Can a Foreigner Buy Property in Nigeria? The 25-Year Rule Nobody Mentions

Ask around Lagos whether a foreigner can buy property in Nigeria and you will hear the same answer every time: yes, on a 99-year lease. It is repeated by agents, by lawyers, and by half the property blogs on the internet.

It is wrong. When people ask, can a foreigner buy property in Nigeria on those terms, the honest answer in Lagos is no. A genuine foreign national is capped at 25 years, and even that requires the Governor’s written approval. Get this wrong and the agreement is void by statute, not merely risky.

The good news, if you are reading this with a British or American passport in your hand, is that the rule may not apply to you at all. The question is not which passport you carry. It is whether you were a Nigerian citizen by birth.

Where the 99-Year Figure Actually Comes From

Before we answer whether a foreigner can buy property in Nigeria for that long, deal with the number itself. It is not in the law. Not anywhere.

Search the full text of the Land Use Act 1978 and the words “99” and “ninety-nine” do not appear in connection with any term of years. Section 8 requires only that a statutory right of occupancy be granted “for a definite term.” Definite. No ceiling, no default, no number.

The 99 years is administrative convention. It is the term Lagos State habitually writes into a Certificate of Occupancy, inherited from English long-leasehold practice. It is the ceiling of what the state usually does, not of what the law requires.

This matters because the whole “foreigners get 99 years” claim rests on a number that has no statutory basis to begin with.

One more thing worth internalising. A C of O is a lease, not freehold. Section 1 of the Act vests all land in each state in the Governor. Nobody in Lagos owns land outright. Nigerian or foreign, you hold a right of occupancy from the state.

What the Law Says About Foreign Buyers

Here is the part that surprises people. The statute everyone cites when asking can a foreigner buy property in Nigeria does not mention foreigners at all.

The words “citizen,” “foreigner” and “non-Nigerian” appear nowhere in it. Section 5 empowers the Governor to grant statutory rights of occupancy to “any person.” The only nationality-adjacent provision is section 46, which is a rule-making power, not a prohibition.

The exclusion comes from how courts have read section 1, which vests land in the Governor to be held in trust and administered “for the use and common benefit of all Nigerians.” The Supreme Court has read that phrase as limiting the Act’s benefits to Nigerians, in Ogunola v. Eiyekole (1990) and again in Huebner (2017), where it declined to depart from that position.

Then there is the Constitution. Section 43 of the 1999 Constitution reads that “every citizen of Nigeria shall have the right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria.” Every citizen. A foreign national cannot invoke it.

The 25-Year Cap, and Where It Actually Lives

Lagos has its own statute on this, and it is old. The Acquisition of Lands by Aliens Law dates to 1971 and remains in the Laws of Lagos State.

Section 1(1)(a) states that an alien may not acquire any interest or right in or over land from a citizen of Nigeria unless the transaction has been previously approved in writing by the Governor. Section 2(1) goes further and bars outright ownership: an alien may not acquire an interest or right of ownership in or over any land from a citizen of Nigeria.

The 25 years itself sits somewhere most summaries get wrong. It is not in the Law. It is in Regulation 4 of the subsidiary Acquisition of Lands by Aliens Regulations, which provides that the interest acquired shall not exceed, including any option to renew, twenty-five years, and shall not commence more than one month after approval of the transaction.

There is a short-term carve-out. Section 1(1)(b) disapplies the Law where the interest is less than three years including any option for renewal. Three years, not one. The one-year version circulating online is simply incorrect.

The Governor also retains a waiver power under Regulation 6, exercisable case by case. It exists. Do not plan around it.

What Happens If You Ignore It

If a foreigner buys property in Nigeria without that approval, two separate consequences follow, and buyers tend to hear about neither.

The transaction is void. Section 1(2) provides that any agreement or instrument by which an alien purports to acquire an interest in land, forming part of a transaction not duly approved, will be void and of no effect. Your money moves. Your title does not.

And it is criminal. Section 3(2) makes an alien in unlawful occupation of land belonging to a Nigerian citizen guilty of an offence, liable on conviction to a fine of ₦180,000 or imprisonment for twelve months.

Note also that a foreign buyer needs two consents, not one. The Land Use Act section 22 consent is required of everyone, Nigerian or not, on any alienation. The Aliens Law approval is required in addition, because of who you are. Missing either one voids the deal.

The Question That Actually Decides Your Position

If you are Nigerian-born and living in London, Houston or Toronto, none of the above applies to you, and the question of whether a foreigner can buy property in Nigeria is not your question at all. This is the most important paragraph in this article.

The Aliens Law defines an alien as any person other than a citizen of Nigeria. So the whole question collapses into whether you are still a Nigerian citizen. And that is answered by section 28 of the Constitution, which strips citizenship only from a person “not being a citizen of Nigeria by birth” who acquires or retains another nationality.

Read the negative carefully. If you are a Nigerian citizen by birth, taking a second passport does not cost you your Nigerian citizenship. You keep your section 43 property rights. You are not an alien. There is no 25-year cap, no Governor’s approval under the Aliens Law, and you can hold a 99-year C of O in your own personal name exactly like a resident Nigerian.

You still need ordinary Governor’s Consent under section 22, because everybody does. That is a different document from the one this article is about, and our guide on buying property without Governor’s Consent explains what happens when it is missing.

The sharp edge cuts the other way for naturalised Nigerians. Section 28 does bite someone who became Nigerian by registration or naturalisation and then takes another nationality. They forfeit Nigerian citizenship, and the alien restrictions attach.

So the question to answer before anything else is not “which passport do I hold?” It is “was I a Nigerian citizen by birth?” Everything downstream depends on it.

The Company Route, and Why It Is Not a Clean Loophole

This is how foreign money usually reaches a 99-year Lagos title, and it is the real answer to whether a foreigner can buy property in Nigeria at full term. It deserves an honest description rather than the confident one you will get from an agent.

A company incorporated under CAMA is a Nigerian legal person and can hold a right of occupancy. In Huebner, the Supreme Court described the respondent company as registered in Nigeria and capable of acquiring interest in land, and did not look through to the German shareholder behind it.

But the Aliens Law defines “alien” to include companies, exempting only bodies composed solely of citizens of Nigeria. On that definition, a Nigerian company with a foreign shareholder is still an alien and does not automatically escape the restrictions. The Huebner dictum and the statutory definition pull in opposite directions, and the tension is unresolved.

There is also a cost of entry. Since a Corporate Affairs Commission notice of 5 December 2023, companies with foreign participation require minimum share capital of ₦100,000,000, up from ₦10 million.

The company route is the standard structure. It is not a guaranteed workaround, and anyone presenting it as one has not read the definition section.

Getting Your Money Back Out Again

Citizenship solves the land problem. It does not solve the money problem, and this is where diaspora buyers get hurt years later.

If you want to repatriate sale proceeds through the official window, you need a Certificate of Capital Importation for the money coming in. The NIPC investor rights page explains that investment in foreign currency must be reported by your Nigerian bank to the Central Bank within 24 hours to obtain a CCI, and that with a CCI, dividends, rent, royalties, profits net of taxes, and the remittance of proceeds in the event of a sale can be repatriated without hindrance.

The Certificate has been electronic only since 11 September 2017. Hard copies were abolished.

The trap is simple. Money wired informally to a relative’s account has no CCI behind it. Years later, when you sell, there is no clean route to take the proceeds out at the official rate. The paperwork you skip on the way in is the paperwork you need on the way out.

The NIPC Act 1995 backs this up. Section 25 provides that no enterprise shall be nationalised or expropriated, and section 24 guarantees unconditional transferability of funds in freely convertible currency, including proceeds on a sale. What the NIPC Act does not do is disapply state land law. It governs enterprises and capital, not who may hold land.

So, Can a Foreigner Buy Property in Nigeria?

So, can a foreigner buy property in Nigeria? Yes, with three honest caveats.

A genuine foreign national buying in their own name in Lagos is limited to 25 years including renewals, needs the Governor’s written approval, and faces a void transaction plus criminal exposure without it. Not 99 years.

A Nigerian by birth holding a foreign passport is not a foreign national for this purpose. Full 99-year C of O, personal name, ordinary consent rules.

A company is the usual structure for genuine foreign investors, with a ₦100 million share capital floor and a genuine legal tension sitting underneath it that needs proper advice, not an agent’s reassurance.

If you are weighing the market itself rather than the mechanics, our pieces on what drives property value in Lagos and choosing between Island and Mainland are the better starting points.

How Edenbrooks Homes Handles Foreign and Diaspora Buyers

Whenever a client asks us, can a foreigner buy property in Nigeria, the first thing we establish is the one thing this article turns on: your citizenship position, and therefore which set of rules applies to you.

Our Lekki Phase 1 developments, including Maison D’Eko Residences, Wakefield Apartments and Paragon Apartments, sit on titled land with perfected Governor’s Consent. For a Nigerian-born buyer overseas, that means a 99-year title in your own name with nothing outstanding. For a genuine foreign investor, it means we can tell you honestly what structure your purchase needs before you commit, rather than after.

Contact us today to start the conversation. Our team will establish which rules apply to your citizenship position, and show you the title on every Edenbrooks property before you commit a naira.

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