Before you start

An employment contract with an Ivorian employer, who registers you with the DGI and the CNPS and operates the withholding
A CNPS number, which the employer obtains — it follows you between Ivorian jobs
An understanding of whether you are tax-resident, because that is what decides whether Côte d'Ivoire taxes your foreign income

Step-by-step

1
Let the employer withhold the ITS
Since 1 January 2024 there is one salary tax, not three. It is charged on monthly bands: nothing up to XOF 75,000, then 16% to 240,000, 21% to 800,000, 24% to 2,400,000, 28% to 8,000,000 and 32% above that. Your payslip should show a single ITS line where older payslips showed IS, CN and IGR separately.
Via employerWho: Your employerFrom your first payslip0–32% of monthly taxable salary
2
Claim your family 'parts' — the RICF replaced the quotient familial
The reform abolished the old 20% abatement and the quotient familial, and replaced them with a réduction d'impôt pour charges de famille deducted from the GROSS TAX, not from your income. It is scaled by household 'parts': 1 part for a single person with no dependants (worth nothing), 2 for a married person or a single parent, rising by 0.5 per dependent child to a ceiling of 5 parts. The monthly reduction runs 0 · 5,500 · 11,000 · 16,500 · 22,000 · 27,500 · 33,000 · 38,500 · 44,000 across those steps. Give HR your marriage and birth certificates or you will be taxed at 1 part all year.
Via employerWho: You (evidence) and your employer (application)At onboarding, and whenever your family changesFree — worth up to XOF 44,000/month
3
Check the CNPS and CMU lines on your payslip
Employees contribute 6.3% to the CNPS retirement fund, capped at a monthly salary of XOF 3,375,000, plus a flat XOF 500 a month toward universal health cover (the employer matches it to make up the CMU's XOF 1,000). The employer separately pays 7.7% for retirement, 5% family benefits, 0.75% maternity and 2–5% for occupational injury, all capped at just XOF 70,000 a month except retirement. Only the retirement contribution and the CMU 500 touch your take-home pay.
Via employerWho: Your employerFrom your first payslip6.3% capped + XOF 500 CMU
4
Work out whether you are taxed on worldwide income
Côte d'Ivoire taxes residents on worldwide income and non-residents only on Ivorian-source income. In your arrival and departure years this is genuinely complex, and a double-tax treaty may change the answer — France, and the other UEMOA and WAEMU states, have treaty relationships with Côte d'Ivoire. Take advice before you assume your home-country rental income is invisible here.
OnlineWho: You, with an adviserBefore your first full tax yearAdviser fees; the risk of getting it wrong is larger

Documents you’ll need

Employment contract and your CNPS number
Marriage certificate and children's birth certificates, for the family 'parts' reduction
Monthly payslips showing the ITS and CNPS lines
Any tax-residence certificate from your home country, if you are claiming treaty relief

Things most newcomers don’t know

Hiring you costs your employer 12% in payroll tax, against 2.8% for a local employee.

Article 146 of the tax code, as amended by the 2025 finance annex, charges the employer's contribution at 2.8% on local staff and 12% on expatriate staff — the difference is a 9.2-point surcharge that exists only for you, on gross pay, with no ceiling. It never appears on your payslip, but it is why local-contract offers come in lower than you expect and why some employers push hard to hire locally. Knowing the number gives you the real shape of the negotiation.

Source: DGI note de service n° 00026 du 3 janvier 2024; annexe fiscale 2025, art. 16

The 2024 reform quietly removed the 20% abatement.

The old system taxed you on 80% of remuneration. Article 119 of the code now reads 'le total des rémunérations' with no abatement, and the family quotient became a fixed reduction off the tax rather than off the income. A single person with no children gets a reduction of exactly zero, so a high earner with no dependants is measurably worse off under the new regime than the old one. CNPS and the employer contribution now bite on the full gross too.

Source: Ordonnance n° 2023-719 du 13 septembre 2023 + DGI note n° 00026

The CFA franc is pegged, so your tax bands don't move with the exchange rate.

XOF is fixed to the euro at 655.957. A euro-denominated salary converts at the same rate every month, which makes the XOF bracket thresholds stable in euro terms — unusual, and genuinely useful when modelling a package against a home-country offer.

Source: BCEAO / UEMOA fixed parity

Only the retirement branch of CNPS comes out of your pay.

Family allowances and occupational-injury cover are employer-only contributions with a XOF 70,000 monthly ceiling. Reading the total 'social charges' figure as a deduction from your salary overstates the hit by a wide margin — your side is 6.3%, capped.

Source: CNPS contribution schedule via PwC

Common mistakes to avoid

Budgeting from a pre-2024 guide that still describes the IS + CN + IGR stack, or still applies the 20% abatement
Trusting an Ivorian online salary calculator — several widely-indexed ones publish bracket thresholds that do not match the ordinance
Not giving HR your marriage and birth certificates, and being taxed at 1 part all year
Assuming foreign rental or investment income is out of scope once you are resident — it is not, and individuals are generally granted no foreign tax credit
Expecting home-country social contributions to be creditable against Ivorian tax — they are not

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.