Over the last two decades, in the Congo Basin, the implementation of forest policy reforms has focussed on the regulation of large-scale logging concessions, while small-scale logging activities, carried out mostly with chainsaws, and sourcing the domestic or regional market, have been sidelined by official policy. As a consequence, chainsaw milling developed largely as an informal activity, has been poorly researched in recent decades, and its dynamics and impacts on rural livelihoods, as well as its timber production, remain largely unknown to concerned ministries and are not included in national and international statistics. We found that chainsaw milling, albeit largely informal and illegal, contributes about 1.2m cubic meters of processed products to the domestic markets of considered countries, which is equivalent to the production of the formal, large-scale, industrial forestry sector. Also, chainsaw milling has positive economic impacts on the livelihoods options of many thousands of citizens living in rural areas, with annual financial gains larger than ¿40m in Cameroon and Gabon. Nonetheless, because of its informal nature, chainsaw milling not only does not contribute to the formal revenues of the State, but also engender corrupt practices that contribute about ¿10m to the private gains of civil servants. The adoption of legal frameworks adapted to the current needs of the timber domestic market is a necessary (technical) first step towards the professionalisation and formalisation of the sector, but a clear (political) step by concerned governments towards the sanctioning of corrupt practices by civil servants is also badly needed.