Transfer Pricing in the UEMOA Zone: What Every CFO Should Know in 2026
Côte d'Ivoire's 2026 fiscal annex reverses the burden of proof in transfer pricing audits and creates an advance pricing agreement mechanism — while Senegal runs a more codified, threshold-driven regime next door. What this means for a group's documentation strategy across the zone.
Direct answer. Yes — the single most consequential transfer pricing change for CFOs operating in the UEMOA zone in 2026 is a reversal of the burden of proof introduced in Côte d'Ivoire under the 2026 fiscal annex. A taxpayer under transfer pricing audit must now demonstrate, from the outset, that intragroup pricing is at arm's length — the tax administration no longer bears that burden. Coupled with a new advance pricing agreement mechanism, and with Senegal's more codified, threshold-driven regime next door, groups with recurring intragroup flows through Abidjan or Dakar face two materially different evidentiary postures within a single monetary zone.
Legal basis
In Côte d'Ivoire, Article 25 of the 2026 fiscal annex (Loi de Finances n° 2025-987 of 19 December 2025), titled "Aménagement du dispositif de contrôle des prix de transfert", reinforces the obligation to produce documentation specific to intragroup international transactions and, critically, reverses the burden of proof onto the taxpayer during a transfer pricing audit. Article 23 of the same annex, "Institution d'un mécanisme d'accord préalable sur les prix en matière de prix de transfert", creates for the first time an advance pricing agreement between a taxpayer and the tax administration, concluded for a renewable term of three to five years, subject to annual compliance reporting. Neither article, however, codifies a numerical threshold or a closed definition of the lien de dépendance — the relationship of dependency that triggers scrutiny in the first place — and the administration continues to rely on a bundle of factual indicators, a gap practitioners have long flagged in the local press.
Continue reading
You've read the free preview. Create a free Praxis account — thirty seconds, no payment details — to read the rest of this analysis and receive the Praxis Monthly Insight. (Full-access subscribers to the Professional library plan are unaffected.)
Senegal, by contrast, has built a more codified structure around the same principle. Article 17 of the Senegalese CGI defines the lien de dépendance itself — direct or indirect control or dependency between the Senegalese entity and a related party established abroad. Article 638 of the same code turns that relationship into a concrete documentation obligation: a Senegalese company must hold transfer pricing documentation — general information on the group, specific information on the entity under review — as soon as its own annual turnover reaches XOF 5 billion, or as soon as it holds, or is held by, more than half the capital or voting rights of an entity that meets that threshold. Article 639 adds a further layer of documentation where the related party is established in a non-cooperative jurisdiction.
Analysis
The practical effect of Article 25 is to change who loses by default. Under the prior regime, an Ivorian tax administration unable to demonstrate that a price departed from market terms would see its reassessment fail. Under the reversed burden, a taxpayer who cannot produce, at the moment of the audit notice, a defensible file showing how a price was set is exposed — regardless of whether that price was in fact at arm's length. Preparation now determines the outcome far more than it did before.
The absence of a codified threshold for the lien de dépendance compounds this shift. A CFO benchmarking exposure against French or OECD literature alone will tend to underestimate it: a subsidiary that merely shares directors, sourcing arrangements or a distribution agreement with a foreign affiliate can be caught by the Ivorian administration's facts-and-circumstances test, well short of the turnover-based bright line that Senegal's Article 638 provides across the border. The new Article 23 advance pricing agreement is the natural counterweight to that uncertainty — it converts an open-ended factual enquiry into a negotiated, multi-year certainty — but only prospectively, and only for taxpayers who apply before a dispute arises, not after.
A group operating in both jurisdictions cannot run a single transfer pricing policy unmodified across the zone. A policy calibrated to Senegal's turnover threshold will miss Ivorian exposures that turn on relationship, not size — and a policy that treats Côte d'Ivoire's undefined test as the zone-wide standard will overlook how easily a Senegalese affiliate crosses the XOF 5 billion documentation threshold once the ownership chain, not just its own turnover, is taken into account.
Recommendation
We recommend, for any group with recurring intragroup flows through the zone: first, a local file for each jurisdiction where flows are material, consistent with the group master file and assembled before an audit notice arrives — under the reversed burden in Côte d'Ivoire, a file built afterward is materially weaker than one already on record. Second, for Ivorian entities with material recurring flows — financing, management fees, royalties — an evaluation of whether an Article 23 advance pricing agreement is worth pursuing, given the ambiguity that otherwise surrounds the lien de dépendance test. Third, a review of which Senegalese affiliates meet or approach the XOF 5 billion turnover threshold under Article 638 — directly, or through an entity above or below them in the ownership chain — since that alone triggers the documentation obligation, independently of group size. And fourth, treating the whole exercise as the preparation of a defence file, not a compliance formality — functional and risk analysis, comparables and intercompany agreements are best assembled in the calm of an ordinary year, not in the weeks following an audit notice.
This analysis reflects our reading of Côte d'Ivoire's 2026 fiscal annex (Loi de Finances n° 2025-987 du 19 décembre 2025) and of Senegal's General Tax Code, and is provided for general information; it does not constitute legal advice on any particular matter, and its application to a specific group's intercompany arrangements should be confirmed with the firm before any step is taken.
Does this analysis concern your business?
Let us discuss it: a partner responds within 24 hours.