Before you start

CERPAC or evidence of lawful residence
Passport
Proof of a Lagos address — a utility bill or a tenancy agreement
A Nigerian phone number
Two references from existing account holders at some banks

Step-by-step

1
Enrol for a BVN at a branch
The Bank Verification Number is a biometric enrolment done in person at any bank. It is issued once and follows you across every Nigerian bank. Nothing else works without it, so make it the first banking errand rather than a step in an account application.
In personWho: YouWeek 1
2
Open a naira current account and a domiciliary account together
Ask for both in the same visit. The domiciliary account holds USD, GBP or EUR and is how salary paid partly in hard currency, or transfers from abroad, are received. Opening it later means repeating the KYC process.
In personWho: YouWeek 1–2
3
Bring the address proof the branch will actually accept
Nigerian KYC is documentary and branch officers are conservative. A tenancy agreement plus a recent utility bill in the landlord's name with a letter is the usual working combination for a newcomer. Ask the branch what they take before you queue.
In personWho: You
4
Set up transfers and a card, and understand the limits
Domestic transfers in Nigeria are instant and cheap through NIP, and this works extremely well. International card spending and foreign-currency limits on naira cards move with CBN policy — ask the bank what your current limits are rather than assuming.
Mobile appWho: You
5
Register for tax with LIRS
Your personal income tax is filed with the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service. Register early: the tax clearance certificate LIRS issues is asked for by landlords, schools, immigration and licensing bodies far more often than you expect.
OnlineWho: You
6
Use a specialist service for inbound transfers, not a wire to a naira account
Sending money into Nigeria through a specialist remittance service is cheaper and faster than a correspondent-bank wire. If capital is being brought in for a business, a Certificate of Capital Importation issued by the receiving bank is what makes it repatriable later.
Mobile appWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Passport and CERPAC
BVN
Proof of Lagos address
Passport photographs
Employer's letter, often requested
Reference forms from existing account holders, at some banks

Things most newcomers don’t know

The BVN is the real account, and it is issued to you rather than to a bank.

Nigeria's Bank Verification Number is a biometric identity registered once and recognised by every bank in the country. It is what links your accounts, what fraud controls run against, and what is checked before almost any financial action. Because it is portable, opening a second account elsewhere is fast — and because it is biometric, someone else cannot open an account in your name. Enrol in week one and everything downstream gets easier.

Source: community-reported; Central Bank of Nigeria

Advice describing an official rate and a parallel premium is stale and can lose you money.

Before June 2023 Nigeria ran a pegged official rate with a large parallel-market gap, and a whole genre of advice grew around arbitraging it. The naira has floated since then and the segmented windows were collapsed into a single willing-buyer, willing-seller market. Acting on the old model — routing salary oddly, holding cash to change informally — now mostly means taking risk for a spread that no longer exists. Quote and budget in naira, and treat any dollar equivalent you read as a snapshot.

Source: Central Bank of Nigeria

A domiciliary account is the normal instrument here, not an exotic one.

Nigerian banks routinely offer personal accounts denominated in US dollars, pounds and euros alongside naira accounts. For anyone paid partly abroad, or saving in hard currency, this is the standard arrangement and is entirely ordinary. Open it at the same time as the naira account — doing it later means a second round of documentation, and some banks are slower about adding one to an existing relationship.

Source: community-reported

If you bring capital in for a business, the Certificate of Capital Importation is the document that matters.

A CCI is issued by the Nigerian bank that receives your inbound capital and is the evidence that the money entered the country through official channels. It is what allows dividends, sale proceeds and repatriation of the capital later. Money that arrives without one is, for repatriation purposes, effectively invisible — and no amount of paperwork afterwards reconstructs it. Ask for the CCI at the moment of the transfer.

Source: Central Bank of Nigeria

Common mistakes to avoid

Trying to open an account before enrolling for a BVN.
Arriving at a branch without address documentation the bank recognises.
Opening only a naira account and needing a domiciliary one three months later.
Planning around a pre-2023 official-versus-parallel exchange rate model.
Bringing business capital in without obtaining a Certificate of Capital Importation.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.