tables and works an example of each. Corroborating source only.

Last reviewed 24 October 2026 against the Labour Code and the two 1993 ministerial orders. This is general information about what the law provides, not advice on an individual case.

This guide states the law; it is not legal advice on your own dismissal. The labour inspectorate for your place of work is free to consult and is the correct first stop.