Which businesses are allowed to charge VAT in Nigeria?
Test X
A milestone for Sola and the teams who depend on us
There has been growing confusion around which businesses are legally allowed to charge Value Added Tax (VAT) in Nigeria.
Just last week, a post trended on X (formerly known as twitter) where a user complained that he was charged VAT after getting a haircut at a salon. This is not the first time such complaints have surfaced. Several similar posts have gone viral, with people alleging that businesses are inflating prices under the guise of VAT.
The truth about this VAT saga is that if your business is not permitted by law to charge VAT and you do so, that is a tax offense, and it carries serious penalties under Nigerian tax laws.
Now, let me break this down for you clearly. First off:
What Is VAT?
Value Added Tax (VAT) is a consumption tax charged on the supply of taxable goods and services in Nigeria.
The current VAT rate is 7.5%, and it is ultimately borne by the final consumer, not the business.
Businesses are like the middlemen; they collect it from you and hand it over to the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS).
If you’re wondering how businesses actually calculate VAT correctly on invoices,[here’s a breakdown of accounting software with built-in VAT calculation for Nigerian businesses].
Focus Area | Investment | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
Global monitoring network expansion | 40% | 12 months |
Incident management product | 35% | 6–18 months |
Team growth (engineering, product, CS) | 25% | Ongoing |
First, we're expanding our global monitoring network from 18 to 30 regions over the next 12 months, prioritizing Southeast Asia, West Africa, and Eastern Europe.
Second, we're investing heavily in our incident management product. Uptime monitoring is only part of the reliability story. We want Sola to be the place where your team manages the full incident lifecycle — from first alert to postmortem.
Third, we're growing the team. We're hiring across engineering, product, and customer success. If you're passionate about building infrastructure that engineering teams trust with their most critical systems, we'd love to talk.
"When we started Sola, we were frustrated by monitoring tools that were either too simple or too expensive. This funding lets us build the platform engineering teams actually deserve."
— James Carter, Co-founder & CEO
Thank you to our customers
None of this would be possible without the engineering teams who trusted Sola early. This round is for you.
