Payment Processing · Buyer guide
A Nigerian business taking a local card, USSD or bank-transfer payment through an online checkout pays its gateway between 1.2% and 2% of the sale in October 2026 before VAT, plus ₦100 a payment at Paystack, and at four of the five gateways that publish a Nigerian price the fee stops at a cap of ₦1,500 or ₦2,000, however large the order. On a card machine the rates can be lower: Paystack charges 0.5% capped at ₦1,000, the same limit the Central Bank of Nigeria's 2020 Guide to Charges sets for the merchant service commission banks charge a general merchant on card payments.
Two other things changed the arithmetic this year. The Nigeria Tax Act 2025, in force since 1 January 2026, turned the old ₦50 levy on electronic transfers into a stamp duty paid by the sender rather than the recipient. And the CBN has published a draft of a new Guide to Charges that would raise the cap on that merchant service commission; some outlets report it in force, but the CBN has not published a final version we can find. This guide sets out each provider's Nigerian price as read on 18 October 2026, puts them on one basis, and explains the tax and the rules.
For a payment from a Nigerian card, USSD or bank transfer through a checkout or payment link:
The headline rate matters less than three details. The first is the cap: Flutterwave publishes none, so on a ₦250,000 order it takes ₦5,000, or ₦5,375 with VAT, where Paystack, Monnify and Quickteller Business stop at ₦2,000. The second is VAT: Monnify quotes net of it and Flutterwave and Quickteller Business add 7.5%, while Paystack's pricing page does not mention it and its merchant terms say its fees include VAT. Ask for a VAT-inclusive figure before comparing. The third is how the customer pays: at Paystack and Squad, a bank transfer into a virtual account costs far less than a card at checkout.
The CBN's Guide to Charges by Banks and Other Financial Institutions, in its 2020 edition, the last version the CBN has confirmed as final, sets the merchant service commission for a general merchant at 0.50% of the transaction value but not more than ₦1,000. Banks reproduce that line in their own tariffs: Stanbic IBTC's 2023 tariff, which says it follows the guide, carries it for general merchants but lists higher, uncapped rates for categories such as hotels, at 1.25% to 2%. The fintech terminals publish:
Take an online shop selling ₦10 million a month as 500 orders of ₦20,000, all on Nigerian cards. On each gateway's published rate, before any VAT the provider adds:
Now take the same ₦10 million as 40 orders of ₦250,000, say a furniture shop. The caps now do most of the work:
If the furniture shop's customers paid by transfer into Paystack dedicated virtual accounts instead, at 1% capped at ₦300, the bill would be ₦12,000; Squad's virtual accounts, at 0.25% capped at ₦1,000, would cost ₦25,000. Small orders are where Paystack's fixed fee bites: on a ₦3,000 order it charges ₦145, or 4.8%, while on a ₦2,000 order, under the waiver threshold, it charges ₦30.
A pharmacy taking ₦3 million a month on its card machine, as 600 sales of ₦5,000, would pay ₦15,000 a month on a Paystack terminal (0.5%), after buying the ₦100,000 device; ₦18,000 at OPay's 0.6% starting rate, or ₦15,000 at its 0.5% rate; and ₦60,000 on Flutterwave's 2%, or ₦64,500 with VAT. On a single ₦400,000 sale the Paystack cap matters: 0.5% would be ₦2,000, but the fee stops at ₦1,000, which is 0.25% of the sale. Flutterwave's 2% would be ₦8,000.
Since 1 January 2026, the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 has charged a fixed stamp duty of ₦50 on an electronic receipt or transfer of ₦10,000 or more, and its schedule names the transferor as the person liable. Transfers below ₦10,000, transfers for salary payments and transfers between a person's own accounts at the same bank are exempt. The duty replaces the Electronic Money Transfer Levy, which under its 2022 regulations charged the same ₦50 to the recipient.
For a merchant, that moves the charge off incoming payments. Paystack says it does not charge stamp duty when a customer pays you by bank transfer, though the customer's own bank may charge the customer. It does charge on money going out: since 18 February 2026, every transfer of ₦10,000 or more from a Paystack balance carries ₦50 of stamp duty on top of Paystack's ₦25 or ₦50 transfer fee, except for merchants registered with it as payroll businesses. A ₦100,000 transfer debits ₦100,100. Ask any other provider whether it applies the duty to your payouts and supplier transfers.
At the till, a Nigerian business cannot add a fee for paying by card. The CBN's Guidelines on Operations of Electronic Payment Channels, issued in June 2020, say a merchant shall "under no circumstance" charge a different price or surcharge a cardholder who pays with a card or other electronic means, in the sections on POS terminals and on mobile POS. The section on web acquiring contains no such clause, and online gateways let the merchant choose who bears the fee: Flutterwave's default is that the customer pays it, Monnify's calculator offers "customer pays" as an option, and Paystack's help centre lets a Nigerian business pass its fees to customers from the dashboard. Paystack's merchant terms, however, also say the card schemes' rules forbid surcharges on card payments, so check your provider's terms before passing a fee to a card customer. For how the rules compare elsewhere, see the site's guide to card surcharge rules.
On 21 April 2026 the CBN published an exposure draft of a 2026 Guide to Charges, with comments due by 8 May. According to Nairametrics's report of the draft, it would keep the merchant service charge at 0.5% but raise its cap to ₦10,000, and transfers under ₦5,000 would be free, with a ₦10 maximum up to ₦50,000 and ₦50 above. The CBN's covering circular says the draft is "hereby exposed to members of the public for their comments" and does not call it final. Daily Trust and Legit.ng reported on 4 May that the guide had taken effect on 1 May, citing no final circular. The CBN's own list of circulars, checked on 18 October, shows only the exposure draft, and we could not open the CBN's copy of the full document. Until the CBN publishes a final version, treat the draft figures as proposed and the 2020 guide as the last confirmed one, and ask your bank which it applies.
Cash has become more expensive to take out in bulk. Under a CBN circular in force since 1 January 2026, a company can withdraw ₦5 million a week across all channels, and an individual ₦500,000, before an excess fee of 5% for companies and 3% for individuals applies to the amount above the limit. Cash withdrawn at ATMs and POS terminals counts toward the weekly limit, while the old limits and fees on cash deposits were scrapped.
Stripe (A) lists Nigeria on its global availability page under "Extended network", linking to Paystack, rather than among the countries where Stripe itself is available. dLocal (B-) prices Nigerian cards and bank transfers at 3.90% on the dLocal Go price list that its coverage page links to, plus 7.5% local tax on the fee; the file is titled as an April 2023 list, so confirm the rate before relying on it. A Nigerian seller paid through PayPal (A-) by a buyer abroad pays 4.90% + $0.30 on a US dollar payment, and 3% to withdraw to a US bank account, on PayPal's Nigerian fee page updated on 28 September 2026. For freelancers and agencies billing foreign clients, see the site's guide to receiving international client payments.
Once you are trading, check what you pay against what you were quoted. The site's guide to reading a merchant processing statement is written for US statements, but the lines to check are the same: the rate, the caps, the fixed fees and the tax.
