Nigerians in the US: when FBAR applies to your Lagos account

If you are a Nigerian living and working in the US, and you still have a savings account back home in Lagos, you likely need to file an FBAR once the combined value of all your foreign accounts passes 10,000 dollars at any point in the year. This is a US reporting rule, separate from anything you owe the Nigerian tax authorities, and it applies even if the money in that account has already been taxed in Nigeria.

What FBAR actually is

FBAR stands for Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts. It is filed with the US Treasury, not with the IRS directly, though it works alongside your US tax return.

It does not tax your Lagos account. It simply tells the US government that the account exists. The concern for Washington is money laundering and unreported income, not your everyday savings.

When the $10,000 threshold applies

This is the part that catches people out. It is not $10,000 per account. It is $10,000 combined, across every foreign account you have signature authority over, at any single moment during the year.

So if you have 6,000 dollars in a Lagos savings account and 5,000 dollars in a domiciliary account at another bank, you have crossed the line, even though neither account alone reaches 10,000 dollars. You do not need to keep the money there all year. One day above the threshold is enough to trigger the filing requirement for that year.

Note that this includes accounts you can sign on even if the money is not yours. If your name is on a parent's account in Nigeria and the balance crosses the threshold, that account counts too.

Deadlines you need to track

The FBAR deadline sits alongside your US tax deadlines, not your Nigerian ones. Keep your Nigerian filing dates in mind too, since they run on a different calendar and do not excuse you from FBAR.

The Nigerian deadlines matter if you also earn income inside Nigeria, for example rent from a property or a side business. If you are unsure what you owe in Nigeria, running your numbers through the calculator before either deadline saves you a nasty surprise closer to March.

What FATCA adds on top

FBAR is not the only thing you need to know. FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, is a separate US requirement, and it works differently.

FBAR is a Treasury filing about the existence of accounts. FATCA is an IRS filing (Form 8938) about foreign financial assets, and it has a higher threshold, usually starting around 50,000 dollars for single filers living in the US, higher again for those living abroad. Both can apply to the same person in the same year, and filing one does not excuse you from the other.

The other part of FATCA that surprises people is that Nigerian banks themselves report US-linked accounts back to US authorities under agreements between the two countries. So the US Treasury may already know about your Lagos account before you file anything. Filing correctly and on time is simply the safer path.

Does this affect what you owe Nigeria

No, and this is worth being clear about. FBAR and FATCA are US disclosure rules. They do not change your Nigerian tax position.

Inside Nigeria, your tax bands are unaffected by any of this. If you have Nigerian-source income on top of your US salary, for example rental income or freelance work billed to Nigerian clients, that gets taxed under Nigeria's normal 2026 personal income tax bands, from 0% on the first ₦800,000 up to 25% on income above ₦50,000,000. The old Consolidated Relief Allowance is gone, so reliefs now come from specific items like rent relief, which is 20% of your annual rent capped at ₦500,000, rather than a blanket allowance.

If you run a small business in Nigeria alongside your US salary, and that business has turnover of ₦100,000,000 or less and fixed assets of ₦250,000,000 or less, it counts as a small company and is exempt from company income tax and the development levy, though you still have to file. Larger companies pay 30% company income tax plus a 4% development levy, with returns due six months after the financial year end.

What to actually do

Start by adding up the peak balance of every Nigerian account you can sign on, converted to dollars at the highest point in the year. If that total ever touched 10,000 dollars, you file the FBAR.

If you are unsure whether you also owe Nigerian tax on income tied to those accounts, confirming your Tax ID is a sensible first step, and you can do that through find-tax-id. For a fuller grounding in how Nigerian tax rules apply to people earning income both at home and abroad, the academy walks through it in eight short parts. Once you know what you owe on the Nigerian side, you can start a return directly.

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