ANIP Benin Explained: Civil Status Services and E-Portal Guide (2026)

ANIP (the National Agency for the Identification of Persons — Agence Nationale d'Identification des Personnes) is the public institution that transformed civil status and digital identity in Benin. Established by Law No. 2017-08 of June 19, 2017 on the identification of individuals, and placed under the authority of the President of the Republic, it manages the national register of individuals and, within just a few years, put an end to a civil-status system that used to be scattered across town halls and vulnerable to fraud.

Quick summary: ANIP civil status services in Benin (2026)

Unique identifier: the Personal Identification Number (NPI), issued through the RAVIP biometric census.

Digital services: the official eservices.anip.bj portal or the ANIP BJ mobile app.

Official fees: secure birth certificate (1,000 FCFA), biometric ID card (6,000 FCFA).

Where it's required: the NPI is needed to register a company (APIEx), obtain a passport (DEI), or pay taxes.

This guide covers how ANIP is organized, how the RAVIP census works, the services available online, and the reforms introduced in 2025.

1. What is ANIP, and why was it created?

Before ANIP, Benin's civil status system relied on separate registers kept by each town hall, with a high risk of duplicate records, forged documents, and lost archives in the event of a fire or general deterioration. The 2017 law created a single agency responsible for centralizing identification for the entire population — Beninese citizens and foreign residents alike — in one unified biometric database: the National Register of Individuals.

ANIP's core responsibilities:

Biometric census of the population through the RAVIP program (Recensement Administratif à Vocation d'Identification de la Population — Administrative Census for Population Identification), which collects fingerprints, photos, and civil-status data.
Issuing the Personal Identification Number (NPI), a unique, permanent identifier generated by a recognition algorithm and attached to each person from birth to death.
Issuing civil-status records and identity documents: secure birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, the Personal Identification Certificate (CIP), the biometric ID card, residence certificates, and customary-law and celibacy certificates.

2. RAVIP: two phases, an ongoing census

The RAVIP program unfolded in two stages. The field phase, from 2017 to 2022, enrolled roughly 95% of the population through biometric collection campaigns organized in local municipalities. Since 2023, ANIP has moved into a digital maintenance phase for the register, planned to run through 2030 and managed mainly through the eservices.anip.bj platform.

This second phase doesn't mean the census is finished: RAVIP enrollment remains open on an ongoing basis at ANIP centers for recent births, people who weren't reached during the initial campaign, and foreign residents settling in Benin who want a status officially recognized in the national register.

3. The NPI: the backbone of Beninese digital identity

The Personal Identification Number (NPI) is the cornerstone of the whole system: once issued, it serves as the single reference point for essentially all digital administrative procedures in the country, well beyond ANIP's own services. It's required, for instance, to create an account on monentreprise.bj (for company registration), on the building-permit platform, or to sign up for any dematerialized public service.

ANIP treats the Personal Identification Certificate (CIP) and the secure birth certificate as the two pillar documents behind every request: without one of these two documents up to date, no other service can be processed. That's why the first step recommended to anyone not yet enrolled is to obtain their secure birth certificate before applying for anything else.

4. Services available online, and their fees

Through the eservices.anip.bj website and the ANIP BJ mobile app, users can complete most procedures without visiting an office in person:

Requesting a secure birth certificate (1,000 FCFA per copy).
Requesting a Personal Identification Certificate (CIP).
Requesting a secure residence certificate.
Requesting an NPI/FID certificate.
Requesting the transcription of a civil-status record issued abroad.
Reconstructing older civil-status records.
Paying fees via Mobile Money or bank card.

The biometric ID card carries an official fee of 6,000 FCFA. The vast majority of requests are processed automatically by the platform; only issuing the biometric ID card and processing data-correction requests require manual review by an agent, which explains the slightly longer turnaround for these two services.

5. The 2025 reforms: personal accounts and online tracking

In 2025, ANIP upgraded its platform to let every user create a personal account using their NPI and phone number. This account gives access to the full history of requests submitted and documents issued, allows verifying the authenticity of a document already obtained, and lets users submit a data-correction request directly online — without necessarily needing to visit a physical office for the first step of the process.

This change addresses a recurring criticism about the reliability and traceability of documents issued by ANIP: the improved tracking and online authenticity checks aim to cut down on disputes or doubts over the validity of a document presented to an administration or a bank.

6. Self-service kiosks and service points in Cotonou

Alongside the website and mobile app, ANIP has rolled out interactive self-service kiosks at several strategic locations across Cotonou, including district town halls and busy commercial areas. The concept is simple: users scan their CIP or enter their NPI, pay for their request via Mobile Money, and collect their document — printed on secure paper — right there on the spot, without waiting for an appointment at a standard ANIP center.

For requests requiring an in-person biometric check, such as picking up a biometric ID card for the first time, a visit to an ANIP center is still unavoidable.

7. ANIP and the fight against document fraud

One of ANIP's less visible but most structurally important contributions is the sharp reduction in civil-status document fraud — an endemic problem under the old decentralized system, where each town hall kept its own paper registers, with risks of intentional duplicate records, falsification, and outright loss of archives in the event of a disaster. Centralizing the national register on a biometric basis makes it far harder to create a fictitious birth certificate or obtain two separate identities for the same person, since the fingerprint and biometric data tied to an NPI can, in principle, correspond to only one individual.

This added reliability has real-world consequences well beyond government administration itself: banks, insurance companies, and increasingly private employers now treat the CIP and the secure birth certificate issued by ANIP as more trustworthy reference documents than the old municipal paperwork, which has accelerated their adoption as the de facto standard for identity verification in Benin.

8. What ANIP doesn't handle directly

It's worth clarifying the boundaries of ANIP's remit to avoid confusion with other agencies. ANIP manages the civil and biometric identity of individuals, but it is not the body responsible for business tax registration (IFU — Identifiant Fiscal Unique), which falls under the General Directorate of Taxes, nor for company trade registration (RCCM — Trade and Personal Property Credit Register), which falls under APIEx's Single Window. Likewise, while the NPI now serves as the authentication key for creating an account on these third-party platforms, processing an actual business-registration or building-permit application remains entirely the responsibility of the relevant agency — not ANIP itself.

This distinction helps avoid a common mix-up, where people looking to register a business or apply for a building permit first head to an ANIP center, when their main procedure actually belongs to a different agency — ANIP's role in that case is limited to issuing or verifying the NPI used as the access credential.

FAQ

How do I get my NPI if I was never enrolled in RAVIP?

You need to visit an ANIP center in your municipality of residence for biometric enrollment (fingerprints, photo, civil-status data). Enrollment has remained continuously open since the end of RAVIP's field phase, including for foreign residents settled in Benin.

What should I do if there's a name or date-of-birth error on an ANIP document?

You need to submit a civil-status correction request through your personal account on the eservices.anip.bj platform, attaching supporting documents that confirm the correct spelling or date. This type of request is one of the few services requiring manual review by an agent, which is why it takes longer to process than a standard birth certificate.

Is the NPI useful outside of ANIP's own procedures?

Yes, extensively. The NPI now serves as the authentication reference for creating an account on monentreprise.bj, on the national building-permit platform, and on various other dematerialized public services in Benin. It has effectively become the cross-cutting identifier of the country's digital administration.

How can I verify that a document issued by ANIP is authentic?

ANIP's secure documents include a QR code that allows instant verification of their validity. Since the 2025 personal-account reform, users can also verify a document's authenticity directly from their eservices.anip.bj account.

Can foreign residents obtain an NPI?

Yes. ANIP also enrolls foreign residents settled in Benin as part of RAVIP's ongoing maintenance phase, which gives them access to a secure residence certificate and to certain digital services that require an identifier recognized by the Beninese administration.