Guides
What we know about moving goods in West Africa
Written for companies operating from outside the region — importers, exporters, forwarders, traders and industrial operators.
Corridors
Too much freight, not enough trucks: a field report from our first weeks in West African trucking
Since GraceRoad opened, demand has never been the problem. Trucks are: our partner carriers are fully booked. A first-hand account of the vicious circle behind West Africa's truck shortage, what keeps it turning, and what it would take to break it.
23 September 2026 · 5 min read
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Customs
Money moves in a second, the truck waits for hours: banks, checkpoints and customs
Since September 2025, a payment crosses the WAEMU in real time. A truck loan is still assembled on paper, and a fully compliant truck loses hours at checkpoints between Dakar and Bamako. Figures from the BCEAO and the Observatory of Abnormal Practices, and what digital tools can already change.
22 September 2026 · 5 min read
Trade finance
New trucks from China, end-of-lease trucks from Europe: how European manufacturers are losing Africa
China shipped 118,000 heavy trucks to Africa in ten months, new, under warranty, often on credit. Europe mostly sends its used ones. African risk is the usual excuse, yet the data says it can be insured, and many of the tools to insure it are European.
22 September 2026 · 6 min read
Corridors
4 to 7 million CFA francs for a truck to Bamako: where the money actually goes
A full truck from Dakar to Bamako now costs 4 to 7 million CFA francs depending on tonnage, against an official Malian rate of about 60,000 per tonne. Diesel, tyres, crew, waiting days, empty returns and risk: the cost line by line, and what is left for the truck owner.
19 September 2026 · 6 min read
Sourcing
Buying diesel, gasoline and fuel oil in West Africa: from depot to full cargo, delivered to your site
Mines, power plants, construction sites, truck fleets and distributors: where to source diesel, gasoline, fuel oil and lubricants in West Africa, which specification to demand, how the price is built, and how to secure predictable supply, from a tank truck to a full vessel.
19 September 2026 · 5 min read
Corridors
Ndayane: what Senegal's new deep water port changes for cargo bound for Senegal and Mali
DP World finished dredging Ndayane in July 2026, thirteen months early, and now targets delivery in the third quarter of 2028. A 20 metre channel, 1.2 billion dollars, 50 km from Dakar: what changes for importers into Senegal and Mali, and what to decide now.
19 September 2026 · 5 min read
Customs
Forward stock and bonded warehousing: selling into West Africa without setting up there
A manufacturer can place stock in Senegal, sell it down over time and pay duty only as it leaves, without creating a subsidiary. What the suspensive customs regimes allow, what it costs, and who it genuinely pays for.
18 September 2026 · 4 min read
Customs
Why nobody wants your 5 tonnes at the port of Dakar, and how to fix it before the truck leaves
Too small for a heavy truck, too far for a small one, turned away even by carriers with space left: the small importer is the customer West African trucking forgets. The real reason is customs, and it can be solved at the point of departure.
18 September 2026 · 5 min read
Corridors
Dakar, Abidjan, Lomé, Cotonou, Nouakchott: which port should your cargo enter
The best port is neither the largest nor the best ranked. It is the one that serves your destination with the fewest lost days. A comparison of West African gateways, with performance figures, and the method to decide.
18 September 2026 · 4 min read
Trade finance
Who earns the money between FOB and your warehouse
A delivered price breaks into about ten lines, and most of the gap between two offers comes neither from ocean freight nor from duty. Here is the full map, line by line, and where the money you pay without seeing it actually goes.
18 September 2026 · 4 min read
Customs
The AfCFTA in 2026: why your cargo still pays duty at the border
50 of 54 signatories have ratified the African Continental Free Trade Area, yet a truck crossing an African border often pays the same duty as before. Tariff schedules, rules of origin, certificates and regional regimes: what is holding it back, and how to tell whether your shipment qualifies.
17 September 2026 · 6 min read
Corridors
The truck is already rolling: buying the cargo and its transport in one click
Thousands of loaded trucks run between the ports and the interior, and nobody knows what they carry or where they are going. Here is what that flow becomes once hubs and a platform make it visible and buyable.
17 September 2026 · 5 min read
Trade finance
The quote said 4 million, the invoice says 5.5: the costs that appear on the road
Waiting time at loading, escorts, parking, storage, devanning, container return, detours: the charges a West African trucking quote leaves out and the invoice brings back. How to get them in writing before departure, and which ones to refuse.
17 September 2026 · 4 min read
Corridors
Africa is two million trucks short, and the order books are empty
The continental free trade area implies 2.09 million additional trucks by 2030, 39 percent of them in West Africa. The figure has been public for years. Nobody is ordering. Here is why, and what that opens for anyone who can read an operating account.
16 September 2026 · 5 min read
Compliance
Lost or stolen cargo in West Africa: why the carrier owes you only 5,000 CFA francs a kilo
Across the seventeen OHADA states, the law caps a road carrier's liability at 5,000 CFA francs per kilo of gross weight, about 7.6 euros. For 20 kg of phones worth 10 million, that is 100,000 CFA francs. What the Uniform Act says, the deadlines that matter, and how to protect high value cargo.
16 September 2026 · 4 min read
Corridors
Shipping to Mali under blockade: what the numbers actually say
More than 300 fuel tankers destroyed since September 2025, over 2,000 containers stuck in Dakar in November, truck rates up from about 1.4 to nearly 4 million CFA francs. What still reaches Bamako, by which route, at what cost, and how to protect a shipment.
16 September 2026 · 5 min read
Corridors
An enormous market, and almost nobody serving it properly
97 billion dollars of food imported in three years, road freight set to double, two million trucks to find. The size of the West African logistics market is not a promise. It is a flow that already moves, badly served.
15 September 2026 · 4 min read
Compliance
Paying a carrier in cash with no invoice: what it really costs a company in Senegal
Paying a truck in cash, off the books, looks cheaper. For a company in Senegal it means 18 percent VAT you cannot recover, an expense the tax office adds back at 30 percent, and no evidence when a dispute arrives. What the tax code says, and the special case of transport to Mali.
15 September 2026 · 3 min read
Sourcing
Buying cocoa, groundnut or iron ore in Africa: the product exists, the counterparty does not
Soy, groundnut, cocoa, sesame, iron ore, refined fuel: the volumes are real and so are the prices. What a foreign buyer lacks is a company that answers for the goods, the transport and the papers. Here is how that risk comes apart, point by point.
14 September 2026 · 5 min read
Compliance
CBAM is live: what Europe's carbon border tax means for African steel, aluminium, cement and fertiliser
Since 1 January 2026, EU importers pay for the carbon embedded in the steel, aluminium, cement, fertiliser and hydrogen they buy. Raw iron ore is out of scope, steel is in. Who pays, from when, and why the place of processing now sets the price.
14 September 2026 · 6 min read
Customs
The documents that stop a truck at the Senegal Mali border, and how to prepare them before departure
Trucks almost never get stuck at the border because of the road. They get stuck because of a document. The paperwork for moving cargo from Dakar to Mali, who provides each piece, and the mistakes that cost days.
14 September 2026 · 4 min read
Corridors
African trucking is not expensive to run. It is expensive to buy.
On African corridors, operating costs look like those of other developing regions, but the price a shipper pays carries margins of 60 to 160 percent. What that gap says about the market, and about what is still there to take.
13 September 2026 · 4 min read
Compliance
Half of Senegal's trucks run overloaded. Here is who pays.
In April 2026, 47.71 percent of the 148,885 trucks weighed in Senegal were over the legal limit, even after a 20 percent tolerance. What UEMOA Regulation 14 says, what an offload costs the shipper, and how to spot a freight quote that only works overloaded.
13 September 2026 · 7 min read
Corridors
Rainy season freight in West Africa: why rates and transit times change from July to October
Every rainy season, roads break, tracks turn to mud and trucks stand still. In 2026, cargo for Mali runs on a southern branch that still has kilometres of dirt road. What changes during the rains, and how to plan shipments around them.
13 September 2026 · 4 min read
Sourcing
African exporters do not lose on price. They lose on the delivery date.
A European buyer will pay more for fruit that arrives when promised, in the grade promised, with documents that clear. Reliability is the product. Most West African offers are priced as if it were the cargo.
12 September 2026 · 4 min read
Trade finance
Amazon has no warehouse in Dakar. That is not a verdict on the market.
Alibaba built its African logistics hubs in Kigali and Addis Ababa. Benin raised 700 million dollars for an industrial zone that buyers now source from. The capital is not waiting for permission. It is waiting for a node.
12 September 2026 · 5 min read
Cold chain
Three degrees and four hours: the arithmetic of a lost mango shipment
The EU suspended Malian mangoes in September 2025 after 63 fruit fly interceptions, closing a market that took about 80 percent of the crop's exports. Senegal shipped 19,000 tonnes and is aiming at 35,000.
12 September 2026 · 4 min read
Sourcing
The bananas rot in Abidjan while Tunis runs out. This is not a money problem.
Côte d'Ivoire shipped 271,000 tonnes of bananas in 2025. Tunisia capped banana prices to hold back a shortage. Nigeria and Senegal repeat the same pattern, and the capital to fix it already exists.
12 September 2026 · 6 min read
Customs
Customs raised the value of your goods: how customs valuation really works in West Africa
Your invoice says 3 million CFA francs, customs uses 5 million, and duties follow. What the UEMOA valuation rules say, why an invoice gets rejected, what evidence to prepare, and how to appeal in Senegal.
12 September 2026 · 4 min read
Customs
Dakar port is not a warehouse. Stop using it as one.
Ten free days, four days of vessel waiting, quays filled with empty boxes. Storage at the port is the most expensive square metre in Senegal, and most of the cargo sitting on it should be inland.
12 September 2026 · 4 min read
Partnerships
Digitising African trucking: the criticism first, the benefits after
African freight platforms raised hundreds of millions and broke on the informal market, working capital and trust. Here is why, and what works anyway once you take the problem from the right end.
12 September 2026 · 5 min read
Corridors
The empty truck going home is the most expensive vehicle in West Africa
Senegal sold Mali 662 billion CFA of goods in nine months of 2025, and by February 2026 some 4,000 empty containers were stranded in Bamako. Every loaded leg pays for the empty one.
12 September 2026 · 4 min read
Corridors
Why the last 1,200 kilometres cost as much as the first 12,000
A 40 foot container from Shanghai to Dakar runs around 5,000 dollars. Getting it to Bamako can cost the same. Here is where the money actually goes on the inland leg.
12 September 2026 · 4 min read
Corridors
West Africa does not have a road problem. It has a rail problem that the roads are paying for.
The Dakar Niger railway has carried no freight since 2018, so 40 tonne trucks carry it instead: 27 checkpoints, 316 minutes at the border, and a road surface that will not survive the traffic.
12 September 2026 · 5 min read
Corridors
Road, sea and rail have to meet somewhere. In West Africa, they never do.
Kenya built an inland depot for 4,000 containers and fills 19 percent of it. Ethiopia runs 80 percent of its trade through one dry port and still reports delays. West Africa has not even started, and nobody is keeping us out but ourselves.
12 September 2026 · 4 min read
Sourcing
Tunisia buys bananas from Ecuador. Côte d'Ivoire is four days away.
Intra-African trade is around 16 percent of the continent's exports. The tariffs, the payment system and the free trade area now exist. What is missing is somebody running the route.
12 September 2026 · 4 min read
Trade finance
What a bankable corridor file looks like
BADEA has committed around 700 million dollars to Senegal across 95 operations. The ITFC signed a five year, two billion euro framework with the country. The money is not the obstacle. The file is.
12 September 2026 · 4 min read
Customs
Your goods are not late. They are waiting at a border post.
Twenty seven controls on one trip, 316 minutes of border delay, about 40,000 CFA paid along the way. The delay on a West African corridor is a procedure problem before it is a road problem.
12 September 2026 · 4 min read
Trade finance
Paying a West African carrier without getting caught: deposit, balance and proof of delivery
The deposit sent to a number that stops answering, the truck that is not the one promised, the middleman who collects and vanishes: the traps in paying for road freight in West Africa, and the order in which to pay so you are never exposed.
11 September 2026 · 3 min read
Corridors
Devan in Dakar or send the container to Bamako: the calculation that saves weeks of detention
A container that goes up to Bamako runs up detention every day it is not returned, and in February 2026 about 4,000 empty containers were stuck there. When to strip the box in Dakar, when to keep it closed, and how to run the numbers before you decide.
10 September 2026 · 3 min read
Trade finance
What a truck really costs when money costs 25 percent
The headline rate is not the problem. In the West African monetary union, bank credit runs near 6.7 percent and the usury ceiling caps banks at 14. The real cost of financing a truck sits elsewhere: in the collateral, the delay, and the months the unit does not run.
10 September 2026 · 4 min read
Partnerships
Drivers run out before trucks do
The world is 3.6 million truck drivers short, and Africa is not even in the survey. What that missing data hides, what one resignation costs an operator, and what actually keeps a good driver.
8 September 2026 · 4 min read
Partnerships
Choosing a freight agent in West Africa: what to verify before you appoint one
A checklist for forwarders in Antwerp, Marseille, Shanghai or Dubai appointing a correspondent in Senegal, Mali or Côte d'Ivoire — licences, duty prefinancing, response times and what goes wrong.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
Cold chain
Cold chain into and out of West Africa: pharmaceuticals and perishables
Where a temperature-controlled shipment actually breaks — the plug-in at the terminal, the reefer-to-truck transfer, the last mile — and what temperature records are worth when a claim is made.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Sourcing
Due diligence on an African supplier: what you can verify, and what you cannot
How to check a company registration in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire or Mali, the recurring fraud patterns in commodity trade, and the one verification that cannot be done from a desk.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
Compliance
EUDR: what African exporters and EU buyers must have ready by 30 December 2026
The EU Deforestation Regulation applies to large and medium operators from 30 December 2026. Geolocation, due diligence statements and legality evidence for cocoa, coffee, timber, palm oil, rubber, soy and cattle products.
5 September 2026 · 6 min read
Project cargo
Getting heavy equipment from the port to a mine site in West Africa
Crushers, generators, production lines and plant: how an out-of-gauge move is actually prepared, from vessel discharge to site offloading, and what it costs when it is not.
5 September 2026 · 4 min read
Partnerships
Humanitarian and donor-funded logistics in the Sahel
Customs exemptions for relief consignments, donor procurement rules, constrained-access routing and the delivery deadlines a project cycle imposes — for NGOs and agencies operating in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
Customs
What a foreign company needs to import into Senegal
You cannot lodge a customs declaration in a country where you have no legal existence. The three routes open to a foreign seller — buyer of record, agent as importer, or a local entity — and what each costs you in control.
5 September 2026 · 6 min read
Trade finance
Securing payment between Africa and abroad: letters of credit and what they actually protect
The buyer will not pay before shipment, the seller will not ship before payment. How a documentary credit resolves it, what each document proves, and the discrepancies that stop payment.
5 September 2026 · 6 min read
Project cargo
Mining and industrial projects in West Africa: the logistics of the first three years
Construction plant, then the permanent flow of fuel, reagents, explosives and spares. Customs regimes under a mining convention, temporary admission, bonded storage, and why the second year is harder than the first.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
Project cargo
Oil and gas logistics in Senegal and Mauritania: what the onshore chain looks like
Sangomar and Greater Tortue Ahmeyim have made Senegal and Mauritania producers. What that means for the port, the customs regimes, drilling chemicals under ADR, and the supply chain behind an offshore project.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
Customs
Quoting DDP into West Africa: the duties and charges that break a price
The ECOWAS common external tariff, import VAT, statistical and community levies, port charges and demurrage — and the reason a foreign exporter cannot clear customs in their own name.
5 September 2026 · 7 min read
Corridors
Shipping a container to Senegal or Mali from Europe or the United States
Building materials, vehicles, generators, equipment: how a container from France, Italy, Spain or the US actually reaches Dakar or Bamako, what customs will charge, and where the costs hide.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
Corridors
Shipping from China to West Africa: what your supplier cannot tell you
The part of a China–Africa shipment that decides whether it works — port release in Dakar or Abidjan, tariff classification, inland haulage to Bamako or Ouagadougou, and why a CIF price is not a landed cost.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
Sourcing
Buying from Africa without ever having set foot there: commodities, seasons and delivery
Cashew, cotton, shea butter, timber, cocoa, sesame, gum arabic and more — origins, harvest windows, packing, and how the goods actually reach your warehouse.
5 September 2026 · 7 min read
Corridors
Warehousing and distribution: positioning stock inside West Africa
Moving from container-by-container shipping to stock held in-region — bonded warehousing and duty deferral, where to position stock for Mali and Burkina, and what it changes for working capital.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read
Corridors
The West African logistics calendar: when to ship, and when not to
Rainy season, harvest peaks that absorb the truck fleet, religious holidays that empty the quays, year-end budget surges — the annual rhythm that decides whether a delivery date is realistic.
5 September 2026 · 6 min read