If your salary alert looked a bit different in January, that wasn’t a bank error.
The Nigeria Tax Act 2025 took effect on the 1st. Payroll systems across the country started applying it. Some faster than others.
Here’s the short version most people never got a straight answer on.
The exemption tripled
The old tax-free threshold was ₦300,000 a year. It’s now ₦800,000.
If you’re on minimum wage or close to it, your income tax bill this year should be zero. Not reduced. Zero.
A lot of people are still waiting for HR to actually update the payroll software. If your deduction hasn’t changed, ask.
Everyone above that line pays differently too
Rates now run from 15% to 25%. That’s instead of the older bands that hit middle earners harder than they should have.
The exact bracket you fall into depends on your total annual income. Honestly, the math isn’t something most people bother doing by hand anymore.
There are free calculators for this now. You plug in your salary, it spits out the number. Worth five minutes once, so you’re not guessing.
TIN stopped being optional
This is the part that’s going to catch people off guard. Not this month. Sometime over the next year.
Every income earner needs a Tax Identification Number now. It’s slowly getting tied to everything: bank accounts, loan applications, government contracts.
Nobody’s going to knock on your door about it. What happens instead is you go to renew a loan and get told your TIN isn’t on file. That’s it. No drama. Just a wall you didn’t know was there.
Get it sorted before you need it, not after.
Side income is not invisible anymore
If your only income is salary, skip this part.
If you’re also renting out property, running a side business, or freelancing on top of a job, the law now expects that income declared separately. Even though your employer already deducts PAYE from your main salary.
A lot of people have quietly ignored this for years. Enforcement never really existed. That’s changing now, slowly, through the same bank-and-TIN linkage mentioned above. Not through raids or audits.
What to actually do
Check your payslip against the new ₦800,000 threshold.
Confirm your TIN is linked to your main bank account.
If you earn from more than one place, start keeping basic records now. Don’t wait until you’re reconstructing a year of transactions after someone asks.
That last one costs you ten minutes a month if you do it now. A weekend of stress if you wait.
