Cameroon moves to recover $500 million in unpaid gold taxes

The Cameroonian government announced that from 1 August 2026 it will launch a large‑scale crackdown to collect more than US$500 million in unpaid taxes and customs duties on gold exports. The Ministry of Mines, Industry and Technological Development cited the 2023 Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative report, which revealed a wide gap between officially declared gold volumes and actual shipments.

The operation will target two groups: 51 companies that extracted gold but reported lower output, and 33 newly discovered sites whose production has never been declared. Officials say the effort should recover at least 300 billion CFA francs (about US$524 million) in the short term, offsetting an estimated loss of 165 billion CFA francs. Mixed teams from the tax, customs, treasury and the state mining company Sonamines will be deployed on the sites, and a new real‑time tracking system for gold production will be introduced.

The reform aims to raise about 300 billion CFA francs in mining revenue for 2026, potentially making mining the country’s largest source of state income, overtaking oil.