I work in digital rights advocacy at Paradigm Initiative, but before that, I was simply another young Cameroonian trying to understand how the internet became the most liberal space our country has ever known. You can start a business on WhatsApp and not have to worry about the logistical issues associated with rent, equipment and/or physical presence. You can sell items on Instagram without knowing a single person, and we have young people writing code from the comfort of their rooms in Buea, Dschang, Bambili, or Yaounde, earning dollars from clients they may never meet physically. For many a Cameroonian, the internet did something the traditional economy never quite managed: it broke the grip of gatekeeping and let everyone in. Or at least, almost everyone.

Across Africa, organisations like Paradigm Initiative have spent years working to ensure that digital expansion remains inclusive of every segment of the population. Through digital inclusion programmes, youth digital-skills training, policy research, and advocacy for open and secure internet access, the emphasis has always been on access to work hand in glove with optimisation. When young people are connected, empowered with skills, and protected by rights-respecting digital policies, economies grow organically. It is at this point that taxation frameworks can then build on that growth as a solid foundation rather than risk slowing it at the earliest stages of opportunity creation.

That is why the new digital taxation provisions in the 2026 Finance Law deserve careful reflection and a line-by-line understanding for the everyday Cameroonian. Taxation is necessary, and no serious person disputes that. Every government needs it to fund services, infrastructure, and development. But taxation, especially in fragile digital ecosystems, must be built diligently, as if it is introduced without adequate safeguards, it can strangle the opportunities it was meant to feed on in later stages of growth. 

Starting January 1, 2026, Cameroon’s new digital tax law outlined in the 2026 Finance Law, imposed a 3% tax on the turnover of non-resident digital companies with a “significant economic presence” in the country. It targets platforms with over a thousand local users or 50 million CFA francs in annual revenue.

The most worrying feature of the new law is not really the 3% levy itself, but the structure around it. The definition of “significant economic presence” is so broad, meaning most or every global platform operating in Cameroon is expected to fall within the tax net. Once taxed, these platforms will do what businesses everywhere do: adjust prices. As is the case with streams that never flow uphill, so will the cost of this also quickly trickle down to the small trader promoting a Facebook post, the young developer paying for cloud tools, or the startup relying on foreign APIs to function.

Policy experts call this a cost pass-through. But in simpler terms, it is goods and services suddenly becoming more expensive for the everyday Cameroonian whose livelihood is remotely associated with digital platforms. The people most affected will not be multinational corporations or ‘big businesses.. They will be the micro-entrepreneurs who built businesses on platforms precisely because they could not afford to lift the traditional entry barriers. It could be an Instagram vendor in Bamenda, a designer in Douala, a student running a small e-commerce page in Yaoundé or a creative who just started cashing in on their streams. These are the actors who feel even small pricing changes immediately.

Secondly, Cameroon’s digital economy has grown amid a cloud of uncertainty shaped by past shutdowns, intermittent restrictions and infrastructure instability. When a new law requires foreign platforms to register locally, file reports and interface closely with regulatory systems, entrepreneurs do not only see taxation, but also possible new levers of control. This poses possible challenges of regulatory risk, unpredictability and more, depending on which side of the spectrum you pitch your tent. But capital, as history has always shown, prefers calmer waters. None of this means Cameroon should not tax digital economic activity. It however, advises that taxation must move hand in hand with protections that reassure users, startups, and investors that access to the internet will remain stable, neutral and free from arbitrary disruption. 

There is also a broader question of digital economic growth and status worth asking. A country like Cameroon is still grappling with building foundational digital infrastructure, expanding broadband, strengthening startup ecosystems, and encouraging youth innovation. At such a stage, policy should first accelerate participation, then later optimise revenue capture. Much like providing good roads, then using them to get to a desired destination. When revenue policy precedes ecosystem maturity, the unintended effect is often to slow the very growth the tax hopes to benefit from.

I often think about entrepreneurs in remote towns who discovered that the internet allowed them to compete with businesses in major cities. It not only cuts down the logistical challenge but also the administrative bottlenecks and the ‘go to Yaounde’ or ‘go to Douala’ way of having to do things. For them, digital platforms are an equaliser. Every additional cost layered onto that newfound access slightly tilts the playing field back toward those who already had structural advantages.

Cameroon stands at an important digital crossroads. The country is right to ensure that global technology companies contribute fairly to the economy. But this fairness must be balanced with foresight. The goal should not be merely to tax the digital economy but to grow it sustainably, and with rules that encourage participation and inclusion. If this policy unintentionally makes the smallest digital entrepreneurs pay the price, we may discover too late that we were not taxing global platforms after all. We were taxing the very future that young Cameroonians are spending sleepless nights trying to build.

Giyo Ndzi

The writer is Communications Officer at Paradigm Initiative.