Nationality in Cameroon is governed by the 1968 Code de la Nationalité. The law provides both women and men rights to transmit nationality to children, subject to rules establishing descent for children born out of wedlock. It also provides that a child born in Cameroon who does not acquire any other nationality at birth is Cameroonian. However, a woman has no right to transmit her nationality to a foreign husband.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has expressed concern regarding the large number of births which are not being registered, despite such registration being obligatory.

The resolution of the conflict over the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula, which in 2006 was officially transferred from Nigeria to Cameroon territory, has led to the risk of statelessness. Most of those who remained in now-Cameroonian Bakassi continue to consider themselves Nigerian, but have no identity documents recognising them as either Nigerian, and have also not acquired Cameroonian citizenship.