How To Get A Cameroon🇨🇲Multiple Entry Tourist Visa Online

“Round this town, you’ve ceased to be. That’s what you get for sleeping with the enemy” – Noel Gallagher.

It was a childhood dream of mine to visit Cameroon. It was a long hard road since Benjamin Massing’s red card of 1990. It was easy for the Indomitable Lions to beat Diego Maradona’s mighty World Champions of Argentina back then. However, the Cameroon visa was always a tough one and for some reason I always skipped that region of Africa (Niger, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Gabon, Cameroon)! The nearest I got was Angola or the east side of the Democratic Republic of The Congo. But now that The Cameroon Visa went online, I thought I’d finally give Cameroon a go without any embassy visits required. The result was waking up in Yaounde, the capital city of Cameroon and possessing a multiple-entry tourist visa for Cameroon.

Backstory to 1990 – Cameroon 🇨🇲 At Italia 90

Ever since Omam-Biyick’s header in 1990 for Cameroon against Argentina, I have followed Cameroon’s football results. I have a soft spot for them, despite my clear bias of Northern Ireland. Back in 1990, as I watched live on TV in my living room in Marlo, Bangor, Northern Ireland, Cameroon played Argentina in the opening match. It was to be unforgettable! One brother, Omam-Biyick scored the winner against Maradona’s Argentina, the other brother, Kana-Biyick hacked down Caniggia and got a red card. Cameroon finished the match with 9 men, but won the match 1-0, later winning the group after beating Romania 2-1 and progressing to the quarter finals after beating Colombia 2-1. In the quarter finals, they were 2-1 up against England with multiple chances to make it 3-1, before England fluked their way through with two Gary Lineker McCrums.

So ever since 1990, I have wanted to go to Cameroon and in February 2024, I finally booked a flight on Air Maroc from Casablanca, Morocco into Yaounde, Cameroon. Actually it worked out cheaper to book an extra flight all the way to Douala! Now to get that visa…

How To Get A Cameroon 🇨🇲Visa Online

Cameroon has now introduced an electronic visa, also called an e-visa or an online visa to facilitate entry into its territory, on the west/central coast of Africa. The new service enables people to apply for a visa to Cameroon from the comfort of their own home or office, it means you do not have to go to an Embassy any longer! That is good news! Please refer to the Cameroon Online Visa Application guidelines here (this is on the official site). I did all this from the comfort of my flat in Warszawa in Poland. You don’t need to be in Africa, or at a Cameroon Embassy.

I had read online before my trip that certain nationalities can get a visa online. But it all depends on your nationality, I travel with two Northern Irish passports (one from “UK”, one from “Ireland”, neither of which I recognise as a real country!) but I used my Irish one for this, which is allowed. Some nationalities may not be entitled to the visa online. Check if you are eligible for the online visa, then start your application. You will need an email address to be confirmed and then you log in.

So in short – first things first, you need to go to the official Cameroon Online Visa website. This is the exact link –

https://www.evisacam.cm/ords/dl_portal/r/public_portal/home

And the website looks like this –

Click on “Register” or “Register Now” and type in your email address and they will send you an email for you to click on and confirm. That email has a code on it and it looks like this…it is to verify your email.

Once you have clicked on that and verified your email, you will then get a welcome email which looks like this.

Now you are good to go – login and start your application!

Login to your portal on the usual link and it will welcome you with your name, you can choose English or French, I chose English and it writes WELCOME, JONNY What would you like to do. Then you click on Visa Applications.

Filling In The Online Visa for Cameroon🇨🇲

This is not easy, it took me ages, hours. I filled in every single part in detail as I didn’t want to risk not getting the visa. I was honest in every question including the correct hotel, arrival date, parents details, tour company, letter of invitation, bank statement, job title, yellow fever certificate etc. etc.! Take your time. I did it on my laptop and made sure to save it after each part. I don’t really like these online visas and this is why I am very happy these days that I only do these things once. If I could get a secretary to do all this, actually I would probably take it these days, but then again I couldn’t write about it. You’ll need to have a local host, a letter of invitation…

Getting a Local Host And Letter of Invitation For Cameroon🇨🇲

You need to have a host or a letter of invitation. I contacted local businessman and tour manager Mebah Markdonald. Mebah is excellent. He is everything he says he is. A top man. He sent me privately all the details I would need for using him and his company as my host and letter of invitation. These are Mebah’s details if you want to contact him.

Discover Cameroon Tours:

Mebah Markdonald

What Documents Do You Need To Upload?

This was not easy. However, I uploaded ALL the documents they needed and due to that fact, I overloaded them with documents – I sent MORE than what they asked for. These are the documents they asked for –

• passport photo page upload
• passport sized photo upload
• flight into Cameroon proof upload
• flight out of Cameroon proof upload
• yellow fever certificate proof upload
• COVID triple vaccination certificate proof upload
• hotel reservation proof upload
• amount of money I have in my bank account proof upload
• proof of my job upload (I always write “teacher”; as a rule, NEVER write “writer”/”journalist” as it immediately raises suspicion)
• proof of my address upload (I used my Driving Licence for this)
• proof of my professional qualifications upload
• proof of a letter of invitation upload

Phew! I think that was it! Now how did I upload them all? Some I took a screen shot of the PDF or online form and some I simply took a photo with my Samsung Smartphone! All were accepted eventually despite the screen timeouts (see below). Here are some of the proofs of upload I added…

Eventually, ALL of those uploads went through and were accepted! Phew! But beware of the screen timeouts…

Session Expired / Screen Timeouts! Annoying!

Be very careful uploading your documents and filling in the information as the screen timeouts many times and your session expires. Each time I thought I had finished, I hit save and the screen timed out meaning the last few documents/files hadn’t been uploaded. This is very frustrating and annoying!

Just bear with it, keep trying. It took me a few hours but finally I had uploaded EVERY document they asked for and more. So now you have the visa application filled in and sent, it’s time to make the payment. The first 3 parts are green, now it is time to make the payment, see screen shot below.

How much does the visa for Cameroon 🇨🇲cost?

Obviously the price can change, and will change in future and depending on your nationality, the type of visa. I went for multiple entry tourist visa. When I applied in March 2024, a multiple entry visa was 153 Euros, plus a 13.77 Euros transfer fee. My total was 166.77 Euros and I paid online by card payment. I believe PayPal can also be used but I paid on card.

After the above screen I filled in my payment card details after being transferred to a DBS screen. After submitting the payment, this was confirmed and checked and the screen now had the below image with Order Confirmation on it

That was on 3rd March 2024 that I made the payment. Almost immediately, I got an email in my inbox with a PDF recipt to say that I had paid for my visa and confirmation that my visa application was in progress. The payment email looks like this.

The Waiting Game – Application In Progress

Once you have completed the application and made the payment, and got the payment confirmation and application confirmation, it is a waiting game. I made the payment on 3rd March 2024 and the screen on login looked like this below.

Then, within 72 hours, on exactly 6th March 2024, I got another email also with a PDF attached, this email wrote that my pre-enrolement for the Cameroon Online Visa was approved. This of course is not the visa, basically just a permission to board the flight, or cross by land and arrive into Cameroon. And that is the complete process before the flight or trip. The pre-enrolement email looked like this. That means a total of 4 different emails are received in the process.

1.Confirmation of your email.
2.Permission to login and make an application.
3.Confirmation of the payment for the visa.
4.Confirmation that the visa application has been confirmed for pre-enrolement.

The PDF attached to it looked like this – which I printed ahead of my trip. This is as good as your visa.

What To Print Before You Head To Cameroon🇨🇲

So now that I had the confirmation of the pre-enrolment, I decided to print and take as much proof as I could with me on the trip, I’m so used to the strictness of it all these days that I always come way too prepared now. I was actually boarding my initial flight in Brussels in Belgium, transiting through Casablanca in Morocoo and then landing in Yaounde, Cameroon. Here is what I took with me to the airport in Brussels.

• My passport
• Proof of yellow fever vaccination (this WAS checked)
• Proof of COVID triple vaccinations (this was never checked, but don’t bank on that)
• Proof of flight into Cameroon
• Proof of flight out of Cameroon (this was never checked, but don’t bank on that)
• Proof of hotel reservation
• Proof of contact in Cameroon (Mebah and his tour company)
• Proof of payment for Cameroon Visa
• Proof of pre-enrolement for Cameroon Visa
• Travel insurance card (this was never checked, but don’t bank on that)
• Driving licence (the only ID I have with my home address on it)

Arrival in Yaounde Airport, Cameroon 🇨🇲Away

If you are arriving by land, then I don’t have experience of that so I will write about my airport arrival into Cameroon. I landed in Yaounde Airport on a flight from Casablanca in Morocco. Initially I had planned to have 2 or 3 days in Yaounde and 2 or 3 days in Douala but the weirdest thing was the flight to Yaounde was more expensive than the flight to Douala!! This was crazy for me, as I could have just got off in Yaounde anyway! But I stayed on to Douala in the end, which I had paid less for! I stayed on the plane in Yaounde, it was the same flight.

After a brief stopin Yaounde, some passengers got off and more got on and we made the short 1 hour flight to Douala, which is not the capital city (Yaounde is), but the port city and the economic capital.

Arrival in Douala Airport – Cameroon 🇨🇲Visa Issuance

Within an hour we had arrived in Douala. I went to immigration with ALL my documents. I also filled in the immigration forms that were there.

It was a fairly easy process compared to many of my visa situations before. I handed in all documents, some weren’t even checked. They took my photo and my fingerprints / thumbprints and I am issued with a one page sticker visa in my passport which looked like this below.

It was put in my passport on 28th March 2024 and is valid until the 6th July 2024. It is a multipl entry visa so I can come and go into Cameroon as many times as I want until 6th July 2024! I take my passport to immigration and they stamp me in! Welcome to Cameroon!

Backpacking In Cameroon 🇨🇲- Living My 1990 Dream

And then…I am suddenly through immigration, through customs and out in the amazing open air of Cameroon! I have done it! I have lived a dream I had since 1990! I am here to explore Douala!