Investor guarantees and capital transfers

What the Code guarantees

The 2025 Investment Code enshrines equal treatment of national and foreign investors "in comparable circumstances", freedom of enterprise, property rights, freedom to recruit — including from abroad — and protection against expropriation, save for public purpose with "fair and prior compensation". A lawyer's nuance worth noting: the text itself specifies that its administrative treatment guarantee is limited to the minimum standard of customary international law and does not amount to a general "fair and equitable treatment" clause.

Repatriating your returns: yes, within a framework

Freedom to transfer dividends, sale proceeds and foreign staff remuneration is guaranteed — "under the conditions of WAEMU's external financial relations regulations". That cross-reference is not an empty formula: those regulations were overhauled by regulation no. 06/2024/CM/UEMOA of 20 December 2024, replacing the 2010 text still cited by most guides. Reported changes include prior BCEAO approval for opening non-resident accounts and ministerial authorisation for certain reinvestments abroad. Have your bank and counsel validate your flows against the text in force — not against a 2015 guide.

If a dispute arises

The code organises a cascade: amicable settlement first, then Senegalese courts or international arbitration under the applicable treaties. Senegal has been party to the ICSID Convention since 1967, is a founding member of OHADA — whose Common Court of Justice and Arbitration sits in Abidjan — and a member of MIGA, the World Bank Group's political-risk insurer, which runs a regional hub in Dakar.