Nigeria's bank transfer limits in 2026, and how to raise yours

How much can you transfer at once in Nigeria?

The most the Central Bank of Nigeria allows on an instant transfer is ₦25 million for an individual account and ₦250 million for a corporate one. Those figures are ceilings rather than entitlements. Your own bank decides what you can actually send, and it's always something at or below them.

What your bank does with that headroom is split it two ways: a cap on a single transfer, and a cap on everything you send in a day. The two numbers are rarely the same, and they move with how far you've taken your verification. Moniepoint's published tiers are a clear example of the shape: at its top personal tier you can send ₦5 million in one transfer and ₦25 million in a day, and what comes in is not capped at all.

That last part matters more than most people expect. The ceiling is on money leaving an account, not on money arriving in one. So if a buyer can't pay you in a single transfer, the limit being hit is theirs, not yours.

The ₦25 million and ₦250 million figures are not new. The CBN raised them in June 2022, from ₦10 million and ₦100 million, and the same revision is where the indemnity rule comes from. An indemnity is a short form you sign accepting responsibility for the transfer, and your bank needs one above ₦1 million on a personal account and ₦10 million on a company's.

What changed on 1 July 2026?

The ceilings stayed where they were. What changed is who holds the dial. A CBN circular dated 12 March 2026 took effect on 1 July 2026 and made four things compulsory for every Nigerian bank and mobile money operator.

1. You can set your own transfer limit. Your bank has to let you choose a figure inside the regulatory ceiling, and change it later.
2. You can switch instant transfers off completely, for any period you like, and switch them back on. New accounts come switched on.
3. Your banking app can only be live on one device at a time. Moving to a new phone means activating it again and authenticating again.
4. A newly opened account, or a newly activated app, is held to ₦20,000 for the first 24 hours. Banks are allowed to set that lower, not higher.

What it means for you: the limit on your account is now a setting rather than a fixed fact, and it's one you can be asked about. A change takes effect once you've passed multi-factor authentication, which is the second check your bank sends you after your password, usually a code or a fingerprint. Your bank also runs its own look at you before it agrees, which is the step the circular calls enhanced due diligence.

Why is your transfer limit ₦20,000 today?

If a transfer you've made a hundred times is suddenly refused above ₦20,000, the usual reason is that your banking app is running on a different phone from yesterday. Since 1 July 2026 a fresh activation caps what you can send at ₦20,000 for 24 hours, and nothing you say to the bank shortens it.

Three situations trigger it, and all three are easy to walk into:

• You opened the account today. Both what you send and what you receive are held to ₦20,000 for the first 24 hours.
• You installed the app on a new phone, or reinstalled it after a reset. Only what you send is capped, at ₦20,000.
• You run the same bank's app on two phones. You can't any more, so logging in on the second one deactivates the first and starts the clock.

If you move real money and you're changing phones, the fix is to do it on a quiet day rather than the morning of a trade. There's no way to pay for a faster release, and a branch visit doesn't lift this one.

How do you raise your transfer limit?

Raising a limit is a verification job before it is a paperwork job. Banks and mobile money operators tie what you can send to how much they know about you, so each document you add moves you up a tier. Most of it can be done in the app in minutes.

1. Link your BVN, or your NIN. This is the baseline, and without it you stay on the lowest tier whatever else you send in.
2. Add a government photo ID. A driver's licence, an international passport or a national ID card all work.
3. Add proof of address, normally a recent utility bill. This is what unlocks the top tiers at most providers.
4. Set the limit you want in the app's security or limits screen, and complete the authentication prompt. The new figure only applies once that's done.
5. For a company account, expect the bank to ask for the resolution and the signatory list as well, and to take days rather than minutes.

Can the ₦25 million ceiling itself be raised?

Not by you, and not by your bank on a phone call. ₦25 million on a personal account and ₦250 million on a company's are the regulator's figures, and the only thing a bank can move is where you sit inside them. So the practical answer for anyone planning a large payment is to build the plan around ₦25 million rather than above it.

A company account is the real lever, because ₦250 million is ten times the personal ceiling. That's a reason some people trading in size register one, and it brings its own filing and tax obligations, which are set out in Nigeria's money rules.

What happens when a trade is bigger than your limit?

A sale larger than your daily cap has to arrive in more than one transfer, or over more than one day, and that's where the cost of a limit shows up. The price you agreed moves while you wait, and three other things can slow the naira down.

• A watchlist hold. A separate CBN addendum from the same day in March 2026 lets your bank hold a flagged transfer for up to 24 hours while it contacts you, if a BVN on either side of it sits on a suspicious list.
• A source-of-funds question. Several large transfers in a row from people you don't bank with is the pattern that gets accounts restricted, and how to sell crypto for naira without a frozen account covers what to keep and what to send them.
• A venue that won't take the size. Most Nigerian desks set a floor rather than a ceiling, and who will actually take a $5,000 trade has the published minimums.

Where does Daya Pro fit?

Daya Pro takes orders from $1 and charges 0% on the taker side and 0.05% on the maker side, against a $50,000 floor at Obiex and above $100,000 at Quidax's OTC desk. The taker is whoever accepts a price already sitting on the book, and the maker is whoever put it there. A $1 floor matters when a bank limit is making you work one position in several pieces, because every piece only has to clear $1.

Daya Pro is a live USD to naira order book, open 24 hours a day including weekends, built for P2P merchants, OTC desks and remittance operators rather than for someone cashing out once. It also carries an interest-free intraday credit line, which is the part that speaks directly to a transfer limit: when your capital is sitting in a naira leg that hasn't landed yet, the trade in front of you doesn't have to wait for it.

Daya Pro's price won't always be at the top of the live comparison above. What a published fee gives you is something you can check before you commit, where a price moves while you're reading. The USDT to naira order books compared post has what each venue charges on both sides.

Where Daya Pro isn't the pick: if you hit a transfer limit once, moving a car payment or school fees, this is the wrong tool and your bank's limits screen is the whole answer. If you're selling a few hundred dollars of crypto rather than trading for a living, converting USDT to naira walks through the retail routes instead.

What should you check before your next big transfer?

Five minutes in your banking app beforehand is worth more than an afternoon on the phone to support afterwards. Work through these in order.

1. Open the limits screen and read both numbers, the single-transfer cap and the daily one. Most people only know one of them.
2. Check whether your verification is finished. An unfinished tier is the commonest reason a limit is lower than it needs to be.
3. If you changed phone in the last day, wait out the 24 hours before you promise anybody a payment time.
4. Ask your bank what it needs above ₦1 million, and get the indemnity signed before the day you need it, not on it.
5. If the amount is above your ceiling whatever you do, agree with the other side in advance how it'll be split, and in whose name each leg arrives.

The limit itself is rarely the thing that costs you money. What costs you is finding out about it on the morning of the payment.