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Long-Stay Visa - Independent Professional or Operator

CameroonStarting a business

Explore the five recorded questions, answers and sources for this pathway.

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Get your free results Read the five questions ↓

Is this for a founder, startup entrepreneur, self-employed person, freelancer, company owner or another business profile?

This long-stay route is for a foreign national who individually practises a liberal, commercial, industrial, agricultural, pastoral, cultural, or handicraft profession in Cameroon. The decree does not define it as a startup or digital-freelancer programme.

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Limits of the record
  • No special startup, innovation, or freelance category is described in the source.

What must actually exist or be demonstrated: business plan, company, innovation, clients, contracts, economic activity, job creation or other substance?

The decree describes individual professional activity rather than employment by a local employer. For a liberal profession or a promoted activity, an authorisation from the competent authority is required when the law requires one.

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Limits of the record
  • The source does not give a single universal authorisation or licensing list for all listed activities.

What investment, capital, income, revenue, funding or viability evidence is central to this pathway?

The long-stay visa file includes a repatriation guarantee and category-specific authorisation where required. The cited provisions do not set a minimum investment, turnover, capital, or income amount for an independent professional.

See recorded sources
Limits of the record
  • A repatriation guarantee is not an investment threshold; no business-plan, revenue, or job-creation threshold is stated here.

What business/self-employed activity may the holder conduct? Are there important restrictions? What is the family position where clearly stated?

The decree identifies individual professional activity across the listed sectors. A long-stay visa is the only visa category that opens the right to carry out remunerative or professional activity; a competent-authority authorisation is still needed where required.

See recorded sources
Limits of the record
  • The captured rules do not define employer-switching, sector-change, or family work rights for this route.

What approval/application sequence applies, how long is the status granted, how is it renewed, and what longer-term residence direction is officially stated?

The long-stay visa may be granted to a foreign national whose intended stay in Cameroon exceeds six months, and its validity cannot exceed twelve months. Entry visas can be extended only in a case of force majeure assessed by the Minister in charge of external relations. A residence card (carte de séjour) is granted for a stay of at least two years and less than six years and is valid for two years, renewable. Under the 2023 implementing decree, independent workers are foreign nationals in stay, and those who have regularly stayed in Cameroon for at least six consecutive years fall within the category of resident foreign nationals; this is a separate status, not an extension of the visa. The resident card is valid for ten years, renewable.

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Limits of the record
  • The official source does not state the complete answer to this question for this route.

These are the answers currently recorded in the catalogue. A missing or partial answer is not an eligibility decision.

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