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Cameroon Withholding tax rates

Cameroon Withholding tax rates: no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 21 Aug 2026.

The withholding taxes Cameroon levies at source on payments to non-residents - the impot sur le revenu des capitaux mobiliers (IRCM, plus 10% centimes additionnels communaux) on dividends and interest, and the Taxe Speciale sur le Revenu (TSR) on royalties and services paid to persons domiciled outside Cameroon - each at its domestic statutory rate before any tax-convention relief. Imposed by the Code general des impots (arts. 70-71, 225 et s.), administered by the Direction generale des impots (DGI).

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Current valuestructured — see the API
In force from—
Official sourceRépublique du Cameroun, Code Général des Impôts - Édition 2024, published by the Direction Générale des Impôts (Ministère des Finances). Art. 70(1): 'Pour le cas spécifique des revenus des capitaux mobiliers, il est appliqué un taux libératoire de 15 % sur le revenu imposable. Ce taux est porté à 30% pour les revenus des capitaux mobiliers versés à une personne physique ou morale domiciliée ou établie dans un territoire ou un Etat considéré comme un paradis fiscal au sens de l'article 8 ter'; Art. 71: 'L'impôt calculé et le minimum de perception prévus aux articles 69 et 70 ci-dessus sont majorés de 10 % au titre des centimes additionnels communaux' (= 16,5% total); Art. 35 lists among revenus de capitaux mobiliers 'les produits des actions, parts de capital et revenus assimilés', 'les revenus des obligations' and 'les revenus des créances, dépôts, cautionnements et comptes courants'; Art. 225(1) institutes the TSR 'sur les revenus servis aux personnes morales ou physiques domiciliées hors du Cameroun ... d'une manière générale, des sommes versées à l'étranger, en rémunération des prestations de toute nature fournies ou utilisées au Cameroun'; Art. 225 ter(1): 'les taux de la Taxe Spéciale sur les revenus sont fixés ainsi qu'il suit : - taux général : 15% ; - taux moyen : 10% ; - taux réduit : 3% ; - supprimé.'
Last verified2026-08-21
Verificationprimary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited.
Every rate now comes from the Code Général des Impôts itself, in the Édition 2024 that the Direction Générale des Impôts publishes on impots.cm - no commercial summary remains anywhere in this series. This closes the gap the previous note described: the TSR tier VALUES, which had been taken from PwC because the mirror then available was the 2020 consolidation carrying 15/10/5/2, are now read directly from the official text, where Art. 225 ter(1) reads 'taux général : 15% ; taux moyen : 10% ; taux réduit : 3% ; supprimé' - the fourth tier expressly deleted. One edition caveat: the DGI's most recent publication is the Code updated to 1 January 2025, but it is posted only as a sequence of page-image JPGs with no machine-readable or PDF version, so the newest fully readable official edition is 2024. The 15/10/3 structure read from that edition matches what PwC reports as at 31 December 2025, so no post-2024 change to these rates is indicated.
Provenancesource fingerprint

What this value means

THERE IS NO SINGLE WITHHOLDING TAX RATE, WHICH IS WHY value IS NULL. Cameroon withholds under two regimes - IRCM on investment income and TSR on cross-border royalties and services - at different rates. A caller wanting a number must name which payment type; read withholding_rates rather than expecting a headline figure. ALL RATES ARE DOMESTIC STATUTORY RATES, BEFORE TREATY RELIEF. Arts. 225 and 225 ter open 'Sous reserve des conventions fiscales internationales'. We do NOT serve treaty rates: they are bilateral and applying one is a legal determination rather than a lookup. THE 16.5% IS A COMPOSITE: the statutory IRCM rate is 15% (art. 70(1), liberatoire), uplifted by the 10% centimes additionnels communaux (art. 71) to 16.5% in total - the figure conventionally quoted and served here. Payments to beneficiaries in territories regarded as tax havens bear 30% + CAC = 33%. ROYALTIES SIT IN THE TSR, NOT THE IRCM: art. 225 expressly lists droits d'auteur, software use, patent/trademark licence sales and rentals, film rights, and know-how among TSR-taxed payments at the 15% general rate. NO effective_from IS SERVED at series level: the IRCM rates long predate the current code editions and the TSR tiers have been revised by successive finance laws whose individual commencement dates are not stated by the sources read; each rate is as stated at last_confirmed.

Get it programmatically

curl https://afriref.dev/v1/cm/withholding-tax
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://afriref.dev/v1/cm/withholding-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://afriref.dev/provenance/cm/withholding-tax

Other Cameroon series: Policy interest rate (BEAC TIAO) · Value added tax (TVA) · VAT registration threshold · Guaranteed interprofessional minimum wage (SMIG) · Public holidays · Consumer price inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax (Impot sur les Societes) · Statutory interest (taux d'intérêt légal) · Personal income tax (IRPP) - salary schedule · Statutory social-insurance contributions

The same figure elsewhere: Central African Republic · Chad · Côte d'Ivoire · Democratic Republic of the Congo · Egypt · all 34