Crypto tax in Nigeria, explained

What is taxable

Two kinds of event: income when you receive crypto, and disposals when you give crypto up.

• Staking rewards

  Income when you receive them, at their market value on the day.

  Circular 7.1 event 9; 9.5(4)

• DeFi yield and rewards

  Income when you receive them, at market value.

  Circular 7.1 event 14; 10.4

• Airdrops with a value

  Income at market value when received. An airdrop with no realisable value is not income.

  Circular 7.1 event 10; 9.6

• Payment for work in crypto

  Fees or salary paid to you in crypto are income at market value when received.

  Circular 6.1.1; 7.1 events 6-7; 9.5(3)

• Selling crypto for naira

  A disposal: the gain or loss is what you got for it minus what it cost you.

  Circular 7.1 events 3-4; 9.1.2

• Swapping one token for another

  A disposal of the token you give up. The proceeds are the market value of what you gave up.

  Circular 9.1.2; 9.3.2; Illustration 3

• Paying for goods or services with crypto

  A disposal at market value. This includes gas fees paid in NEAR, which are not deductible.

  Circular 7.1 event 5

What is not taxable

• Holding

  Holding crypto is not a taxable event, even when its price rises. Any rise in value is not taxed until you dispose of it.

  Circular 7.2.1

• Moving crypto between your own wallets

  No change in who owns it, so no disposal.

  Circular 7.2.2

• Wrapping and unwrapping

  Turning NEAR into wNEAR and back is the same asset in another form.

  Circular 10.1

• Staking lockups

  Locking tokens to stake them is not a disposal. The rewards are income when received.

  Circular 7.2.3

• Borrowing against crypto

  Putting crypto up as collateral for a loan is not a disposal.

  Circular 7.2.6

• Buying crypto with naira

  Not taxable when you buy. What you paid becomes your cost for a later disposal.

  Circular 7.1 event 1; 9.3.1

How gains are worked out

Gains are worked out in dollars first: proceeds minus cost, both in US dollars. The dollar gain is then converted to naira at the CBN NFEM closing rate.

• Dollars first, then naira

  Proceeds and cost are measured in US dollars; the gain is converted at the CBN NFEM (formerly NAFEM) rate on the date of the disposal.

  Circular 9.1.2; Illustration 2

• Which coins you sold first

  First in, first out: the oldest units you hold are treated as sold first.

  Circular 9.3.3(3)

• Prices

  Market value comes from a recognised price source. A token with no verifiable price is left out until it can be valued.

  Circular 9.2; 9.2(4)

• Losses

  Gains and losses in the year are netted. A net loss is not set against your income; it carries forward to future crypto gains.

  Circular 9.4

How the tax is charged

• What is added up

  Your crypto income for the year plus your net gains (if positive) is the chargeable amount from crypto.

  Circular 9.4

• Personal income tax bands

  It is taxed with the rest of your income under the personal income tax bands: 0% on the first ₦800,000; 15% on the next ₦2,200,000; 18% on the next ₦9,000,000; 21% on the next ₦13,000,000; 23% on the next ₦25,000,000; 25% above ₦50,000,000.

  Circular 6.1.1(1); NTA 2025 s.58 and Fourth Schedule

Reliefs and deductions

These are taken off your income before the bands apply. Uwii applies them if you enter them on the Questions page. Gas fees and other transaction costs are not reliefs; gas fees are not deductible (D2).

• Rent relief

  20% of annual rent paid, capped at ₦500,000.

  NTA 2025 s.30

• Pension contributions

  Contributions under the Pension Reform Act, in full.

  NTA 2025 s.30; Pension Reform Act

• National Housing Fund

  National Housing Fund contributions, in full.

  NTA 2025 s.30

• National Health Insurance

  National Health Insurance contributions, in full.

  NTA 2025 s.30

• Life insurance or annuity

  Life insurance or deferred annuity premiums, in full.

  NTA 2025 s.30

• Mortgage interest

  Interest on a loan for an owner-occupied residential house, in full.

  NTA 2025 s.30

Reliefs follow Nigeria Tax Act 2025 s.30 as Uwii reads it. Confirm them with your tax adviser before filing.

Key dates

• Tax year

  1 January to 31 December. The Circular was published on 31 July 2026 and does not state an effective date. Uwii applies it to the 2026 year of assessment, the first year under the Nigeria Tax Act 2025.

  Uwii decision, not a quoteUwii decision D16D16 in the decision log ↗ (opens in a new tab)

• Coins held before 2026

  Uwii uses the higher of what they cost you or their value at 31 December 2025 as their cost, and shows the gain both ways. This rests on public statements by the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee; no citable paragraph has been published yet.

  Uwii decision, not a quoteUwii decision D11D11 in the decision log ↗ (opens in a new tab)

• Filing deadline

  The annual return for 2026 income is due by 31 March 2027.

  Nigeria Tax Administration Act 2025

Where to file

• Your State Internal Revenue Service

  With the Internal Revenue Service of the state you live in (FCT residents: FCT-IRS). The annual return for 2026 income is due by 31 March 2027.

  Nigeria Tax Administration Act 2025

• Declare your crypto in that return

  Include your crypto income and gains in your annual income tax return.

  Circular 6.1.1(4)

• Even if you owe nothing

  Generally yes. Under the Nigeria Tax Administration Act 2025, individuals with income are expected to file an annual return even when no tax is due. Confirm with your State IRS or a tax professional.

  Nigeria Tax Administration Act 2025

What Uwii's privacy proof covers

The AI step runs on NEAR AI Cloud in a trusted execution environment (TEE), and Uwii checks the evidence on every scan. Here is exactly what that proves.

• Genuine hardware

  Genuine Intel TDX and NVIDIA GPU hardware: the TDX quote is verified with Intel DCAP and the GPU evidence by NVIDIA's attestation service.

  Checked on every scan

• Debug off

  Debug mode is off.

  Checked on every scan

• Fresh nonce

  A fresh nonce from Uwii is inside every attestation report, so the reports were made for this scan.

  Checked on every scan

• Signer bound to the hardware

  The key that signs the AI's responses is bound to attested hardware (every machine reporting that key is verified).

  Checked on every scan

• Signed responses

  Each AI response is signed over its exact bytes, and Uwii checks every signature.

  Checked on every scan

• No pinned list of approved builds

  A pinned allowlist of approved software builds: Uwii checks that the reported configuration matches the hardware measurement, not that it is a build it has approved.

  Not covered

• TLS termination

  That TLS terminates inside the attested gateway.

  Not covered

• NVIDIA token checked by NVIDIA

  Local validation of NVIDIA's attestation token: Uwii relies on NVIDIA's service over HTTPS.

  Not covered

• Your answers are not part of it

  Your answers, other income, reliefs and personal details are processed in your browser and sent to Uwii only if you choose to anchor; even then, your name, TIN and state are never sent. They never reach the TEE: the AI only ever receives public on-chain data.

  Not covered

• Your NEAR account's public transactions

  Read by Uwii's server from NearBlocks and NEAR RPC (public data).

  Where your data goes

• Transactions the rules can't label (public on-chain fields only, sanitised)

  Sent to NEAR AI Cloud, inside verified sealed hardware.

  Where your data goes

• Your answers, other income, reliefs

  Your browser only; sent to Uwii only if you choose to anchor. If an answer adds a source leg the scan did not price, that asset and date (nothing else) go to Uwii's price lookup.

  Where your data goes

• Name, TIN, state

  Your browser and the PDF only; never sent.

  Where your data goes

• Report fingerprint

  Written on NEAR only when you choose to anchor. The Export page looks it up, read-only, to show whether it is already anchored.

  Where your data goes