Cameroon’s phone import duty reform: the backlash, the debate and what happens next

Cameroon’s customs authority has pulled in 1.8 billion FCFA — roughly 2.7 million euros — in duties and taxes on imported phones, tablets and digital terminals between April and early September 2026, a haul that has triggered a heated public debate and left importers scrambling for answers. Before the reform took effect, clearing phones for the market fed barely 100 million francs a month into state coffers. Now that the figures are out, the argument has shifted from whether the mechanism works to who pays for it and where the market goes from here.

At avenue Kennedy, traders weigh the fallout

Avenue Kennedy in Yaoundé, the country’s main hub for imported handsets, is buzzing as usual — but the mood among sellers is anything but settled. Seydou, who deals in second-hand phones, says the new declaration and clearance system has created fresh headaches for him and his customers. “We bring in used phones that sell here for between 20,000 and 25,000 CFA francs. They get cleared at the airport, but the customs officers don’t record the serial numbers. When we sell them, buyers come back complaining that they keep getting messages saying their phones will be blocked.”

Since 1 April, prices have climbed, according to this retailer. Gérard Fontem, another vendor, says buyers are caught in a bind: “Customers aren’t interested in buying phones that haven’t been cleared, but they can’t afford the price of the ones that have been. So it’s costing us a lot.” Some of his handsets now sell for nearly double what they did before, jumping from 45,000 to 85,000 CFA francs.

Customs: those crying foul never paid in the first place

Paul Olivier Libii, a principal customs inspector and focal point for the reform at the general directorate in Yaoundé, dismisses the idea that importers are being squeezed. “Those who say the price of phones has gone up are the ones who weren’t paying their taxes,” he argues. “For those who were paying on the basis of a transactional value of 66%, the price of a phone will actually fall. But those who weren’t paying used the customs duty as an adjustment variable to undermine those who did. The new mechanism puts everyone on the same footing.”

The reform is not a new tax, Libii insists, but a new collection system built on digitisation. “The transactional value has been divided by four, even by seven. We have eight collection categories ranging from 5,000 to 400,000 CFA francs. The overall rate has dropped from 67% to 33.33%, so these are facilitation measures.” Around five million phones are still slipping through the net, he adds — devices the customs services promise to track down.

What comes next for buyers and sellers

With the revenue surge now on the record and the complaints just as loud, the coming months will test whether the mechanism can hold. Customs is betting that wider digitisation and the hunt for undeclared handsets will bring the remaining five million devices into the system, while importers warn that demand could dry up if prices stay high. For consumers, the near-term outlook is a market split in two: cleared phones with a paper trail, and a shrinking grey zone that authorities say they intend to close.

By Élise Ntamag — Regional policy