Nigeria · Residency by investment
Investor Visa / Permanent Residence Visa Ladder (N3A-N3E)
Open
Last verified July 2026Unconfirmed
Open on paper, consular only, with no published fee schedule or service standard. Despite the 'Permanent Residence Visa' label, every class is term-limited and non-extendable — there is no permanent residence in Nigeria. Requires a prior F4B or F4C business visa, which is a real gate. Whether these classes are used in practice at all is the key open question we could not resolve.
We include Nigeria to advise against it. There is no permanent residence, the passport is rank 90, the capital must be imported and retained, and the 2026 tax reform means an investor holding retained Nigerian capital plus family ties can be dragged into worldwide tax residency on well under 183 days. The investor visa and the residency test interact badly.
Qualifying routes
$250k
N3A
USD 250k-500k imported and retained; 3 years
$500k
N3B
USD 500k-1m; 4 years
$1M
N3C
USD 1m-10m; 6 years
$10M
N3D
USD 10m+; 8 years
$100M
N3E
oil, gas and power; USD 100m; 10 years
The facts
- Minimum investment
- $250k
- Total landed cost
- Cannot be established. No published fee schedule exists for the investor classes. The operative day-to-day document, CERPAC, costs USD 2,000 per employed adult per year and is renewable annually but never becomes permanent.
- Physical presence
- Not published
- Family
- dependants via CERPAC at USD 2,000 per employed adult per year
- Permanent residency
- None. Despite the 'PRV' label every class is term-limited and non-extendable, and CERPAC is perpetually renewable but never permanent.
- Citizenship
- Naturalisation requires 15 years' residence plus a State Governor's opinion that the applicant is 'acceptable to the local community' and 'assimilated into the way of life of Nigerians' — fully discretionary and unappealable
- Language test
- none statutory
- Dual citizenship
- Not permitted — you would have to renounce
- Requirements
- prior F4B or F4C business visacapital imported AND retained in NigeriaCERPAC registrationclean record
What can go wrong
- There is no permanent residence in Nigeria despite the 'Permanent Residence Visa' branding. Every class is term-limited and non-extendable.
- The residency net widened from 1 January 2026: you are resident if domiciled, or a permanent home is available, or you have a habitual abode, or 183 days, OR you have 'substantial economic ties or immediate family ties in Nigeria'. An investor holding USD 250k+ of retained capital plus family can be resident on well under 183 days — and residents are taxed on worldwide income.
- The capital gains position deteriorated sharply. From 1 January 2026 the capital/income distinction is abolished; individuals' gains are added to income at up to 25%, a 2.5x increase, and indirect offshore transfers are now taxable — closing the classic offshore-holdco exit.
- A Nigerian resident is legally restricted from buying foreign exchange to invest in foreign-currency securities abroad. For a globally invested family this is disqualifying on its own.
- Naturalised Nigerians may retain a foreign citizenship held BY BIRTH — the common claim that they must renounce all others is wrong. But any ACQUIRED citizenship must be renounced within five months, and a naturalised Nigerian who later acquires any new citizenship forfeits Nigerian citizenship 'forthwith'. For a client running a portfolio-of-citizenships strategy, Nigerian naturalisation is actively destructive.
- Section 30 leaves naturalised citizens deprivable for 'disloyalty by act or speech'.
- The 'Migrant e-Settlement Card' could not be verified to exist at all — the exact term returns zero relevant results worldwide and it is absent from every official immigration page. The 'Brown Card' PR permit is likewise untraceable. Treat both as non-existent pending a client-supplied document.
- An official Ministry of Interior page publishes 'Requirements for Acquiring Citizenship by Investment' at USD 1,000,000 — for a route with no constitutional basis. Chapter III provides only birth, registration and naturalisation. The proposed HB 2059 passed second reading on 26 March 2025, specifies no threshold, and needs two-thirds of both chambers plus two-thirds of 36 State Houses. The 'USD 300,000 Nigeria CBI' on agency sites appears fabricated.
- The millionaire population contracted 47% over the decade to 7,200 residents. The smart money is leaving; we should not be advising clients in.
- The Expatriate Employment Levy was suspended on 8 March 2024, a week before commencement. Its own portal has an expired TLS certificate — a fair proxy for institutional attention.