How to get paid by international clients in Nigeria

You've got four ways to receive money from abroad in Nigeria. A bank domiciliary account, a payment platform like Payoneer, a fintech dollar account, or crypto. They cost different amounts, some of them won't let you sign up at all, and the charge that takes the most money is the one nobody puts on their pricing page.

This page covers all of it.

What are your actual options?

1. A bank domiciliary account. Your Nigerian bank holds foreign currency for you. Your client sends a wire, it lands in your account. Banks are familiar and they're slow. Wires cost the sender money, and banks in the middle can take a cut on the way through.

2. A payment platform. Payoneer is the main one that works here. You get receiving details in the US, UK or EU, your client pays those, and you withdraw to your Nigerian bank.

3. A fintech dollar account. Grey, Cleva, Raenest, LemFi, Juicyway and Daya Borders all do a version of this. You get US account and routing details in your own name, and you hold the dollars until you decide to convert.

4. Crypto. Your client sends USDT or USDC, you sell it for naira. It's fast, it works when nothing else does, and it puts the record-keeping and the tax on you.

Which one should you use?

Depends on who's paying you and how.

What does it actually cost you?

Three separate charges come out of an international payment. Providers are usually loud about one and quiet about the other two.

1. The receiving fee. What you pay for the money to arrive.

• Payoneer: free from marketplaces like Upwork and Fiverr, free from other Payoneer accounts, up to 1% from a bank transfer
• Raenest: $1 flat on a US ACH deposit
• Grey and Cleva: 0.8% on ACH, with a minimum and a cap
• Daya Borders: 0% on incoming dollars and euros, no cap, no conditions

2. The conversion cost. The gap between the real market rate and the rate you're given. This is where most of your money goes, and it's almost never labelled as a fee.

It's worth dwelling on, because you can't look it up.

• Payoneer's own pages give three different answers. Its Philippines guide says around 2% above the market rate. Its business fees guide says 1 to 2%. Its official pricing page says up to 3% when you withdraw into a currency that doesn't match your account, which for a Nigerian withdrawing dollars to naira is always. Payoneer publishes localised pricing for India, the Philippines, Pakistan and Ukraine. It publishes nothing for Nigeria.
• Upwork doesn't publish a number. It says its payment partners set the rate and "may include a markup".
• Deel doesn't publish a number. It says it uses institutional rates and points out that retail banks charge 4 to 5%, without saying what it charges.
• Remote.com doesn't publish a number. Its contractor payout fees page lists methods but no markup.

Some Nigerian providers publish theirs. Raenest charges 0.5% on USD to NGN, capped at $2.70. Grey charges 1%, capped at $6.

To be fair about it, a published conversion fee isn't the same as a published spread. Grey, Cleva, LemFi, Juicyway and Daya all show you a live rate without showing how far that rate sits from the market. Nobody here is fully transparent, which is why the test below matters more than any pricing page.

3. The withdrawal fee. What it costs to move naira from the provider into your bank. Usually small and usually stated: ₦35 at Grey, ₦0 at Raenest, ₦50 at Juicyway.

How do you check what you're actually being charged?

Don't compare fee schedules. Compare outcomes.

1. Pick an amount you actually receive, say $500.
2. Open two providers on the same day, within a few minutes of each other.
3. Enter $500 in each and read the naira figure they say you'll get.
4. The bigger number wins.

That one test tells you more than any pricing page, because it captures the fee and the spread together. Do it once a quarter, since rates move and providers change their terms.

The comparison below runs it live, at the rates being quoted right now.

What about Wise?

You'll see Wise recommended constantly in Nigerian freelancer groups, and both of the common claims about it are wrong.

You can't receive money into Wise as a Nigerian. Wise publishes a list of countries where you're allowed to hold a balance and get account details. Nigeria isn't on it, and South Africa is the only African country that is. No balance means no dollar, pound or euro account details, no Wise card, and no business account.

But Wise hasn't left Nigeria either. You'll read that too, and it's out of date. Wise has been sending money to Nigerian bank accounts continuously since September 2024, and it's good at it. About $7.78 on a $1,000 transfer from the UK, with most arriving in under 20 seconds.

So if a client says "I'll just Wise it to you", that's fine. It reaches your Nigerian bank account, in naira. What you can't do is hold the money there.

What changed on Upwork on 1 September 2026?

If Upwork is where your money comes from, this one costs you.

Upwork now charges $2.99 for every Direct to U.S. Bank withdrawal where your tax address is outside the United States. It used to be free, and it's still free if your tax address is in the US.

That lands on Nigerians harder than on most people. The standard advice for years has been to get US account details from a fintech, add them to Upwork, and withdraw as a US bank transfer so you keep your dollars. Your tax address is still Nigeria, so that withdrawal now costs $2.99 every time.

Your other option is Direct to Local Bank at $0.99, which pays you in naira, converts at a rate Upwork doesn't publish, and caps you at $3,000 per withdrawal.

So:

1. $2.99 and keep your dollars. Convert later, at a rate you pick, when you pick.
2. $0.99 and take naira now. Cheaper fee, unknown conversion cost, $3,000 cap.

On a $500 withdrawal the $2 difference is worth thinking about. On $3,000 the conversion rate matters roughly ten times more than the fee does.

Upwork's own limits, timings and failure cases get their own guide. How to withdraw money from Upwork in Nigeria goes through every method, what each one costs and how long each one takes.

What does your client actually need from you?

For a US client or platform paying into a dollar account, four things:

1. Your account number
2. The routing number
3. The account holder name
4. Whether they should send it as ACH or wire

Your provider gives you all four. Send them together in one message, because a client chasing you for a routing number is a delayed payment.

The name has to match. Payments sent to a name that doesn't match the account get returned, and a returned wire takes weeks to come back. If your client's records say "Adebayo Consulting" and your account says "Adebayo Okafor", fix that before they send anything.

For a European client paying in euros, they need your IBAN instead of an account and routing number.

Should you hold dollars or convert straight away?

There's no universally right answer, but there is a way to think about it.

Convert on arrival if you need the naira for expenses this month, or if you'd rather not think about it. You take today's rate and you're done.

Hold dollars if you don't need the money immediately and you're comfortable watching the rate. Holding gives you the option to convert on a better day.

Two things people underestimate. Holding dollars protects you from the naira weakening, and it doesn't protect you from anything else. And from 1 January 2026, if you hold dollars and later convert at a better rate, that gain counts towards your tax.

What happens if a payment doesn't arrive?

Work through it in this order, because the answer is usually in the first two steps.

1. Check the name and account details you gave. Mismatches are the single most common cause, and the money is usually sitting with the sender's bank waiting to be returned.
2. Check whether it was sent as ACH or wire. ACH takes 1 to 3 business days. Wires are same-day to 2 days. A payment that's 24 hours old often isn't late.
3. Ask your client for the trace or reference number. Without it, your provider can't look anything up.
4. Then contact your provider's support. With the amount, the date, the sending bank and the reference.

Returned wires typically come back in 1 to 3 weeks, minus fees.

Can you receive pounds?

Some providers offer GBP receiving details alongside dollars, some don't. Grey, Cleva and Raenest each charge around 0.8% on GBP deposits with a minimum and a cap. Wise's GBP account details aren't available to Nigerians.

If a UK client is paying you regularly, GBP details are worth having, because otherwise they convert to dollars at their bank's rate and then you convert again to naira. That's two conversions on the same money.

What changed in Nigerian rules in 2026?

Three things, and here's what each one does to you.

1. Money sent through remittance services reaches you in naira now, not dollars.

Since 1 May 2026, licensed money transfer operators have to pay out diaspora remittances in naira only.

What it means for you: if your aunt in London sends money through a remittance service, you get naira at their rate. You can't ask for dollars. To hold dollars, you need her to pay you a different way, like into US account details.

2. You can only take a small amount of an inbound transfer as cash.

The CBN's new Foreign Exchange Manual took effect on 1 June 2026. If money's sent to you from abroad, you can collect at most the naira equivalent of $200 in cash, and the rest goes into a bank account.

What it means for you: if you used to collect foreign transfers in cash, that stops at $200 worth. Have a bank account ready.

3. Sending money out of your own dollar account got easier.

The same manual removed the Form A requirement for outward transfers from a domiciliary account you funded yourself. Form A is the paperwork Nigerian banks want before sending money abroad for things that aren't goods, like school fees or a service.

What it means for you: if you funded your domiciliary account with your own money rather than buying dollars from the bank, you can now send money out without that form. If you bought the dollars through the bank, you still need it.

One caution on all three: the CBN gave the manual to banks rather than publishing it, so the detail comes from law firm and press summaries rather than the document.

And tax. From 1 January 2026, gains are taxed at your personal income tax band instead of a flat 10%, topping out at 25%. Your first ₦800,000 of total income is exempt, and that covers your income and your gains together rather than being a separate allowance. Filing deadline is 31 March.

What do you need to open a dollar account?

For most fintech providers:

1. Your BVN
2. A valid government ID
3. A selfie, for the liveness check
4. Proof of address

Verification usually finishes the same day.

Banks want more. Expect a branch visit, a reference, and days rather than minutes.

Where Daya Borders fits

Daya Borders gives you US dollar account and routing details in your own name, so Upwork, Deel, Payoneer or a client's finance team pays you the way they'd pay anyone with a US account. You can receive euros too. Incoming transfers are free, with no cap and no conditions.

You hold the balance in dollars or euros, or convert to naira and send it to your Nigerian bank account.

Whether that beats what you're using now depends on your amounts and how often you withdraw. Run the $500 test above. If another provider gives you more naira, use them.