As Africa’s largest economy and most populous country, Nigeria is a vibrant and fast-paced destination for expats involved in business, oil and gas, tech, education, and development sectors.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about relocating to Nigeria from a personal tax perspective, including tax residency, income tax, special tax regimes and tax return obligations.
TaxPilot recommend that you organize your affairs in good time to get ahead and make the most of favorable tax treatment while making sure you’re meeting your tax return obligations.
Nigeria follows a residence taxation model. If you are resident, you will pay tax worldwide incomes. If you are non-resident, you will pay tax on local incomes only.
if you spend more than 182 days in Nigeria during any 12 month period.
Providing that foreign incomes and gains are remitted to Nigeria through an approved bank, incomes and gains will be exempt from taxation in Nigeria. Nigeria can be a very tax efficient place to live for expats and nomads and as such, Global Tax Consulting recommends seeking personalized tax planning advice to take advantage of the special tax regime.
Exempt from Nigerian taxation.
Applied indefinitely.
Tax on property and share sales
Tax on value of owned assets
Tax on assets passed to heirs
Tax to contribute to state welfare
If you receive incomes overseas while you are living in Nigeria, you may find the source country, as a starting point, continues to tax the income which may cause double taxation unless you are using special tax regime.
Double taxation agreements can be used to mitigate double taxation and receive tax free income. As such, the more double taxation agreements a country has, the better, as agreements will ensure you’re not taxed twice and even better, ensure your income is tax free.
At present, Nigeria has 15 double taxation agreements signed.
