There's No India-Nigeria DTAA. Everything You've Been Told Is Wrong.

India has signed Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAAs) with more than 90 countries. Nigeria is not one of them.

That sentence matters because several websites, including, to our shame, an earlier version of this one, have published claims about a "7.5% India-Nigeria DTAA interest rate" and called it "the best in the world." It isn't real. The treaty does not exist. It was never signed. The rate was never negotiated.

What exists instead is Section 91 of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1961, a unilateral provision that lets Indian residents claim foreign tax credit for tax paid in countries where no DTAA is in force. For NRIs in Nigeria, it works the other way around too: if you paid Nigerian tax on income that also gets taxed in India, Section 91 lets you claim credit in India for the Nigerian tax.

It is not a treaty rate. It does not reduce your Indian TDS at source. It is a credit mechanism you claim at the time of filing your Indian ITR, based on what you actually paid in Nigeria.

Your bank in India will deduct the default rates. No DTAA = no treaty rate.

- FD interest: 30% (plus cess)

- Dividends from Indian companies: 20%

- Rental income: 31.2%

- Capital gains: per Indian law

Form 10F does not help here because there is no treaty to invoke. A TRC from Nigeria's Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) also does not help for claiming treaty benefits, though it can be useful as evidence of your Nigerian tax residency when claiming Section 91 relief.

If an Indian CA or website tells you otherwise, they are wrong. Check the official list of India's DTAAs on incometaxindia.gov.in. Nigeria will not be there.

Not having a DTAA removes one tool. It does not remove all of them. A lot of NRI tax work has nothing to do with treaty rates.

**ITR filing for NRIs.** Clean, accurate, and on time. Including all the schedules (FA, AL, NRI disclosures) most Indian CAs get wrong for clients who don't live in India.

**Property sale Form 13 (Section 197).** Selling property in Mumbai or Kochi while living in Lagos? Post Budget 2024 (effective 23 July 2024), the default TDS on an NRI property sale is 12.5% flat under Section 195, computed on the full sale value, not the gain. With surcharge and cess, the effective deduction is 13-14.95% of the full sale price. A Form 13 lower-TDS certificate from the Assessing Officer drops this to the actual capital gain rate. On a ₹1 crore property sale with a ₹40 lakh gain, the cash-flow difference is ₹8-10 lakh. This matters whether or not you have a DTAA.

**Condonation of delay under Section 119(2)(b).** For past years where you missed filing or filed incorrectly. The CBDT can allow filing up to 5 Assessment Years late (CBDT Circular 11/2024) if there's a genuine hardship.

**Section 91 foreign tax credit.** If you've paid Nigerian income tax on dividends or interest that India also taxed, Section 91 gets you the credit in your Indian return.

**Tax notices.** Section 148 reassessment, Section 245 refund adjustment, Section 143(2) scrutiny. End-to-end, we respond and represent. Under Section 288, we can be your Authorized Representative, you don't fly to Mumbai or Delhi.

**Repatriation (15CA/15CB).** Moving funds from India to your Nigerian account, the compliance forms, CA certificate, bank coordination, all handled.

None of these depend on a DTAA.

Every real DTAA has a text. It lists articles. Article 10 for dividends, Article 11 for interest, Article 13 for capital gains, and so on. It was signed on a specific date, notified by CBDT, and is published by India's Income Tax Department.

There is no such document for Nigeria. No Article 11 saying 7.5%. No signing ceremony. No gazette notification.

If anyone, a CA, a website, a friend of a friend, tells you there is a 7.5% treaty rate for Nigerian NRIs, ask them for the article number and the date the treaty was signed. They won't be able to give you one.

We're being upfront about this because an NRI tax site has one job: don't cost the user money by being wrong. If we'd sold a Nigerian NRI on the 7.5% rate and their bank refused to honour Form 10F, the real damage would be on their side, not ours. So we fixed it. And we're publishing this post to make sure anyone else who was misled can get to the honest answer.