Foreign companies contribute over 60% of Nigeria’s Q1 tax revenue

Foreign companies accounted for more than 60 per cent of Nigeria’s Company Income Tax (CIT) collections in the first quarter of 2026, according to the latest report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The NBS disclosed that Nigeria generated a total of N1.37 trillion in CIT during the period, representing an 8.08 per cent decline from the N1.49 trillion recorded in the fourth quarter of 2025.

According to the report released in Abuja on Saturday, foreign companies contributed N828.82 billion, while domestic firms accounted for N538.91 billion of the total tax revenue.

The report showed that, on a quarter-on-quarter basis, the water supply, sewage, waste management and remediation sector recorded the highest growth rate of 485.71 per cent. This was followed by household activities as employers and undifferentiated goods and services-producing activities for own use, which grew by 197.04 per cent.

Conversely, the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector recorded the weakest performance, with a growth rate of -73.52 per cent, while the construction sector posted a decline of -63.15 per cent.

Sectoral analysis revealed that financial and insurance activities contributed the largest share of CIT revenue at 24.73 per cent, followed by mining and quarrying, which accounted for 16.06 per cent.

At the lower end, household activities as employers and own-use goods and services production contributed just 0.01 per cent, while extraterritorial organisations and bodies accounted for 0.13 per cent, and water supply, sewage and waste management activities contributed 0.38 per cent.

On a year-on-year basis, the NBS said CIT collections in the first quarter of 2026 fell by 31.05 per cent compared to the corresponding period in 2025.