For employees
You are probably paying more tax than you owe.
Since January 2026 you can take 20 per cent of your annual rent, up to ₦500,000, off the income you are taxed on. It is not automatic. Somebody has to claim it, and that somebody is you.
Rent relief, in plain words.
This is the single biggest thing that changed for salaried Nigerians this year, and most people have not claimed it.
The rule is simple. Twenty per cent of the rent you pay in a year comes off your taxable income, up to a maximum of ₦500,000. If you pay ₦900,000 a year in rent, ₦180,000 of your income stops being taxed.
The catch is that nobody applies it for you. You have to give your employer, or whoever runs the payroll, a tenancy agreement or rent receipts. They apply it for the rest of the year. If you never hand anything over, you pay tax on money you should not have paid tax on, and you do not get it back by accident.
What it is worth
The old relief is gone
Until the end of 2025 there was a Consolidated Relief Allowance of 20 per cent of gross income plus ₦200,000. The Nigeria Tax Act 2025 replaced it on 1 January 2026. If a payslip, a calculator or an article still shows CRA, it is out of date.
| Monthly salary | Annual rent | Tax saved a year | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| ₦150,000 | ₦600,000 | ₦18,000 | ₦1,500 |
| ₦250,000 | ₦900,000 | ₦27,000 | ₦2,250 |
| ₦400,000 | ₦1,500,000 | ₦54,000 | ₦4,500 |
| ₦600,000 | ₦2,500,000 | ₦90,000 | ₦7,500 |
| ₦1,500,000 | ₦5,000,000 | ₦105,000 | ₦8,750 |
Worked on the 2026 bands after pension at 8 per cent and NHF at 2.5 per cent. Your own figure depends on your salary structure. Confirm with the tax lead before this goes live.
Work out yours
APP DISPLAY, current build.
Your payslip
What actually comes out, and where it goes.
PAYE. Income tax your employer takes off before you are paid and sends to your state internal revenue service. Worked out on the bands, after pension, housing fund and any relief you have claimed.
Pension, 8 per cent. Of your monthly emolument, into your Retirement Savings Account with the pension administrator you chose. Your employer adds 10 per cent on top of that, which is their money, not yours.
National Housing Fund, 2.5 per cent. Of basic salary, to the Federal Mortgage Bank, where it applies to you.
NSITF. Workplace injury cover. Your employer pays this one. It should not be coming out of your salary.
Withholding tax. Shows up for contract work and certain payment types, not on an ordinary salary.
Four things you cannot get anywhere else.
Proof of income in one tap
A statement of what you earn, with your deduction history behind it, for a landlord, a bank or an embassy.
An employment and income letter
Generated from the record instead of chased from an HR person who is on leave.
Your tax clearance certificate
Refused when the record has holes in it. NaijaPay holds the remittance references it is checked against, and requests the certificate for you.
A record that survives the job
You change employer. Your payslips, your PAYE history and your filings stay with you.
Free, and we mean it
The employee side is free forever.
Not free for a trial, not free until we grow. Free, permanently, whether or not your employer ever signs up. You can open an account today, put in your own salary and your own rent, and see where you stand.
Works with no employer attached
Works on a small Android phone and a bad network
Explanations in English and in Pidgin
Your record, exported whenever you want it
APP DISPLAY, current build.
Tell your employer, without it sounding like an accusation.
Your boss is not trying to short you. In most small Nigerian businesses payroll is one person with a spreadsheet at ten at night. Here is the message we send on your behalf, and you see it before it goes.
We contact them once
One message, and then nothing. We never tell your employer you checked whether your deductions were remitted, we never send a second message, and we never contact them again if they do not reply.
Earned wage access
Payday is a date. Your rent is not.
When the car breaks down on the eighteenth, most Nigerian workers borrow at a rate that eats the next two salaries. NaijaPay lets you draw part of what you have already worked for this month, before payday, at a flat fee you see before you confirm.
It is not a loan. It is your own money, early. There is no interest, no rollover, no collector, and nothing is reported to a credit bureau.
Only what you have already earned this month
A flat fee, shown before you confirm, never a percentage that grows
Settled from your next payslip, and shown on it
Your employer approves the facility once, then never sees a single request
Why your employer says yes
It costs them nothing and it never touches their working capital. What it does is stop the quiet salary advance conversation that every Nigerian small business owner has three times a month.
If your employer is not on NaijaPay yet, the message further down this page is written for exactly that.
On your phone
All of it fits in your pocket.
Payslips, PAYE history, proof of income, rent relief and earned wage access, in one app, on a small Android phone and a network that keeps dropping. Records read offline. Nothing is behind a paywall.
Both apps open the early access list while we finish the store review.
APP DISPLAY, current build.
Questions employees ask.
Will my employer see that I signed up?
Not unless you ask us to contact them. Your account works on its own, with figures you enter yourself, and nothing is sent to anybody until you press the button and read the message first.
My employer is not on NaijaPay. Is this useful?
Yes. Enter your salary and your rent and you can see what you should be paying, what rent relief is worth to you, and what to hand over to claim it. That works whether or not your employer ever joins.
Can I see whether my PAYE was actually remitted?
Where your employer runs payroll on NaijaPay, the remittance record sits behind your payslip. Where they do not, we cannot see it and we will not guess. Ask your employer whether they can show you.
What happens when I change jobs?
Your record stays with you. New employer, same account, same history, and the annual picture still adds up across both jobs.
Do I still have to file my own return?
Yes, by 31 March, even though your employer deducts PAYE every month. That is what the annual summary in your account is for.
Find out what you are owed.
Open the rent relief calculator. It takes a minute, needs no account, and tells you a number in naira.
Open the calculatorPaid right. Filed right.