The 4 Taxes and Fees Your Buyer and Seller Must Pay to Close a Property Sale in Nigeria

Almost every buyer in Lagos budgets only for the property’s price. Then the demand notice arrives from Alausa, and the number is millions higher than expected.

The taxes and fees on property sale in Nigeria are not hidden. They are published, they are percentages, and they are entirely predictable if you know which four to plan for. What changed this year is that two of them moved in opposite directions at once. One got dramatically cheaper. One got dramatically more expensive.

Here is what the buyer and seller each owe in 2026 at current rates, with sources for each figure.

What Actually Changed in 2026

Two things reshaped the picture this year, and they landed within months of each other.

The Nigeria Tax Act 2025 was signed on 26 June 2025 and took effect on 1 January 2026. It rewrote capital gains treatment for property and removed VAT from land and buildings entirely.

Then Lagos revised its Fair Market Value schedule, the Blue Book, with effect from 1 May 2026. The percentages you pay are applied to the values in that book, and those values went up hard.

So the tax law got friendlier while the state valuation got more expensive. Whether you are better or worse off than in 2025 depends entirely on which side of the transaction you sit.

Fee 1: Governor’s Consent Fee, at 1.5%

Of all the taxes and fees on property sale in Nigeria, this is the largest single line on most closings.

The Lagos Lands Bureau workflow sets out the assessment. The aggregate is 3% of assessed value, broken down as consent fee at 1.5%, Capital Gains Tax at 0.5%, stamp duty at 0.5%, and registration fee at 0.5%. There is also a Neighbourhood Improvement Charge on private and excised land, assessed at the size of the land multiplied by ₦2 per square metre multiplied by the number of years of the relevant title.

Note the word “assessed.” You do not pay a percentage of what you paid the seller. You pay a percentage of what Lagos State says the property is worth, and the Blue Book is where that number comes from.

One caution worth stating plainly. The Lands Bureau page setting out those percentages anchors itself to the Fair Market Value published in Lagos State Official Gazette No. 10 Vol. 48 of 5 February 2015. That is the gazette the 2026 Blue Book supersedes. Confirm the current schedule directly with the Lands Bureau at the time of your transaction rather than relying on any percentage quoted to you by a seller or an agent, including this one.

For mortgage transactions, the basis differs: consent fee is assessed at ₦2,500 per ₦1,000,000, with registration at ₦5,000 per ₦1,000,000.

Fee 2: The Blue Book Multiplier

The Blue Book is not a tax. It is the number every percentage is multiplied by, which makes it the most consequential document in this article.

Banwo & Ighodalo confirmed that the revised Blue Book took effect on 1 May 2026 and determines the rates for assessing statutory fees payable on real estate transactions in Lagos State, including Governor’s consent fee, stamp duties, registration fee, capital contribution and premium. It is reviewed every five years. The previous version was 2021.

The transitional rule is worth knowing if your transaction has been dragging. Applications submitted before 1 May 2026 are assessed on the 2021 rates.

On magnitude, BusinessDay reported that experts estimate the increase at 300%. Its analysis put Governor’s Consent on a Lekki Phase 1 property at between ₦40 million and ₦90 million in 2026, against ₦12 million to ₦18 million a decade earlier. On Banana Island, perfection costs alone can reach ₦700 million to ₦1 billion on a property valued near ₦10 billion.

This is the single biggest change to closing costs in Lagos in a decade, and it arrived quietly in May.

Tax 3: Capital Gains Tax, and the Exemption Most Sellers Have Not Heard About

This is where the news is genuinely good, and where the misinformation is thickest.

Under the old regime, capital gains were taxed at a flat 10%. The EY alert on the Nigeria Tax Act sets out what replaced it. Capital gains are now taxed under personal income tax rates, up to 25%, instead of the flat 10% CGT rate. For companies, the CGT rate is increased to match the Companies Income Tax rate: 30% for most companies, and 0% for small companies.

So on the face of it, individuals could pay more and companies certainly do.

Except for the exemption. EY records that exemptions are provided for private residences. Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, put it directly in February 2026: individuals will no longer pay Capital Gains Tax when they dispose of a dwelling house or an interest in one.

Read that carefully before you celebrate. It is an exemption for a dwelling house, not for property generally. An individual selling the home they live in is in a very different position from an individual selling three plots of bare land or a company disposing of an investment portfolio.

One trap to avoid, because it is repeated constantly online. You will see the figures ₦150 million in proceeds and ₦10 million in gains quoted as a general property exemption. They are not. EY records those thresholds against revised share disposal rules. They are about shares, not land. Do not plan a property sale around them.

Note also that Lagos collects CGT at 0.5% of assessed value as part of the perfection aggregate at Alausa. That is a state collection mechanism sitting alongside the federal position, which is one reason getting professional advice on a large disposal is money well spent.

Tax 4: Stamp Duty and Registration, at 0.5% Each

These two travel together, and among the taxes and fees on property sale in Nigeria, they are the price of your name entering the record.

Both are assessed at 0.5% of assessed value under the Lands Bureau breakdown. Registration is what puts you in the Land Registry. Without it, your interest is not recorded against the property, and an unregistered instrument is not admissible to prove title.

There is relief at the small end. Oyedele confirmed that lease agreements with an annual value below ₦10 million, or ten times the annual minimum wage, are exempt from stamp duty. That helps tenancy agreements. It does not help you on an outright purchase of a Lekki apartment.

The fixed fees around these are small enough to ignore in your budget but important enough to actually pay. Charting, endorsement and Form 1C together cost ₦10,500, per the Lands Bureau list of requirements for Governor’s Consent.

The Tax Nobody Pays Any More

If someone quotes you VAT on a property purchase in 2026, they are either out of date or hoping you are.

Oyedele stated that land, buildings and rent are now fully exempt from VAT under the Nigeria Tax Act 2025, and that individuals buying land or completed buildings will no longer pay VAT on such transactions. The exemption covers both residential and commercial rent.

The standard VAT rate remains 7.5%, per PwC’s Nigeria tax summary. It simply does not attach to land and buildings any more.

It does still attach to services around the transaction. Your agent’s commission and your lawyer’s fee are services, not land.

Oyedele also went out of his way to knock down a rumour that had been circulating: the Act does not impose a 25% tax on construction funds, bank balances, or business expenses, and there is no postponement of implementation to 2027. His advice on any alarming claim was to ask where it is in the law. Reasonable advice for this whole subject.

Who Pays What

Here is how the taxes and fees on property sale split in practice in Lagos, with the difference between law and custom made explicit, because they are not the same thing.

The seller pays Capital Gains Tax. The gain is theirs, so the tax is theirs. If they are an individual selling a dwelling house, the exemption may take this to nothing. If they are a company, it is 30%.

The buyer pays perfection. Consent fee, stamp duty and registration, roughly 3% of assessed value in aggregate; land almost universally on the buyer in practice. Note the legal wrinkle: section 22 of the Land Use Act places the duty to obtain consent on the holder, meaning the seller. Custom has shifted the cost to the buyer regardless. If you are the buyer, do not assume the seller will handle it because the statute points at them. Put it in the contract.

Agency and legal fees are negotiable and usually the buyer’s. The Lagos Real Estate Regulatory Authority Law 2021 caps what agents may charge under section 32(2): not more than 10% of total rent on a letting or lease, and not more than 15% of total sale proceeds where two or more permit holders are retained by the vendor. Legal fees in Lagos premium sales are customary rather than regulated, so agree the number in writing before instructing.

Withholding tax sits on the agent, not on you. Commission attracts withholding tax at 5% under the Deduction at Source Regulations 2024. Where a vendor provides no Taxpayer Identification Number, the rate doubles. Our piece on why realtors need a separate client account covers why that matters to the agent side of your transaction.

Budgeting for the Taxes and Fees on Property Sale in Nigeria

The rule of thumb that works for the taxes and fees on property sale in Nigeria: assume roughly 3% of assessed value for perfection, then find out what “assessed value” actually means for your specific property under the current Blue Book before you commit.

That second half is the part people skip, and since 1 May 2026 it is the part that hurts. The percentage is small and stable. The number it multiplies is neither.

Two practical moves. Ask for the demand notice figure in writing before you exchange, not after. And if the seller tells you consent is already paid for or already processing, ask for the receipt, because the consequences of buying without Governor’s Consent fall on you rather than on them.

If you are earlier in the process, our guides on the questions to ask before buying land in Lagos and what to double-check before final payment cover the checks that come before the money conversation.

None of this is tax advice, and a nine-figure disposal deserves an accountant rather than a blog post. What it is is the map of what is coming so nothing on the demand notice is a surprise.

How Edenbrooks Homes Handles Closing Costs

At Edenbrooks Homes, our buyers see every tax and fee on their property sale before they commit, not after the demand notice lands.

Our Lekki Phase 1 developments, including Maison D’Eko Residences III, Maison D’Eko Residences, Wakefield Apartments and Paragon Apartments,  sit on titled land with perfected Governor’s Consent. That matters to this article specifically: you are not inheriting somebody else’s unpaid perfection bill, and you are not funding a consent process that should have been completed years ago.

Contact us today to start the conversation. Our team will break down every tax and fee on your purchase in writing, so the number you budget for is the number you pay.

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