Côte d’Ivoire is a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS: https://ecowas.int), which includes Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, the Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo, and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU: which includes Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo, which share the West African CFA Franc as their currency.  The customs regime is similar across all ECOWAS member states.  Côte d’Ivoire’s import tariff is based on the ECOWAS Common External Tariff (CET) and the classification of a given imported good.  Consistent with the CET, Côte d’Ivoire applies five tariff bands to products from the United States: (1) zero percent duty on essential social goods (e.g., medicine); (2) 5 percent tariff on essential commodities, raw materials, and capital goods; (3) 10 percent tariff on intermediate goods; (4) 20 percent tariff on consumer goods; and (5) 35 percent tariff on certain goods, like processed food items (fruits juice).

The CET Schedule includes permanent and temporary duties and taxes.

Côte d’Ivoire imposes additional taxes on imports of:

• fish (between 5 percent and 20 percent),
• rice (between 5 percent and 10 percent),
• alcohol (45 percent),
• tobacco (36 percent),
• cigarettes (36 percent),
• certain textile products (20 percent), and
• petroleum products (between 5 percent and 20 percent).  

The Ivoirian government also applies a tax of approximately $1.67 per kilogram to all imports of frozen meats.  Côte d’Ivoire applies minimum import prices (MIP) to certain products such as cooking oil, sugar, used clothing, concentrated tomato paste, broken rice, matches, notebooks, tissues, polypropylene sacks, alcohol, and milk, to avoid exporters “dumping” products on the Ivoirian market.  A one percent charge is levied on the cost, insurance, and freight (CIF) value of all imports, except those destined for re-export, transit, or donations for humanitarian purposes under international agreements.  

The national value added tax (VAT) levied on all imported goods is 18 percent.  In addition to the 18 percent VAT, the Ivoirian government imposes an additional 2.6 percent tax on all imports.  The overall tax rate for imported alcoholic beverages, inclusive of all other excise taxes, is 110.5 percent.

Most of the duties are based on ad valorem rates, which are imposed on the current export price from the country of sale or origin and any shipping and insurance expenses incurred.  The method of value assessment is based on the Brussels Definition of Value (BDV). 

Côte d’Ivoire demonstrates its readiness for the ease of regional trade by setting-up a National Committee for the African Continental Free Trade (CN-ZLECAF).  The committee’s purpose is to coordinate the implementation of the ZLECAF.

To look up duties and tariffs use, use the Customs Info Database tariff look-up tool, available on trade.gov (free registration required), to estimate duties and taxes.