In this guide
The MTN MoMo limits that matter most in 2026 are these: a maximum of 1,000,000 FCFA per single wallet transfer, 2,500,000 FCFA of cash withdrawals per day, 5,000,000 FCFA of deposits per day and 10,000,000 FCFA per month, and 5,000,000 FCFA per merchant payment. On fees, the number that surprises most people is that MTN charges 0 FCFA to send money from one MoMo wallet to another. What you pay on a transfer is the state levy: 0.2 percent of the amount plus a flat 4 FCFA. Cash withdrawal is where the real cost sits, at 1 percent of the amount in the main bracket, plus the same levy.
That gap between what people believe MoMo costs and what it actually costs decides whether a crypto trade is cheap or expensive. Half the clients on our WhatsApp still quote us the old 0.5 percent transfer fee they read on a blog in 2022, and they route trades badly because of it. The rest get caught by the limits instead: they agree a 1,500,000 FCFA purchase, then discover they cannot send it in one go. Below is the current limit table, the current fee table, what each one does to a bitcoin or USDT trade, and the mistakes we watch people make with them every week.
What are the MTN MoMo limits in 2026?
These are the published MTN Cameroon MoMo limits as of August 2026, taken from MTN Cameroon's transaction limits page.
| Action | Limit in FCFA | What it really means |
|---|---|---|
| One wallet transfer | 1,000,000 | The cap most traders hit first |
| One merchant payment | 5,000,000 | Paying a registered MoMo Pay code |
| One bank transfer | 20,000,000 | MoMo to bank, not wallet to wallet |
| Withdrawals per day | 2,500,000 | Cash out at an agent |
| Deposits per day | 5,000,000 | Cash in at an agent |
| Deposits per month | 10,000,000 | The quiet one that blocks importers |
| Maximum wallet balance | 100,000,000 | Almost nobody reaches this |
Two of these rows cause nearly all the problems we see.
The 1,000,000 FCFA transfer cap is a per transaction cap, not a daily one. You can send 1,000,000 more than once. But every extra send is another chance to fat finger a digit, and every extra send is another line an agent or a fraud system can query later.
The 10,000,000 FCFA monthly deposit ceiling is the one that ambushes importers. A trader buying stock for the Douala port cycle deposits cash all month, feels nothing, then gets refused on the 24th with a stock deadline in front of him. If your business runs cash in and cash out through one MoMo line, you are budgeting against that monthly number whether you know it or not.
One warning about limits generally. Your own line may be lower than the published table if your KYC is incomplete or your SIM is registered to someone else's ID. Dial *126# and check your own account rather than trusting any website, including this one. Limits are also revised without announcement, so treat every published figure, ours included, as a starting point to verify.
How much do MTN MoMo transfer fees actually cost?
Here is the current fee structure from MTN Cameroon's official MoMo tariff page, as of August 2026.
| Transaction | MTN fee | Tax on top | All in on 100,000 FCFA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wallet to wallet transfer | 0 FCFA | 0.2% + 4 FCFA | About 204 FCFA |
| Withdrawal, 100 to 4,166 | 54 FCFA | included | Small amounts only |
| Withdrawal, 4,167 to 333,332 | 1% of amount | 0.2% + 4 FCFA | About 1,204 FCFA |
| Withdrawal, 333,333 to 500,000 | 4,004 FCFA flat | included | Flat, so size helps |
| Merchant payment (MoMo Pay) | Free | 0.2% + 4 FCFA | About 204 FCFA |
| GIMAC transfer, other network or bank | 2.2% | 4 FCFA | About 2,204 FCFA |
Read that table twice, because it contains the single most useful money fact in this article: sending is nearly free, cashing out is not.
The old published structure, 0.5 percent on transfers capped at 500 FCFA and 2 percent on withdrawals capped at 3,500 FCFA, is still repeated by dozens of websites and by most agents at the kiosk. It is out of date. If someone is quoting you those numbers as the reason a trade costs what it costs, they are working from a stale sheet.
The last row also deserves attention. A GIMAC transfer, which is how money moves from MTN to another network or to a bank, costs 2.2 percent. That is more than ten times the cost of staying inside MoMo. It is a strong argument for paying a desk that accepts MTN MoMo directly, instead of routing through Orange Money or a bank leg in the middle. We put the two networks side by side, fee table against fee table, in Orange Money vs MTN MoMo for crypto. If you want to see what a specific amount costs end to end before you commit, get a live quote on WhatsApp and we will break the fee legs out for you.
How do MoMo limits change a crypto trade?
Three ways, and all three cost money if you ignore them.
First, the size of your trade. A 2,000,000 FCFA bitcoin purchase cannot leave your wallet in one transfer. It is two sends, and each one adds tax. It is also two chances for one of them to land on a wrong number, which is money that does not come back. Our desk splits these deliberately and confirms each leg before the next, and we tell clients to do the same regardless of who they are trading with.
Second, the direction. Buying crypto with MoMo is a transfer, so it is cheap. Selling crypto for MoMo and then walking to an agent for cash is a transfer plus a withdrawal, so it costs roughly six times more per franc. If you are selling regularly, the cheapest habit is leaving proceeds in the wallet and spending directly by MoMo Pay, which is free. We walk through the sell side in detail in how to sell bitcoin in Cameroon and get paid to MoMo.
Third, the fee structure changes what you should buy. If you are moving money for a supplier invoice, you want a stablecoin, not a volatile asset, and you want as few legs as possible. That is why importers on our desk hold USDT rather than bitcoin, and why we always compare the MoMo leg cost against the network fee before recommending a chain. The trade off between the two is exactly what our USDT TRC20 vs ERC20 guide covers.
A practical desk example. A client in Bafoussam wanted 1,800,000 FCFA of USDT last month. Done badly, that is a bank withdrawal, a cash deposit at an agent, then two transfers, and he loses close to 20,000 FCFA in fees and levies before any crypto spread. Done properly, it was two MoMo transfers straight from his existing balance, total tax under 3,700 FCFA, and the coin landed the same afternoon. Same trade, same rate, very different cost, purely from routing. This is what our buy bitcoin with MoMo page is built around.
What happens if you hit a MoMo limit mid trade?
Nothing dramatic, and that is precisely why it is dangerous.
MoMo does not explain itself. You get a short failure message, no reason code, and no indication of which limit you touched. The temptation is to assume the other side is scamming you or that the network is down, and to start sending money by another route in a hurry. Hurry is where losses happen.
Our rule at the desk is simple. If a transfer fails, stop. Do not resend to a different number, do not accept a new number sent to you in that moment, and do not switch to a "backup" account someone offers you while you are frustrated. Impersonators watch for exactly this moment, and the fake account switch is one of the most effective scams running in Cameroon right now. We documented the pattern in WhatsApp crypto scams in Cameroon, and the mobile money specific versions are on our MoMo scams page.
What you actually do is check your own limits on *126#, confirm the receiving number in the original message thread, and split the amount into smaller legs if the cap is the problem. If the account is restricted rather than capped, only MTN can lift it, and no trader can do it for you.
Worth noting that heavy crypto related traffic on a personal line can itself attract a review. Frequent large round numbers in and out of one wallet look like a business, because they are. Keeping personal money and trading money on separate lines is boring advice that saves accounts. Full desk practice is on the safety page, and general account questions are answered on our FAQ.