The network covers Nigeria within the West Africa region. Payslips there are drawn up in NGN, and dealings with a local firm are conducted in English.
The business centres where the network is looking for a correspondent as a priority are Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano.
The country lies outside the European Union and outside the European Economic Area: the A1 certificate has no standing there. Whether the employee remains in the scheme of origin then depends on the bilateral social security agreement, if any, concluded with the sending country; where no such agreement exists, dual affiliation must be expected and budgeted into the assignment.
The answer to this question changes everything: it determines to whom you may entrust your payslips locally, and what you must ask for before signing. It has been verified country by country with the local authorities.
In Nigeria, running payroll on behalf of third parties is a regulated activity. It is carried on under the title of Chartered Accountant (ACA/FCA — ICAN) ou Certified National Accountant (CNA — ANAN), and a registration in force must be produced to you before any engagement.
Oui, avec une specificite : le Nigeria a deux ordres comptables legaux, ICAN et ANAN, tous deux crees par une loi et tous deux habilites a delivrer une licence d'exercice. Rendre des services comptables au public contre remuneration suppose une Licence to Practise et l'enregistrement du cabinet aupres de l'un des deux. La paie seule n'est pas un acte reserve nomme dans les textes, mais elle est en pratique indissociable des declarations PAYE et de la tenue de comptes, qui le sont.
Nigeria is West Africa's largest labour market and also the one with the most fragmented tax and social architecture. A foreign company must grasp from the outset that wage tax is not a federal tax: withholding falls to the state in which the employee resides, and that determines which administration receives the payments and the returns.
Social protection is similarly divided. The mandatory pension scheme, supervised by the National Pension Commission (PenCom), rests on individual accounts opened with a licensed administrator that the employee selects personally. Work injury cover is provided by the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), and a separate contribution funds the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) for vocational training.
Salaries are paid in naira, in an exchange control environment that makes remuneration in foreign currency awkward to arrange. English is the official language and the language of contracts.
Accountancy for third parties is regulated, with one distinctive feature: the country has two statutory professional bodies, ICAN and ANAN, either of which may license a practice.
Registration with the tax authority of the state where the employee will work conditions the lawfulness of wage withholding, and it is the step that files prepared abroad miss most often. A company employing across several states will have several counterparties to manage, on top of federal tax registration.
No lasting employment is possible, upstream of all this, without a local structure registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission: the choice between forming an entity and engaging an employer of record therefore comes first of all.
PenCom, NSITF and ITF then make three independent processes with three separate annual certificates. The employee, for their part, selects a pension fund administrator, information to be collected before the first payroll run.
The company's expatriate quota, the employment authorisation and the residence permit have to be aligned where the employee is a foreign national, each following its own procedure.
Given to the employee, the written contract sets out the essential terms of employment; duration, notice, leave and termination are checked in it provision by provision.
Under PAYE, the employer withholds tax and remits it to the relevant state, while social contributions follow their own channels. Closing pension records and issuing end-of-employment certificates, finally, are best prepared before the exit itself.
The network asks 11 documents of any firm wishing to represent it in Nigeria. The table gives, for each of them, the exact wording in use locally, the body that issues it and the period during which it remains admissible. These are the terms to use in an application to the local administration.
Of these 11 documents, 10 are required of every applicant and 9 have a limited period of validity, the shortest being 3 months. 3 of these documents exist only in Nigeria and have no equivalent in the common core of the network.
| Local wording | Issuing body | Validity | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Certificate of Incorporation + CAC Status ReportCertificate of Incorporation and CAC Status Report Le certificat d'incorporation est perpetuel ; c'est le CAC Status Report (qui a remplace les anciens formulaires CO2/CO7) qui donne la situation a jour des dirigeants et actionnaires. Demander les deux. | Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) | 3 months Required | Official website |
| Annual Return filing receipt (CAC)CAC annual return filing evidence Le depot annuel est obligatoire sous le Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020 ; son defaut est le signe le plus courant d'un cabinet dormant. | Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) | 12 months Required | Official website |
| Tax Identification Number (TIN) / Tax IDTaxpayer Identification Number Le TIN est desormais genere automatiquement a l'immatriculation au CAC. Depuis la reforme fiscale de 2025, la FIRS a ete refondue en Nigeria Revenue Service : les deux appellations circulent encore. | Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) — anciennement Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) | No expiry Required | Official website |
| Tax Clearance Certificate (TCC)Tax Clearance Certificate Le TCC couvre les trois derniers exercices et est valable un an. Piege classique : un cabinet base a Lagos doit produire le TCC federal ET le TCC de son Etat, l'impot sur les salaires (PAYE) etant un impot d'Etat. | Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) pour l'impot societes ; State Internal Revenue Service (par ex. LIRS a Lagos) pour le PAYE | 12 months Required | Official website |
| PenCom Pension Clearance Certificate (PCC)Pension Clearance Certificate Atteste que l'employeur verse les cotisations du Contributory Pension Scheme (8 % salarie / 10 % employeur) et souscrit l'assurance vie groupe. Se renouvelle chaque annee via le portail PenCom eHub. | National Pension Commission (PenCom) | 12 months Required | Official website |
| NSITF Certificate of Compliance (Employees' Compensation Scheme)NSITF Certificate of Compliance Impose par l'Employees' Compensation Act 2010 a tout employeur (contribution de 1 % de la masse salariale). Delivre sous cinq jours ouvres sur presentation du certificat CAC, des formulaires ECS et de la preuve de paiement. | Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) | 12 months Required | Official website |
| ITF Compliance CertificateIndustrial Training Fund compliance certificate Obligatoire pour les employeurs d'au moins cinq salaries ou realisant un chiffre d'affaires d'au moins 50 millions de nairas : contribution de 1 % de la masse salariale. | Industrial Training Fund (ITF) | 12 months Required | Official website |
| Professional Indemnity Insurance certificateProfessional indemnity insurance certificate Non imposee par la loi aux cabinets comptables nigerians, mais tres courante et exigee par la plupart des donneurs d'ordre : la demander systematiquement. | Assureur agree par la National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) | 12 months Where applicable | Official website |
| ICAN Licence to Practise / Firm registration — ou certificat ANANICAN Licence to Practise and firm registration (or ANAN membership) Le Nigeria compte deux ordres legaux concurrents, ICAN et ANAN : les deux sont valables. Le cabinet lui-meme doit etre enregistre, pas seulement son dirigeant, et la licence se renouvelle annuellement. | Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) ou Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN) | 12 months Required | Official website |
| National Identification Number (NIN) slip, international passport ou driver's licenceNIN slip, international passport or driver's licence Le NIN est exige pour toute demarche au CAC depuis 2021 ; un passeport suffit pour un dirigeant etranger. | National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) | No expiry Required | Official website |
| NDPC registration as Data Controller/Processor of Major Importance + Compliance Audit Return (CAR)NDPC registration and annual Compliance Audit Return Obligatoire au titre du Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 des 200 personnes concernees sur six mois. Un cabinet de paie depasse ce seuil des quelques dizaines de clients : au-dela de 1 000 personnes, le CAR annuel est du avant le 31 mars. | Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) | 12 months Required | Official website |
The state-level character of wage tax is the country's most discriminating feature. An employer or provider producing only a federal tax certificate has demonstrated nothing about its position on wages: the certificate issued by the relevant state tax authority is what counts, and it alone.
PenCom for pensions, NSITF for work injury, ITF for training: the number of annual social certificates is without parallel in the region, and each has its own deadline. A complete file means gathering them together.
A recent tax reform also changes the name of the federal revenue administration. Older and newer documents therefore carry different letterheads without that revealing any irregularity: knowing this avoids wrongly rejecting a perfectly valid document, and it is worth asking a counterparty which name its most recent filings were made under.
Le Nigeria est le pays le plus lourd du lot en pieces sociales : il faut quatre attestations distinctes (NRS/FIRS pour le fiscal federal, l'Etat pour le PAYE, PenCom pour la retraite, NSITF pour les accidents du travail, ITF pour la formation), toutes annuelles. Le PAYE etant un impot d'Etat et non federal, un cabinet qui ne produit qu'un TCC federal n'a rien prouve sur sa regularite en matiere de salaires — c'est le controle le plus discriminant. Attention enfin au changement de nom en cours : la reforme fiscale de 2025 transforme la Federal Inland Revenue Service en Nigeria Revenue Service, les documents recents et anciens portent des en-tetes differents sans que cela signale une anomalie.
The network opens 3 partner slots in Nigeria, not one more. No firm is listed there yet: all 3 slots therefore remain open to applications.
No listed partner in Nigeria has asked to appear in the public directory. The contact details of a firm are passed on to the client only when an assignment is awarded.
Filing an application does not amount to admission: every request is reviewed one by one. There is no minimum turnover requirement, and the partner selected invoices its fees directly.
Submit an application: we review your file, we check the documents required on the ground and we give you an answer, whether it is positive or not.
A Nigerian candidate firm must hold a Licence to Practise from one of the two statutory bodies, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria or the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria, with the firm itself registered. We ask for the Corporate Affairs Commission extract with a current annual return, the taxpayer identification number, the federal tax clearance certificate and, above all, the state certificate covering PAYE, along with the PenCom, NSITF and ITF certificates. Registration with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission is likewise required.
Describe your requirement. No firm is listed in Nigeria yet: we review the request, then entrust it to a local firm that the network identifies and vets, or to the partner of a neighbouring country covering this territory. Your contact details are passed on to the selected firm alone.
Request a provider in NigeriaMobility is rarely arranged one country at a time. The neighbouring profiles follow the same outline.
These countries account for most of the requests received: each one has, in addition to its profile, six pages devoted to a single aspect of local payroll.
The information gathered on this page comes from the registers, administrations and bodies listed below, consulted when the reference base was compiled. It is given for guidance and does not replace the advice of a professional established in Nigeria.