Nigeria Tax Administration Act, 2025 · Circular 2026/21 ¶6.3
Stamp duty of 1.5% on token-to-fiat conversions
Whoever receives the token bears it, it is taken in tokens, and the cash side is untouched.
Who this lands on: Anyone converting naira to tokens or tokens to naira in Nigeria.
Stamp duty applies to token-to-fiat and fiat-to-token transfers under item 33 of the Ninth Schedule to the Tax Act, at 1.5%.
The transferee — the person receiving the token — bears it. It is withheld in token units from the tokens credited to them, and the fiat side of the deal is not reduced by it.
Worked through: pay ₦1,000,000 for 1 BTC and 0.015 BTC is withheld, so you are credited 0.985 BTC while the seller still receives ₦1,000,000 in full.
A service provider withholds and remits the duty by the 15th and the 30th of the month of the transaction.
The duty crystallises at the point of conversion in Nigeria. Sending the token abroad afterwards does not change that, and a foreign recipient is not the transferee for this purpose.
Paying for goods or services with tokens is not dutiable in itself — but if the underlying document would be dutiable anyway, that duty still stands, and both can apply to the same transaction.