[GUIDE] What to know to survive the new Crypto Tax starting January 2026

[Call_Me_Guru]

The Nigerian government 🇳🇬 has finally come for the Blockchain market

Happy New Year to you all, it's been a while. Despite the hardship created by our leaders, they've decided to further inflict hardship on us. Our hustling in crypto is a saving grace for many of us, with the government giving us nothing, but they think is right to squeeze the little we make out of us.

I like to remind us that the Nigerian Tax Administration Act (NTAA) is no longer a hearsay, it is now a law. As someone who believes in the future of crypto in Nigeria, I'll like to break down what this means for our wallets and what we believe to be privacy.

1. 25% on all profits: The government in its wickedness has abolished the former 10% Tax on Capital Gains, but would treat it as Chargeable Gains in the case of cryptocurrency. The government could charge you as high as 25% now.

2. Crypto privacy has diminished in Nigeria: For the law to have a strong root for enforcement, all SEC-licensed exchanges are required to mandate the KYC and report your transaction volumes. They will have your BVN/NIN to make it easy to monitor you. Gone are the days that exchanges can play smart, a fine of ₦10M is waiting for them for not reporting an individual. They don't have a choice.

Warning and Advice:
No one knows where this insane tax regime is headed, let us be careful. Don't because of playing smart be scammed if it gets worse. People have started using social media for P2P to evade this, this is good, but be careful.

Also,
1. Prioritise self-custody wallets for a long-term investment goal. Not CEX.
2. In case you are caught and called by the FIRS and other tax agencies, make sure you have the details of all your transactions with you, so you are not overtaxed or harassed. Particularly when you fall below the ₦800k annual total income bracket.

I know the 2026 Crypto Tax laws feel like a "cobweb" trying to catch our wings, but with the right knowledge and approach, we can still fly.

[Bishop Victor]

The Nigerian government 🇳🇬 has finally come for the Blockchain market

Happy New Year to you all, it's been a while. Despite the hardship created by our leaders, they've decided to further inflict hardship on us. Our hustling in crypto is a saving grace for many of us, with the government giving us nothing, but they think is right to squeeze the little we make out of us.

I like to remind us that the Nigerian Tax Administration Act (NTAA) is no longer a hearsay, it is now a law. As someone who believes in the future of crypto in Nigeria, I'll like to break down what this means for our wallets and what we believe to be privacy.

1. 25% on all profits: The government in its wickedness has abolished the former 10% Tax on Capital Gains, but would treat it as Chargeable Gains in the case of cryptocurrency. The government could charge you as high as 25% now.

2. Crypto privacy has diminished in Nigeria: For the law to have a strong root for enforcement, all SEC-licensed exchanges are required to mandate the KYC and report your transaction volumes. They will have your BVN/NIN to make it easy to monitor you. Gone are the days that exchanges can play smart, a fine of ₦10M is waiting for them for not reporting an individual. They don't have a choice.

Warning and Advice:
No one knows where this insane tax regime is headed, let us be careful. Don't because of playing smart be scammed if it gets worse. People have started using social media for P2P to evade this, this is good, but be careful.

Also,
1. Prioritise self-custody wallets for a long-term investment goal. Not CEX.
2. In case you are caught and called by the FIRS and other tax agencies, make sure you have the details of all your transactions with you, so you are not overtaxed or harassed. Particularly when you fall below the ₦800k annual total income bracket.

I know the 2026 Crypto Tax laws feel like a "cobweb" trying to catch our wings, but with the right knowledge and approach, we can still fly.

Crypto is still useful in Nigeria, but it’s now more taxed, less private, and riskier if you’re careless. Be informed, protect yourself, and don’t move blindly.

[SatoPrincess]

There is a lot of misinformation about the new tax on the internet. I recently read a post where they said the government doesn’t care about what you write as narration for your transaction. IMO the amount of tax topics in this board is becoming too much. I understand that we are all worried about how it’s going to work, instead of coming up with ideas to outsmart a system we don’t yet understand, it’s better we wait and see how government will actually implement it. If you don’t want to be taxed, why not protest against it.

[EluguHcman]

2. Crypto privacy has diminished in Nigeria: For the law to have a strong root for enforcement, all SEC-licensed exchanges are required to mandate the KYC and report your transaction volumes. They will have your BVN/NIN to make it easy to monitor you. Gone are the days that exchanges can play smart, a fine of ₦10M is waiting for them for not reporting an individual. They don't have a choice.

I am sure it is still government or sets of authority with a personal interest and will not give you a full right of privacy with your funds and you will always have to be charged as intermediary to approve your transaction before it is okayed.

They will also want to sure some autocratic power my extorting you with the law that regulates the community or platform.
KYC of course is always their data requirements for users of their community.
Perhaps regulating exchange will always ask for KYC just to keep users on track and disapproving Privacies.

[casey15]

I think I e of the misinformation going round is that the tax will be debited from your account...which is not true..
Take note that you will only pay tax once a year which is at the end of the year, and you will be the one to go and pay it yourself, nobody is deducting it from your account because they don't know which of the transactions are profits, you will be the one to specify them. If you are employed, I think your company has a way to link it to your account so that all your salaries are documented and taxed. You only get taxed when you receive profits up to 800k a year. So you may received up to 1 million but not get taxed if your total profit isn't up to 800k ... That is why small trade businesses are quite safe from it

[Curious T]

Take note that you will only pay tax once a year which is at the end of the year

And here you are spreading more misinformation. It's not always that income tax is paid once a year. Most times, the tax is paid monthly. How do you expect a person who earns N400k a month to pay a total sum of N960k once? if the tax is 20%, it will be deducted monthly by your employee if you're going with the PAYE system. In Nigeria, it is mostly civil servants who use this method.
So it's not just straightforward. Different people fall into different categories.

As for capital gains tax, which is what the OP was talking about, you only pay capital gains tax when there is a gain from the capital. Which means you only pay when there is profit. Meaning if you bought a bitcoin at eighty thousand dollars and it has appreciated to a hundred thousand dollars, you won't be taxed unless you sell and take a profit. As long as you've not sold, you won't be taxed. A profit that has not been taken or realised is not yet profit. The coin can crash back to even below eighty thousand.

[SatoPrincess]

I think I e of the misinformation going round is that the tax will be debited from your account...which is not true..
Take note that you will only pay tax once a year which is at the end of the year, and you will be the one to go and pay it yourself, nobody is deducting it from your account because they don't know which of the transactions are profits, you will be the one to specify them.

How you take know this one you dey talk now? Because everybody don turn government official abi tax expert got this matter. Over 10 threads don dey on top this topic since the time way government announce am, and up till now na still the same hearsay hearsay information dey spread.  d

[Mhizlove]

There is a lot of misinformation about the new tax on the internet. I recently read a post where they said the government doesn’t care about what you write as narration for your transaction. IMO the amount of tax topics in this board is becoming too much. I understand that we are all worried about how it’s going to work, instead of coming up with ideas to outsmart a system we don’t yet understand, it’s better we wait and see how government will actually implement it. If you don’t want to be taxed, why not protest against it.

Honestly I understand your point because the rumours about this new tax is too much online, and this can deceive people. Rather than beating the system and also be on guessing what we don't have understanding about, let's just play calm and see the outcome of the work first.
To know if the tax don't sit well with people, the proper way to go about it or tackle this kind of matter is to make sure the change is openly done and to spreading news base on assumptions.

[Call_Me_Guru]

IMO the amount of tax topics in this board is becoming too much.

Did you mean specifically on Crypto Tax? I doubt that because I checked. All I saw were on the general tax law.

I understand that we are all worried about how it’s going to work, instead of coming up with ideas to outsmart a system we don’t yet understand, it’s better we wait and see how government will actually implement it. If you don’t want to be taxed, why not protest against it.

Talking about it and planning ahead is not a bad thing and when it calls for protest, we shall do it. This government deserves nothing from us, they will eat everything at the end of the day.

I think I e of the misinformation going round is that the tax will be debited from your account...which is not true..
Take note that you will only pay tax once a year which is at the end of the year

This is Nigeria, we do not know what the government would arrange with the exchanges to make it effective. The government that can alter the law can do anything. But ordinarily, you are correct, it should be reported on March 31 each year.

[Hewlet]

2. In case you are caught and called by the FIRS and other tax agencies, make sure you have the details of all your transactions with you, so you are not overtaxed or harassed. Particularly when you fall below the ₦800k annual total income bracket.

Can we stop talking about this 800k per annum as though it's a good thing when one is not earning upto that amount per annum? This is part of the false narrative we continue to see on the media as though it's realistic not to spend upto 800k per year. Fact still remains that regardless of where you do your P2P and how much you try to hide it, eventually, they are going to catch up with you because before this time next year, you will certainly have above 800k going through your account that's taxable.

I rather see this taxation stuff as a clear exploitation of the government on all citizens and there's no point hiding around it or trying to play smart around it. If they are actually serious about this whole tax of a thing, there's absolutely no idea place for both those in the crypto niche and the regular Nigerian out their

[Jegileman]

There is a lot of misinformation about the new tax on the internet. I recently read a post where they said the government doesn’t care about what you write as narration for your transaction. IMO the amount of tax topics in this board is becoming too much. I understand that we are all worried about how it’s going to work, instead of coming up with ideas to outsmart a system we don’t yet understand, it’s better we wait and see how government will actually implement it. If you don’t want to be taxed, why not protest against it.

The narration doesn’t mean anything because if it does, then everyone is going to avoid tax even those that earn and spend above the range at which tax is not exempted for them. I feel lack of proper information lead to the escalation of that, sending misinformation is misleading to the public that’s why it is better to do your own research and seek for the right knowledge about this tax reform. I think most of us can never know how this is done until the end of the year, so it is better we wait and see how the government tend to implement this tax and how it affects us all. For now, our fingers are crossed and watching to see the next action the government want to take at the end of the year concerning the tax.

[Moreno233]

I don't know how reliable this information is but there have never been any notice of this by any exchange that I know of, the old system still exist. How will Nigerian government even achieve this when exchange IP addresses are still banned and people can only access exchanges via VPN and their mobile apps? If this information is anything to be worried about, we will see the government lifting the ban on exchange IP addresses and lifting or restrictions on cryptocurrency and its related activities. Until that is done, the Nigerian government have not decided to be serious about cryptocurrency, it could just be some of the aids to the president tweeting their opinion without action.

[EarnOnVictor]

We are all in limbo about this ignoble tax laws of president Bola Ahmed Tinubu, especially this crypto taxes. I always get angry in the spirit every time I remember about this law.

To pay tax is fine by me, and it's good at the same time because taxation has its purposes, but would they use the Nigerian taxes for the right purposes? Let's start from the old taxes the government collected, coupled with our rich oil and other mineral resources, what have we achieved with them as a nation? if not corruption and embezzlement. Nothing works in this country, the unemployment rates are increasing, and so is inflation, roads are bad, electricity is bad, don't let us even talk about insecurity. Nothing works in this country despite the huge money always generated. So, it's really disheartening reading about this crypto tax, but we shall overcome.