How to get paid in euros as a Nigerian freelancer

A European client paying you in euros can send them to Grey, Daya Borders, Raenest, Cleva or Eversend. Daya Borders takes 0% on an incoming euro payment with no cap, against 0.8% capped at €10 at both Grey and Raenest. Cleva charges 0.8% and then turns your euros into dollars.

Where can a Nigerian freelancer actually receive euros?

Five apps give someone living in Nigeria euro account details a European client can pay into: Grey, Daya Borders, Raenest, Cleva and Eversend. A Nigerian bank euro domiciliary account is a sixth route, and Payoneer is a seventh. Wise is not one, because Nigeria is not on the list of countries where Wise lets you hold money.

Most euro payments from Europe arrive over SEPA, which is the shared transfer system euro-area banks use to move euros between each other. A SEPA transfer needs an IBAN, and an IBAN is what these apps give you. That matters more than it sounds, because a client with a German or Irish bank account can send a SEPA transfer in a few clicks and usually pays nothing for it, where a wire from outside the euro area costs them money and takes longer. If a client tells you they can only send a wire rather than a SEPA transfer, check with your app before you send them details, because not every account can receive one. On Wise the question doesn't arise: Wise's own list of countries where you can hold money doesn't include Nigeria.

What does each app charge to receive euros?

Grey, Raenest and Cleva all charge 0.8% on a euro payment. Eversend charges 0.49% plus €0.99. Daya Borders charges 0%. The three on 0.8% cap the fee at €10 or $10, Eversend caps nothing, and the minimums differ: €2 at Grey, €1.50 at Raenest, $2 at Cleva.

Every figure above comes off the company's own page. Grey's is in Grey's euro deposit fees article, Raenest's in Raenest's Nigeria fees article, Cleva's on Cleva's pricing page, Eversend's on Eversend's pricing page, and Daya Borders' on the Daya Borders page, which says it takes nothing from anything that lands.

Payoneer isn't in the table because the cost of a Payoneer euro payment lands on the way out rather than on the way in. Payoneer's published pricing charges up to 3% to withdraw to a local bank account in a different currency, which is what a Nigerian cashing euros into naira is doing, and it charges a $29.95 annual account fee if you go twelve months without a transaction or receive less than $2,000 in that time. The page states both of those triggers without saying whether one or both has to apply.

Do you actually get to keep the euros?

Not always, and this is the part the fee table can't show you. Cleva's pricing page says of euro deposits that "Funds received are auto-converted to USD". So you get euro account details, your client pays in euros, Cleva takes 0.8%, and what you end up holding is dollars.

Whether that costs you anything depends on what you were going to do next. If you were cashing straight out to naira, a euro balance you never use is no better than a dollar one. If you wanted to sit on the euros, it's a conversion you didn't ask for and didn't price. The Daya Borders page says money "stays in the currency it arrived in, dollars or euros, until you convert it". Grey says you can "hold balances, receive payments, and send money in multiple currencies from a single account", and Grey's account article lists EUR among them.

If you're on an app that isn't named above, open it and look at what your balance is actually denominated in after a euro payment lands. It's a thirty-second check and it decides whether you're holding euros or holding dollars.

Which app is cheapest at your payment size?

Eversend is the cheapest of the four that charge a fee on a mid-sized payment, and the most expensive on a large one, because Eversend is the only one of them with no cap. Its 0.49% plus €0.99 undercuts a flat 0.8% from about €320 upwards, and passes the €10 that Grey and Raenest cap at from about €1,840.

Working through the three sizes in the table:

On €300 there is almost nothing between Grey, Raenest, Cleva and Eversend. All four land within six cents of €2.40, so pick on something other than price at this size.

On €2,000 Grey, Raenest and Cleva have all hit their cap and charge €10 or $10. Eversend charges €10.79, so the cap has just overtaken it.

On €10,000 the gap is real: €10 at Grey and Raenest, $10 at Cleva, and €49.99 at Eversend. The headline percentage said Eversend was the cheap one and on a payment this size it's five times the others.

The same arithmetic runs on the dollar side, with a sixth provider and a second uncapped one, in our comparison of the best USD account apps in Nigeria. The cap, not the percentage, is what decides who is cheapest once a payment gets past about a thousand units.

One thing worth holding on to while you compare these numbers. A 0.8% fee on €2,000 is €16 before the cap brings it down to €10. Every further one per cent of difference between two apps' euro-to-naira rates is another €20 on that same payment. So the fee is the number you can look up and the rate is the number that decides more of it. Quote the same conversion in two apps and compare the naira you'd actually receive, rather than comparing the fee lines.

Where does Daya Borders fit?

Daya Borders takes 0% on an incoming euro payment, with no cap and no conditions attached, against 0.8% capped at €10 at Grey and Raenest and 0.8% capped at $10 at Cleva. The Daya Borders page gives you US dollar and euro account details in your own name, and says the money stays in the currency it arrived in until you choose to convert it. There are no fees at all on Daya Borders today, and you can convert and withdraw to any Nigerian bank account.

Where Daya Borders isn't the pick. It has no virtual card yet, so if you need to spend the euros online rather than cash them out, Grey, Cleva and Raenest all charge for a virtual card and Daya Borders has no card product yet. If your client can only send a wire from outside the euro area, ask your provider whether its euro account can receive one before you commit, whoever that provider is. And on a payment under about €400 the fee gap between all five apps is a couple of euros, so the rate you get on the conversion is worth far more attention than the receiving fee.

Can a Nigerian bank domiciliary account receive euros?

Yes. A domiciliary account is a foreign-currency account at a Nigerian bank, and several Nigerian banks run euro ones that take an inbound international transfer. The catch is the balance they expect and the charge on the way in and out, which is a different trade-off from the app route and one we've worked through in our comparison of a domiciliary account against a fintech USD account.

Two published figures give you the shape of it. Sterling Bank's rates guide, last modified on 24 September 2026, sets a €100 minimum balance on a euro domiciliary account and prices a euro telex transfer at €20, with a 0.5% commission plus 7.5% VAT on an outward transfer. Minimums and charges differ by bank and by which domiciliary product you open, so get your own bank's euro schedule in writing before you move an invoice onto it.

What should you send your client?

Send the account details exactly as your app shows them, and nothing you've retyped. A European client paying over SEPA needs four things from you, and getting one of them wrong is the usual reason a euro payment bounces back a week later.

The account holder name, spelled the way your app has it rather than the way you'd write it. A mismatch between the name on the transfer and the name on the account is what triggers most rejections.

The IBAN, copied from the app rather than typed out. An IBAN is long and a single wrong character makes it invalid.

The BIC or SWIFT code, which is the bank's own identifier.

The currency you want, stated on the invoice. If your invoice says euros and your client's bank converts to dollars before sending, you pay their bank's conversion and then your app's, and you never see either number.

Is it better to invoice in euros or in dollars?

Invoice in whichever currency your client holds, because every conversion in the chain costs you and the first one is the one you can remove. A German client paying a euro invoice over SEPA converts nothing. The same client paying a dollar invoice converts euros to dollars at their bank's rate, which you don't see and can't shop around.

The exception is a client outside the euro area who happens to offer euros. A UK or US client sending euros is converting into euros first, and you then convert out of euros into naira, so you pay twice for a currency neither of you actually uses. Ask them for their own currency instead. Why the rate you're quoted isn't the mid-market rate covers what each of those conversions is really costing you.

So which one should you use?

It depends on what you're doing with the euros, and the four honest answers split cleanly:

You want to keep the euros and convert when you choose. Daya Borders takes 0% on the way in and holds the currency that arrived; Grey holds euro balances and charges 0.8% up to €10.

You get paid once a month in the low hundreds. All five apps are within a few euros of each other, so choose on whether you can get a card, how fast the naira payout is, and what rate you're quoted.

You get paid several thousand euros at a time. Avoid the uncapped fee. Eversend's 0.49% has no ceiling, so it's the most expensive of the five once a payment passes about €1,840.

You need to spend the euros online rather than cash them out. Grey, Cleva and Raenest all charge for a virtual card. Daya Borders has no card yet, so it isn't the answer to this one.

Whichever you pick, do one thing before your next invoice goes out: send yourself or ask a client for a small euro payment, and write down what the app took and what the naira came to. That single number tells you more than any fee page, and it's the only way to see the part of the cost that sits inside the rate.