Corporate domiciliary account vs a business USD account

A corporate domiciliary account at a Nigerian bank is the one that reliably receives an international wire, and Nigeria's central bank caps what a bank may charge your company to receive one at nothing. A business USD account from Grey Business, Daya Business or Verto opens faster and pays out on more rails. Most companies end up with both.

A domiciliary account is simply a bank account denominated in a foreign currency, usually dollars, pounds or euros, held at a Nigerian bank. A business USD account is the fintech version: dollar account details issued to your company through a partner bank abroad, with no branch visit. SWIFT is the messaging network banks use to send money across borders, and it's the rail most foreign clients and suppliers will use.

Daya Business gives a company account details in its own name in dollars, pounds and euros, all three live, where Grey Business has dollars live and lists pounds and euros as coming soon. If you want the fintech side compared against itself on price, our comparison of business dollar accounts in Nigeria does that provider by provider. This piece is about the choice above it: the bank route or the fintech route. Our pillar on how Nigerian businesses pay and get paid globally sets out where both fit.

What is a corporate domiciliary account, and what can a bank charge for one?

A corporate domiciliary account is a foreign-currency account in your company's name at a Nigerian bank, opened with your CAC documents rather than your personal ID. What a bank may charge for it is set by the Central Bank of Nigeria, or CBN, in its Guide to Charges, and the edition in force is still the one effective 1 January 2020.

The four lines that decide what a company pays:

• Receiving money from abroad. Item 5.3, "Inward Telegraphic/SWIFT and other transfers expressed in foreign currency": "No charge". The regulator prices an incoming wire at zero.
• Taking cash out. Item 5.8 caps a withdrawal from a domiciliary account, savings or current, at "0.05% of transaction value or $10, whichever is lower".
• Sending money abroad. Item 5.6 sets an outward SWIFT transfer at "Swift cost recovery, 0.5% commission on transfer plus associated offshore bank charges (where applicable)". That last phrase has no cap, and it's where the real cost of paying a supplier sits.
• The dollar card. Item 10.4.1 caps annual maintenance on a foreign-currency card at "$10 p.a. (or its equivalent)".

Two things follow that nothing else written on this subject says. First, the Guide has no separate schedule for companies at all: its only corporate-specific lines are about naira cash deposits and withdrawals above ₦3 million. So the ceiling on your company's dollar account is the same ceiling that applies to an individual's. Second, there is a 2026 version of the Guide, but it's still an exposure draft, meaning a proposal the CBN put out for comment rather than a rule in force. It was signed on 21 April 2026, comments closed on 8 May 2026, and nothing published since says it has been finalised. Any figure quoted from it isn't current.

What it means for you: if your bank charges your company to receive a dollar wire, that charge has no basis in the CBN's published guide, and the guide is the document to quote back at them.

Why do banks state the same charge several different ways?

Because they do, and Access Bank is the clearest case. Access states the charge for taking cash out of a domiciliary account five different ways across its own live pages, and the versions range from the CBN cap to ten times it.

• Its Rates Guide: "Cash Handling charge of 0.05% of transaction value or $10, whichever is lower on withdrawals". This is the only one matching the CBN cap, and the page footer reads 2021.
• Its domiciliary account pricing table: "0.05% on withdrawals", with no cap.
• The features list on that same page: "Cash Handling charge at the bank's rate".
• Its diaspora banking page: "Cash Handling charge at the Banks rate."
• Its domiciliary FAQ: "There is a 0.5% cash handling charge on withdrawals." That's ten times the figure in its own Rates Guide, and above the CBN ceiling.

On a $20,000 withdrawal those readings come to $10 under the Rates Guide and $100 under the FAQ. Get the figure your company will actually be charged in writing from your relationship manager, with the CBN item number next to it, before you move a large balance.

Which banks publish what a corporate dollar account actually costs?

Only three of the seven biggest Nigerian banks publish enough for a company to price the account before opening it, and not one of the seven publishes a charge for receiving an international transfer. Across GTBank, Zenith, Access, Sterling, First Bank, UBA and Stanbic IBTC, checked on 20 October 2026, the inbound side is simply absent from every published schedule.

Worth knowing before you compare those columns: the ₦1 per mille figure is the account maintenance fee, which the CBN caps at ₦1 for every ₦1,000 of customer-initiated debit to a third party, and it applies to current accounts rather than savings. The CBN's guide doesn't say whether it applies to a foreign-currency current account, which is a silence rather than an exemption. Access publishes it as nil on its dollar account; Stanbic applies it to all current accounts without saying whether dollar accounts are included.

Which one can receive an international wire?

A corporate domiciliary account at a Nigerian bank does, and the clearest evidence is that the CBN prices the charge for one at "No charge". A regulator doesn't set a price for something that can't happen. On the fintech side it varies by provider, and two of them name a rail that isn't an international wire at all.

What each fintech provider states on its own pages:

• Payoneer says outright that it gives you "a SWIFT (wire) receiving account so that those hard-to-reach clients can pay you in USD via the SWIFT network". It also warns that third-party banks typically take $20 to $40 before the money reaches Payoneer.
• Grey Business names ACH, FedNow and Fedwire, and prices Fedwire at a flat $15. Fedwire is a domestic American wire, not an international one, and Grey doesn't name SWIFT on its deposit schedule.
• Verto's $25 SWIFT charge is for payments going out. Its pages say nothing either way about receiving one.
• Juicyway says "Real bank accounts can receive wires, bank transfers, ACH" without naming SWIFT.

ACH is the American domestic transfer system, roughly the equivalent of a naira bank transfer inside Nigeria, and it's cheap but only works if your client banks in the United States. A European or Asian client will almost always send a SWIFT wire instead. So ask any provider one question in writing before you put the details on an invoice: can this account receive a wire from a bank outside the United States? Get the answer before your client tries it, not after.

What does each route cost a company?

The bank route charges you to send and nothing to receive. The fintech route charges you a small flat fee to receive and gives you more ways to send. Comparing them line by line misleads, because they're pricing different things.

1. Receiving. A bank should charge nothing, per CBN item 5.3. Grey Business charges $2 flat on an American ACH payment and $15 on a Fedwire. Verto charges 0.5% on an international collection on its free plan, falling to 0.3% above $10,000 on a paid plan.
2. Converting to naira. This is where most of the cost sits on either route, and almost nobody prices it on a published page.
3. Sending abroad. A bank charges 0.5% commission plus 7.5% VAT plus whatever the correspondent bank takes, which is the uncapped part. Verto charges $25 flat on a SWIFT payment out.
4. Running the account. A bank publishes no monthly charge on a dollar account. Verto charges $0, $15 or $35 a month by plan. Grey Business states no monthly fee.

The arithmetic that decides it isn't on the fee line. A 0.5% outward commission on a $10,000 supplier payment is $50. Every further one per cent of difference between two providers' conversion rates on that same $10,000 is another $100. So quote the same payment through both routes on the same morning and compare what your supplier actually receives, rather than reading the fee schedules against each other. Our guide to paying international suppliers from Nigeria works through the paperwork side of that.

Where does Daya Business fit?

Daya Business is for a CAC-registered company that wants account details in its own name without the branch process, and that pays money out on more than one rail. Its page states account details in your business's name for dollars, pounds and euros, the ability to hold several currencies, and payouts by bank transfer, wire, ACH, or on-chain in USDT and USDC.

Where Daya Business isn't the pick. If your client will only send a SWIFT wire from a bank outside the United States, a corporate domiciliary account at a Nigerian bank is the route the CBN's own charge schedule assumes will work, and it's the safer answer until you've confirmed the question above with any fintech. If you need team cards today, Daya Business lists those as coming soon. And if your company needs a currency outside dollars, pounds and euros, check Verto, which prices more of them. Where Daya Business is strongest is the combination most companies actually want: all three major currencies live, details in the company's own name, and the choice of sending out by bank rail or on-chain.

What do you need to open each one?

A corporate domiciliary account needs your company's registration documents, and only two of the seven banks publish the list. Access Bank and First Bank both publish a real corporate checklist. The other five publish a list written for an individual, or no list at all.

Access Bank publishes the fullest one, and it's a reasonable guide to what any Nigerian bank will ask a company for:

• Certificate of incorporation or business registration.
• Memorandum and articles of association, as applicable.
• Forms CO7 and CO2, or CAC 1.1, or the application form for registration of a business name.
• A board resolution, which is a signed record of the directors agreeing to open the account.
• A valid ID for each signatory, two references, two passport photographs and proof of address.
• A tax identification number, and SCUML registration where it's required.

GTBank is worth a word of warning. Its domiciliary account page sits under business banking, and the requirements it lists are the same five items, word for word, as the page on its personal banking site: an account opening form, one ID, one photograph, two reference forms and a utility bill. No certificate of incorporation, no board resolution, no tax identification number. So a company that reads that page and arrives at a branch with those five documents will be sent away. Ring the branch and ask for the corporate list.

The fintech side is lighter and better documented. Verto names it explicitly for Nigeria: a certificate of incorporation for a limited company or a certificate of registration for a sole trader, issued by the Corporate Affairs Commission, plus a shareholder list for anyone holding 25% or more, a proof of address dated within three months, and a government photo ID for each of those shareholders. Grey Business asks for a business registration document, a shareholder registry and an official tax document, and names CAC as one acceptable registry among several. Daya Business needs CAC registration and business verification.

One provider is out altogether, in its own words. Wise names Nigeria in the list of addresses that can't get dollar account details, under the heading covering business profiles as well as personal ones, and Nigeria isn't among the 80 countries where Wise lets you hold a balance. The test Wise states is the address on the account rather than where the company is registered, so a Nigerian-addressed business can't open one.

Is the money insured either way?

A balance at a Nigerian bank is covered by the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation up to a published limit of ₦5 million per depositor per bank. Whether that cover reaches a dollar balance is the part nobody can answer from the public record, and it's worth asking your bank directly if your company holds real money there.

What the record does and doesn't say. The NDIC Act 2023 lists four kinds of deposit that aren't insured: insider deposits belonging to staff and directors, counterclaims from someone who holds both a deposit and a loan, interbank placements, and anything else the NDIC board specifies. Foreign currency isn't on that list. But the fourth category leaves the list open, and none of the NDIC's own pages on deposit insurance, claims settlement or its mandate mentions foreign currency or domiciliary accounts at all. So there's no published answer on whether a dollar balance is covered, at what rate it would be valued, or in which currency the NDIC would pay.

A fintech business account isn't a bank account, so NDIC cover doesn't arise. Ask the provider instead which bank actually holds your money and on what basis, and get it in writing. On either route, the sentence to get an answer to is the same one: if this institution failed tomorrow, what happens to my dollars? Our guide to Nigeria's money rules covers the regulatory side in more detail.

Which should your company choose?

Most companies that trade internationally end up with both, and the sensible question is which one you open first.

• Your clients or suppliers are in Europe or Asia and will send a SWIFT wire: open the corporate domiciliary account first. It's the route the CBN's own schedule assumes, and the regulator prices receiving at nothing.
• You need account details on an invoice this week: a fintech business account. Grey Business, Daya Business and Verto all open in days where a bank takes weeks.
• You hold dollars, pounds and euros and want all three in your company's name: Daya Business has all three live, where Grey Business has dollars live and lists the other two as coming soon.
• You pay suppliers or contractors in stablecoins: a fintech account with on-chain payouts, because no Nigerian bank offers them.
• You're a sole trader rather than a registered company: you'll need the CAC registration either way. Every provider here asks for it.

Then do the two checks that decide more than any fee table. Ask whether the account receives a wire from a bank outside the United States, and ask what your money is actually protected by. Both answers should come in writing, and both are quicker to get before you open an account than after.