How to Check if a Cameroonian Driving Licence Is Genuine

Cameroon's driving licence has changed more in the last three years than in the previous twenty. The old pink card — trivially easy to forge — has given way to a biometric card, and with it a real way to check whether a licence is genuine. That matters at a gendarmerie checkpoint, and it matters even more if you are about to hand your vehicle to a driver you have just hired.

Here are the three checks, from the most authoritative to the one you can do in thirty seconds at the roadside.

1. The official e-transport portal

The Ministry of Transport (MINT) has consolidated licence records into a single platform. This is the most reliable check available to a private individual, because it queries the register itself rather than the card in your hand.

• Go to the Ministry of Transport's official portal. Reach it by typing the address yourself — not through a link someone sent you.
• Enter the details: the serial number printed on the licence, or the holder's national ID (CNI) number.
• Read the result: a genuine licence returns the holder's name, the date of issue and the categories held (A, B, C and so on). Those three must match the card in front of you — a record that exists but names someone else is the clearest possible answer.

2. Scanning the QR code — the roadside check

Since the 2024–2025 reforms, every licence produced in Cameroon carries a QR code on the reverse.

• How: any QR reader on any smartphone will do. No special app is required, and one that insists otherwise is a warning in itself.
• What proves it: the scan must land on a secure government address ending in .cm or .gov.cm. A link that goes somewhere else, times out, or opens an error page means the code was printed to look convincing rather than to resolve.

This is the check most employers use before putting a new driver on the road — it takes seconds and needs nothing but a phone. If you are recruiting a driver, it is worth pairing with a look at the vehicle itself: our listings of professional vehicles and the inspection assistant cover the other half of that decision.

3. What a genuine card feels like

Digital checks are the strongest evidence, but the physical card gives itself away too.

• The holographic watermark: tilt the card under a light and Cameroon's coat of arms should appear and shift.
• Print quality: forgeries usually show slightly blurred text or colours that bleed at the edges. A real biometric licence carries crisp micro-printing you cannot resolve with the naked eye.
• The chip: licences issued for 2026 have a contact chip, or an NFC antenna embedded in the body of the card. A card that is plainly laminated plastic with nothing inside it is not one.

Genuine vs suspect licence, side by side

What you check	Genuine licence (MINT)	Suspect licence
Database	Found on e-transport	No record, or an error page
QR code	Resolves to a .cm address	No link, or an unsecured site
Material	Rigid polycarbonate	Soft plastic or laminated card
What it cost	Official fees, with a stamp	A negotiated flat price

4. Why this matters more in 2026

The government has moved to zero tolerance. Driving on a forged licence is no longer treated as an administrative irregularity — it is prosecuted as forgery and use of forgery, which carries a custodial sentence. The person holding the card bears that risk, whether or not they knew how it was obtained.

The same logic applies to the vehicle under you. Before taking a newly bought car onto the road, make sure its paperwork stands up as well as your licence does: our guide to the documents to check before buying covers what a seller should be able to produce, and transferring the carte grise explains how ownership actually passes to you.

Frequently asked questions

My licence is an old pink card — can it still be checked?

Partly. Older licences pre-date the biometric register, so the portal may return nothing for one even when it was issued legitimately. That is not proof of a forgery, but it is a good reason to begin the exchange for a biometric card: at a checkpoint, a card that cannot be verified increasingly gets treated as one that failed verification.

The verification site is down. What now?

Fall back on the QR code, which resolves independently of the lookup form, and on the physical checks above. If you need a formal answer — for an employer, an insurer or a court — request confirmation at a MINT office rather than relying on a screenshot. Portals do go down; that is not evidence either way.

I got my licence through a driving school. Is it automatically genuine?

No. A legitimate driving school submits your file to MINT and your details end up in the register. A school that offers a licence without an exam, for a flat fee and a short wait, has produced a card that has no record behind it — and the person who carries it is the one who answers for it. The portal check settles the question in under a minute, and it is worth doing even if you paid in good faith.