Nigeria’s efforts to bring global digital service providers into its tax net have begun yielding significant dividends, with the country collecting more than $120 million in value-added tax (VAT) from non-resident suppliers over the past three years. The milestone highlights the growing success of reforms aimed at taxing the digital economy, broadening the country’s revenue base and reducing its reliance on oil earnings amid mounting fiscal pressures.
The collections followed a series of tax reforms that introduced clearer rules for taxing digital services supplied by foreign companies operating in Nigeria without a physical presence.
According to the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), the measures enabled the country to generate $21 million in 2023, between $40 million and $43 million in 2024, and an estimated $56 million to $68 million in 2025 from non-resident digital service providers.
Speaking on Nigeria’s digital tax reforms, Mathew Osanekwu, Director of Investigations at the Nigeria Revenue Service, said the improved collections were driven by reforms that strengthened the taxation of digital services and simplified tax compliance for foreign suppliers.
Nigeria’s reforms drew heavily on technical support from the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), an organisation that develops tax policy solutions for African countries. As a founding member of ATAF, Nigeria contributed to and benefited from the organisation’s technical work, particularly its VAT Digital Services Toolkit for Africa.
