Joining the civil service in Cameroon

Civil servants and state employees: two statuses

Civil servants are governed by the General Rules of the State Public Service, Decree No. 94/199 of 7 October 1994 as amended in 2000, and by the specific rules of their corps (health, revenue services, civil engineering, education and so on). A series of decrees from 2000 and 2001 sets out how it applies: the rules for civil service exams (Decree No. 2000/696/PM of 13 September 2000), annual leave, private paid activities, the disciplinary board, performance appraisal (Decree No. 2001/108) and the position of probationary civil servants (Decree No. 2001/116 of 27 March 2001).

Alongside civil servants, the state employs 'state employees governed by the Labour Code': decision-appointed staff (categories 1 to 6) and contract staff (categories 7 to 12), in the terminology of the Directorate General of the Budget. They hold a contract or an appointment decision rather than an integration order. Their pensions, long managed by the CNPS, were transferred to the Public Treasury by Law No. 90/063 of 19 December 1990. Contract staff can become civil servants by passing an exam; the 2026 exam orders then ask them for a copy of their contract or appointment decision.

Grades and required qualifications

Civil servants are divided into four grades, A, B, C and D; grades A and B are each split into two levels (A1 and A2, B1 and B2), the second being the higher. The General Rules as published online do not give a single table matching qualifications to grades: the specific rules of each corps, then the order opening each exam, set the qualification. MINFOPRA's orders of 4 June 2026 give a good picture.

News sites publish general 'qualification to grade' tables, but they contradict each other and the official orders: when in doubt, only the order opening the exam is authoritative.

Routes in

• The direct exam, open to Cameroonians meeting the age and qualification rules: in 2026, more than 880 direct-entry places (doctors, nurses, engineers, customs and others). See the civil service exams page.
• The entrance exam to a training school (ENAM, ENS, health schools and others), after which the student is integrated into the civil service.
• The professional exam, reserved for serving staff who want to move up a grade or change corps: at ENAM, grade B civil servants from certain corps may sit the cycle A exam with five years in grade and a maximum age of 45 (2026 session).
• Selection tests and 'auditeurs libres' (external trainees), used notably for teaching: in 2026, 100 places for technical education instructors and about 1,000 places for external trainees.
• Special recruitment drives ordered by the head of state: 25,000 young graduates from February 2011, then 2,000 PhD holders for the state universities, announced in late 2018 and planned over 2019 (1,000), 2020 (500) and 2021 (500), with the age limit raised to 45 and the drive opened to the diaspora; the results published by MINESUP cover 1,237 posts (2019), 549 (2021) and 573 (2022).

Eligibility and application file

The 2026 orders restrict the exams to Cameroonians who meet the 'general conditions of access to public employment' in the General Rules and are fit for the job. For MINFOPRA's direct exams, candidates had to be at least 17 and at most 34 on 1 January 2026 for grades A and B, and at most 29 for grades C and D. Disabled people holding a national disability card are allowed up to five extra years (Order No. 040/PM of 19 May 2022). Some schools set their own limits: 32 for ENAM's cycle A in 2026.

Files are submitted online at concoursonline.minfopra.gov.cm or at one of MINFOPRA's ten regional delegations. Certified documents must be less than three months old, and documents certified at a police station are rejected. Candidates who applied online and pass must then hand in a paper file at the ministry. Branches of the National Youth Observatory, in the multi-purpose youth centres, help with online registration free of charge.

From exam to first pay: staff number and AIGLES

Once integrated, the employee receives a staff number and must be 'taken on' by the payroll. Since 1 January 2025 this has gone through AIGLES, the state's computerised staff and payroll management application, available at portailaigles.gov.cm. According to the review presented by MINFOPRA in January 2026, it generated 19,715 new staff numbers and processed more than 500 integration orders and 872 confirmations in post in 2025; the project cost about 5.8 billion CFA francs. The ministry already offered SIGIPES, a file-tracking service (dossier.minfopra.gov.cm).

Waiting for a first salary has long been a problem. The best-documented case is the drive to recruit 25,000 young people launched in February 2011: in March 2020 Camer.be described recruits in post since 2013 with neither a staff number nor pay, and on 2 March 2020 MINFOPRA issued a notice inviting shortlisted candidates without a staff number to have their situation regularised. We found no official figure for the current average delay between taking up a post and first pay.

How many staff? The physical headcount

Serving staff numbers therefore fell by 18.7% in three years while the wage bill rose: 1,753.5 billion CFA francs paid in 2025, 15.1% more than in 2024 and 186.9 billion above forecast. The government attributes this paradox to the clean-up of the payroll file and to AIGLES applying promotions automatically.

This clean-up relies on the Physical Headcount of State Personnel (COPPE), launched in 2018. According to EcoMatin (November 2024), its first phase (2018-2022) struck 1,408 employees off the payroll; in November 2024 the minister announced 1,172 further removals, bringing the total to 3,577 including 1,981 earlier dismissals and 424 earlier revocations. The reasons given: holding several posts, absences of months or years, and use of false identities or forged documents. As early as January 2020, the Finance Minister said the records of 7,855 pensioners on file could not be found.

Frequently asked questions