If you have been following the news, you probably saw the big announcement: President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the Presidential Executive Order on Virtual Assets Coordination, 2026.
Then a few weeks later the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) officially published its legal guidelines detailing exactly how stablecoins and virtual assets will be taxed in Nigeria.
If official government releases are a bit complicated for you to understand, don’t worry. This breakdown covers what the updates mean, why they are happening now, and how they affect traders and crypto businesses.
A little Backstory
Nigeria’s crypto regulatory picture did not change overnight. What we are seeing in 2026 is the result of a multi-year push that started properly in 2024, after the Finance Act of 2022 introduced a flat 10% capital gains tax on digital assets, and has picked up speed ever since.
June 2024: The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched the Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme (ARIP), a formal pathway for crypto exchanges to operate legally under the SEC’s supervision.
August 2024: SEC issued provisional operating licence crypto exchanges. For the first time, Nigerian crypto customers had regulated local exchanges they could trade on with confidence.
March 2025: Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the Investments and Securities Act (ISA) 2025 into law. This law formally recognised digital and virtual assets as securities under Nigerian law, giving the SEC clear authority to license and supervise crypto exchanges, custodians, and other virtual asset service providers.
In January 2026: the Nigeria Tax Act, and the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, came into effect. These laws were officially recognised digital and virtual assets as chargeable assets and folded them into Nigeria’s mainstream tax net.
In July 2026: President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the Presidential Executive Order on Virtual Assets Coordination, 2026, which established a Virtual Asset Council to coordinate regulation across the Central Bank of Nigeria , the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the NRS, and other agencies.
On 31 July 2026: The NRS released the practical rulebook: the Guidelines on the Taxation of Virtual Assets. This is the document that tells everyone how the tax laws will actually apply to crypto activity in Nigeria.
12 August 2026: The CBN launched Cohort 2 of its Regulatory Sandbox Programme, with a dedicated Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) track for stablecoin, wallet, custody, and payment infrastructure operators.
Key Takeaways from the New Virtual Asset Order and Tax Framework
A New Team to Coordinate (The Virtual Asset Council):
- The team: The Order establishes a Virtual Asset Council, chaired by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), with the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as vice-chairs. The team also has the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) as members.
- Their Duty: The team will provide directions around policies, promote collaborations among participating agencies and also work hand in hand with the Attorney- General of the Federation to create frameworks that align with Nigeria’s security, economic and social obligations.
Clear Rules on Who Registers Who:
- SEC will register crypto activities that are investments (securities).
- CBN will register crypto activities that deal with payments, transferring money (settlements), and holding funds (custody).
- The NFIU will supervise and ensure compliance with the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CFT) regulations.
- The council as a whole will handle any cases between the regulators where responsibilities are unclear.
This means there will be no more confusion that might leave ground for any establishment to claim no single agency owns their type of business.
A “Testing Zone” for Crypto Products (Regulatory Sandbox):
The CBN is opening a safe testing space (a regulatory sandbox) where crypto companies can test new products under regulatory supervision before launching them to the general public. “As part of the coordinated approach, the Central Bank of Nigeria is proceeding with a regulatory sandbox for digital assets. The sandbox will provide a controlled environment in which eligible operators can test and operate virtual asset products, services, and blockchain-based solutions under close supervision”.
More about the new virtual asset tax guidelines
For individuals: Gains from your crypto transactions are now taxed as chargeable gains under personal income tax, at rates of up to 25%. This replaces the flat 10% capital gains tax from the Finance Act of 2022.
For medium and large companies: Crypto profits are subject to the standard 30% corporate income tax.
For small businesses: The 30% corporate tax does not apply, which gives smaller operators some breathing room.
For Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) – crypto exchanges, wallet providers, and P2P platforms: VASPs pay 30% corporate tax on their operational profits, largely from transaction fees.
Withholding: Platforms operating in Nigeria must withhold 1% of proceeds from taxable disposals of cryptocurrencies, security tokens, and applicable non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This is deducted at source and remitted to the NRS. This means, instead of trusting individual traders to manually calculate and pay their income tax at the end of the year, the government places the responsibility on crypto exchanges to automatically deduct 1% of the total trade value right when the transaction happens.
What Actually Counts as a Taxable Event
This is where a lot of people get confused. The NRS guidelines are clear that a taxable event does not require money to enter a bank account. Here are the main moments that trigger tax:
- Selling crypto for local currency (Naira, and others)
- Swapping one cryptocurrency for another (Example: Bitcoin for Ethereum, )
- Spending crypto on goods or services
- Receiving crypto as salary, wages, or professional fees
- Receiving staking rewards, airdrops, or mining income
What is NOT taxable: Simply holding your crypto in your wallet. Tax only applies when you actually sell, swap, or spend your crypto, not when the value of your crypto goes up while sitting in your wallet.
Trade and Build with Quidax
When national regulatory frameworks step up, using a platform built on compliance gives you a major advantage.Long before this executive order and the NRS tax guidelines were introduced, Quidax became the very first cryptocurrency exchange to receive a provisional Digital Assets Exchange licence from Nigeria’s Security Exchange Commission and is currently the most trusted crypto exchange and and stablecoin infrastructure in Africa .
Whether you are an individual looking for a secure environment to trade, or a business looking to integrate our Stablecoin API for instant cross-border settlements across 21+ countries and 14+ currencies, Quidax provides regulated and compliant digital infrastructure you can trust.
