Nigeria Capital Gains Tax Calculator 2026 (Shares & Property)

Capital gains tax in Nigeria changed more on 1 January 2026 than almost any other part of the tax system. The old Capital Gains Tax Act, which had governed disposals of chargeable assets for decades under a flat 10% rate, was repealed outright. In its place, the Nigeria Tax Act (NTA) 2025 folds capital gains into the mainstream income tax system, so gains are no longer taxed as a separate category with their own flat rate. Instead, an individual's chargeable gain is added to their other income for the year and taxed at the same progressive Personal Income Tax (PIT) bands that apply to salary, so a modest gain sitting on top of a modest income can attract very little tax, while a large gain on top of a high income can be taxed at up to 25%. Companies see a similar realignment: the CGT rate for corporate disposals now matches the standard Companies Income Tax rate of 30%, up from the old flat 10%, though small companies are fully exempt. The starting point for any capital gains calculation is the chargeable gain itself, and the mechanics of working it out have not changed conceptually even though the rate structure has. You take your disposal proceeds, the amount you actually received or the market value of the asset if it was not a straightforward cash sale, and deduct your allowable costs. Allowable costs include what you originally paid to acquire the asset, incidental costs of that acquisition such as legal fees, stamp duties and survey costs, any capital improvements that added lasting value to the asset, and incidental costs of the disposal itself such as agent commissions and valuation fees. Where an asset was used in a business and capital allowances were claimed against it, the tax-adjusted written-down value stands in for the original cost rather than the full purchase price, which tends to push the chargeable gain higher for depreciated business assets. Whatever is left after all of that, if positive, is your chargeable gain; if the deductions exceed the proceeds, you have a capital loss instead, which can generally be offset against gains of the same class rather than triggering a tax refund. Shares in Nigerian companies get the most attention under the new rules because of a dedicated small-investor exemption, and this is also where the numbers have moved the most. Under the Finance Act 2021 regime that applied before 2026, a disposal was exempt if aggregate proceeds across a rolling 12-month period stayed under ₦100 million. The Nigeria Tax Act 2025 raises that proceeds threshold to ₦150 million and adds a second condition: the aggregate chargeable gain across the same 12-month period must not exceed ₦10 million. Both conditions have to be satisfied together, so a large-volume trader who technically stays under ₦150 million in proceeds but nets more than ₦10 million in gains will still fall into the taxable bracket. The 12-month window is genuinely rolling, not tied to a calendar or fiscal year, so spreading disposals further apart can matter for anyone close to the line. Separately, if disposal proceeds from shares are reinvested within the same year of assessment into shares of the same or another Nigerian company, that portion of the gain is exempt in proportion to what was reinvested, which gives active portfolio managers a legitimate way to defer tax by staying invested in the Nigerian market rather than a way to avoid it outright, since gains not reinvested remain fully chargeable. Property disposals follow a different logic built around one long-standing relief: the Principal Private Residence exemption. Gains on an individual's main dwelling house, together with up to one acre of adjoining land, are exempt from capital gains tax, on the basis that taxing the sale of someone's actual home would be poor policy regardless of how the wider CGT regime is structured. This relief is generally understood to apply once per taxpayer to their genuine primary residence rather than to every property someone happens to live in briefly, so investment properties, rental properties and second homes do not qualify even if the owner has stayed in one of them at some point. Inherited property is treated on the basis of its value at the date of inheritance rather than what the original owner paid for it decades earlier, which matters considerably for older family properties where the historical purchase price bears little relation to current market value. For companies, the alignment with the 30% Companies Income Tax rate is softened by the same small-company exemption that already applies to CIT itself: a company with annual turnover of ₦100 million or less and total fixed assets of ₦250 million or less is exempt not just from CIT but from capital gains tax and the Development Levy as well. This is a meaningful concession for small and growing Nigerian businesses that occasionally dispose of an asset, a piece of equipment, a vehicle, a small property, without triggering a tax bill that a company of that size might not budget for. Larger companies pay the full 30% on the chargeable gain with no equivalent small-gain carve-out the way individuals and small shareholders have. None of this replaces proper professional advice, and several areas the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 touches on, indirect offshore transfers of Nigerian company shares, rollover relief when a business asset is replaced, and multi-year loss carry-forwards, go beyond what a straightforward calculator can reliably model. If your situation involves any of those, or a disposal size large enough that getting the number wrong would be costly, a tax adviser familiar with the NTA 2025 and the Nigeria Revenue Service's current guidance is worth the consultation. Keep your acquisition documents, valuations and disposal records regardless, since documentation, not estimation, is what the tax authority will ultimately ask for.