Here is why bank transfers in Nigeria will cost more from 2026

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From January 2026, sending ₦50,000 ($34.14) through your bank app could cost you ₦100 in transfer fees. Not because banks suddenly changed their pricing, but because the Nigerian government has changed who pays for electronic transfers.

Five years after replacing stamp duty with the Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL), Nigeria is reintroducing stamp duties, according to new budget documents, and the shift will change how everyday transfers work. Introduced in 2020, EMTL imposed a flat, one-off ₦50 charge on electronic transfers of ₦10,000 ($6.83) and above, paid by the receiver, as part of the government’s push to diversify revenue away from oil and tap into Nigeria’s booming e-payments market, which hit ₦1 quadrillion in 2024.

However, under the Nigeria Tax Act 2025, EMTL has been renamed stamp duty and expanded to include duties payable on chargeable instruments, including tax stamps, electronic tagging, electronic receipts, and certificate issuance.

“Compliance with the approved Regulations governing the administration of Stamp Duties will be enforced to ensure full collections over the medium term,” the Nigerian government wrote in a budget document.

For transfers, the ₦50 charge will no longer be a one-off deduction on funds received. From 2026, the obligation shifts to the sender, turning stamp duty into an additional cost layered on top of existing transfer fees.

While the shift from EMTL to stamp duty rewrites who bears the cost of digital payments, it also makes what was once an invisible deduction on money received become a visible, repeated expense on every transfer sent, reshaping consumer behaviour, fintech pricing models, and the government’s long-term bet on electronic payments as a dependable revenue stream.

How it affects transfers

Today, most bank customers already pay transfer fees: ₦10 for transfers below ₦5,000; ₦25 for transfers between ₦5,001 and ₦50,000; ₦50 for transfers above ₦50,000.

From 2026, sending ₦10,000 or more will cost between ₦75 and ₦100 per transfer, depending on the amount. While the money received stays whole, the sender pays more in transfer fees.

For businesses, this technically removes the need to pass on an extra ₦50 deduction to customers receiving payments. For PoS agents, who often bake every possible charge into withdrawal fees, it eliminates the extra ₦50 deduction on transfers above ₦10,000. This increases the transfer burden for transaction initiators, unlike before, when it was split between both the receiver and sender.

For fintechs like OPay and PalmPay, which built growth on cheap or outright free transfers, transactions above ₦10,000 will now come at an extra cost to senders. Digital payments in Nigeria grew because they were fast, simple, and relatively affordable. Each new layer of fees chips away at that advantage. While stamp duty will help fund the growing needs of governance, Nigerians will pay for it, ₦50 at a time, every time they send money, across all platforms. 

The numbers

EMTL is a small but growing source of government revenue. It generated ₦219.11 billion ($149.61 million) in 2024, beating its ₦174.24 billion ($118.98 million) projection. Between January and July 2025 alone, it had already earned ₦211.75 billion ($144.59 million), over 92% of its ₦228.85 billion ($156.27 million) full-year target.

That growth was driven largely by the extension of the levy to fintech platforms such as OPay, PalmPay, and Moniepoint. Initially, EMTL applied only to banks. Since December 2024, fintech transactions have been brought fully into the net

With the expanded stamp duty regime, the government is projecting ₦456.07 billion ($311.42 million) in revenue in 2026, rising to ₦579.82 billion ($395.92 million) in 2027 and ₦752.45 billion ($513.79 million) in 2028. These figures are already baked into medium-term budget planning, making stamp duty a key pillar of fiscal certainty.

Also, under EMTL, revenue was shared between the federal government (15%), state governments (50%), and local governments (35%). Under the new tax law, the federal share drops to 10%, while states take 55%.

Replacing EMTL with stamp duty is part of a broader package of tax reforms set to take effect in January 2026. “The new tax laws were enacted to improve tax collection and grow non-oil revenue,” the government said in a new budget document.

The extra ₦50 people have to pay is insignificant in isolation, but multiplied across millions of daily transfers, it adds up to hundreds of billions for the government, and steadily erodes affordability for Nigerians who rely on digital payments to move money quickly and cheaply. 

Exchange rate used: ₦1,464.5/$