How to invoice foreign clients from Nigeria

Who you are changes a couple of the answers below, so it's worth settling that first. A CAC-registered company invoices in the company's name and can register for VAT. A sole trader without a registered company invoices in their own name. For the wider picture on moving money in and out as a company, see how Nigerian businesses pay and get paid globally.

What goes on an invoice to a foreign client?

An invoice to a foreign client needs the same core fields as a domestic one, plus a few things a foreign finance team will look for. Nigeria's national e-invoicing guideline requires the invoice date, your business name and address, the client's business name and address, a unique invoice number, the payment terms and method, and a description of the services.

In practice, this is what a foreign client's finance team expects to see on the page:

1. Your registered name and address, exactly as they appear on your CAC certificate, or your own full name if you aren't registered.
2. Your Tax Identification Number, the Tax ID issued to you or to your company.
3. The client's full legal name and address, rather than a trading name or the name of the person who hired you.
4. A unique, sequential invoice number. Nigeria's e-invoicing schema sets the format as INV followed by a sequential number.
5. The invoice date, the date payment is due, and the payment method you want them to use.
6. A line-by-line description of the work, with the quantity and the unit price for each line.
7. The subtotal, a VAT line showing 0% for an exported service, and the total payable.
8. Your bank details, in the same name as the one at the top of the invoice.
9. The currency, stated once and used on every line, so nobody has to guess which one the total is in.

Nigeria is moving to electronic invoicing, and the national guideline for it commenced on 1 September 2025. If your invoices go out through an accounting system rather than as a document you type each time, the fields above are what that system needs to produce.

Do you charge VAT on an invoice to a foreign client?

No. Exported services are zero-rated in Nigeria, so you charge 0% VAT on an invoice to a client abroad. Zero-rated is better for you than exempt: you charge nothing on the sale, and you can still recover the VAT you paid on your own costs in earning that income. Show the 0% line rather than leaving VAT off the invoice.

What the recovery is worth depends on what you buy. A design studio in Lagos billing a client in Berlin charges 0% on the invoice, and the 7.5% VAT it paid on software subscriptions, equipment and professional fees used to do that work is recoverable rather than a sunk cost. An exempt supply gives you the zero on the invoice and takes the recovery away, which is why the wording on the line matters.

Recovery only works if you're VAT-registered and filing returns, and that's a separate question from whether your export is zero-rated. The rules on who has to register changed in 2026, and the published readings of the new turnover threshold don't agree with each other, so check your own position with an accountant rather than working it out from an article.

Should you invoice in dollars or in naira?

Invoice in the currency you can receive and hold, which for most Nigerian service exporters means dollars. Billing in naira and asking a foreign client to send naira puts the conversion on their side, at a rate you don't see and can't check. Billing in dollars into a dollar account leaves the conversion with you, at a moment you choose.

A European client paying in euros is a separate decision, because whether you keep the euros or have them converted to dollars on arrival depends on which account you use. Getting paid in euros as a Nigerian freelancer goes through which Nigerian accounts actually hold euros and which convert them, with what each one charges.

One thing to agree with the client in writing, whichever currency you pick: who covers the sending charges. A client who sends a wire and lets their bank take its fee from the amount in transit leaves you short against your own invoice, and the time to settle that is before the first payment rather than after it.

Why does the name on the invoice matter?

The name on the invoice, the name of the entity doing the work, and the name on the account receiving the money all need to match. A client's finance team that sees a company invoice and a personal account in a different name will usually hold the payment and come back with questions.

That delay costs you in waiting rather than in fees, and it catches two groups in particular. A sole trader who has registered a business name and invoices under it, while the receiving account is in their personal name, has a mismatch to explain on every payment. A company that invoices as the company and receives into a director's personal account has a bigger one, because the money has landed somewhere the company's own books can't easily account for.

Fixing it is mechanical. Decide which entity is doing the work, invoice in that entity's exact registered name, and open the receiving account in the same name. If the entity is a registered company, that means account details in the company's name rather than in anybody's personal one.

Where does Daya Business fit?

Daya Business gives a CAC-registered company account details in the company's own name in three currencies, dollars, pounds and euros, which is what lets the invoice and the receiving account match. Grey Business, by comparison, has dollars live and lists pounds and euros as coming soon with a waitlist, checked on 5 November 2026.

Daya Business holds those three currencies in one account, converts between dollars and naira, and pays out by bank transfer, wire, ACH or on-chain in USDT and USDC. Opening one needs CAC registration and business verification, which in practice means your BVN or NIN, your own ID, your CAC documents and your director details. That documentary ask is real and it is the slowest part of getting started.

Daya Business isn't the answer if you aren't registered. A freelancer or sole trader without a CAC-registered company is pointed at Daya Borders instead, which gives account and routing details in your own name, in dollars and euros, and takes 0% on anything that lands. That's the right fit when the invoice goes out in your own name too. Neither product has a card yet, and both pages list cards as coming soon.

Will your client deduct tax before paying you?

Some will. A foreign client or platform may withhold tax at source before the money leaves, which means the amount that lands is smaller than the amount on your invoice. Whether you can reduce it depends on whether Nigeria has a tax treaty with that country, and Nigeria has treaties with 15, including the UK, Canada, China and South Africa.

The United States has no tax treaty with Nigeria, which is why a US platform's withholding is the one that stings. Ask for the withholding statement every time, because that document is what lets you claim relief in Nigeria against tax already paid abroad. Put a line on the invoice asking for it, rather than chasing it at the end of the year.

Keep that withholding separate in your head from your own VAT line. One is tax the client's country takes off your fee before it reaches you. The other is tax you charge your client, and on an export invoice you charge nothing.

What records do you keep after you've invoiced?

Keep at least six years of records, which is how far back the Nigeria Revenue Service can audit. For a foreign invoice that means the invoice itself, the contract or signed scope of work, the client's remittance advice or payment confirmation, the statement showing what landed and when, any withholding certificate, and the rate you converted at.

The reason to keep the pair together, the invoice and the statement, is that they answer different questions. The invoice shows what you charged. The statement shows what arrived, which is rarely the same number once a sending bank or a withholding agent has taken something. Your accountant needs both to reconcile the year, and so does anybody auditing it.

What do you do if the client says they paid and nothing arrived?

Ask the client for the payment reference and the exact name and account details they sent to, before anything else. Those two pieces of information are what separate a name mismatch from a wrong account number from a payment sent on a route your account can't accept, and the fix is different in each case.

The route is the one to check first if your client banks outside the United States. Several Nigerian dollar account apps state plainly that they can't receive an international wire at all, only domestic transfers, so a client sending a wire to one of them is sending it nowhere. A domiciliary account against a fintech USD account sets out which accounts say what, in their own words, so you can check yours before the next invoice goes out.

Before you send the next one, check that the name on the invoice matches the name on the account, that the VAT line says 0% rather than being left off, and that the currency is one your account can hold. Those are the three that cost you time when they're wrong.