Context: Agroecological transition in farming systems that integrate crops, trees, and livestock offers a promising strategy to enhance farm performance and increase soil carbon (C) inputs through improved management of manure, crop residues, and tree litterfall. In Benin's major Anacardium occidentale (cashew) production zones, such integrated systems remain underutilized due to various implementation challenges. Nevertheless, the di- versity of farming practices in the region presents an opportunity to assess the bene¿ts of agricultural integration at the farm level. Sustainable agriculture TAPE West Africa Objective: This study evaluated how agroecological transition in¿uences farm performance and soil carbon inputs in Benin's cashew-producing zones. Methods: A total of 206 farms were surveyed across four districts in central and northern Benin using the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE). Agroecological transition level and performance of two farm ty- pologies were considered. The ¿rst one was a pre-de¿ned typology based on structural characteristics of the farming systems (conventional, low integrated and integrated farming systems), and the second one was an identi¿ed typology by clustering analysis based on the scoring of the 10 Elements of Agroecology (clusters C1, C2 and C3). In both cases, the correlation of the Characterization of AgroEcological Transition (CAET) indices with the core criteria of performance (CCP) index and the soil carbon inputs (SCI) index were estimated. Results and conclusions: Among pre-de¿ned typologies, integrated farming systems demonstrated higher CAET, CCP and SCI indices than conventional systems. Among identi¿ed typologies, farms in the cluster C3 achieved higher CAET, CCP and SCI indices. This cluster included 85%, 59% and 31.8% of farms from the integrated, low integrated and conventional farming systems respectively, revealing heterogeneity of agroecological transition level among farming types. Considering