Is there a DTAA between India and Nigeria?
No. India has tax treaties with more than 90 countries, but Nigeria is not one of them, and it is not among the handful of limited air-transport and shipping agreements India signs either. So there is no treaty rate you can claim, and no Tax Residency Certificate or Form 10F route to lower your Indian TDS, because those exist only where there is a treaty to claim. If a website quotes you a 10 or 15 percent India-Nigeria treaty rate on your interest or dividends, it has confused Nigeria with a country that has a treaty.
What you are left with is India's own domestic law: the normal non-resident tax rates on your Indian income, and the ordinary return-filing route to recover anything over-deducted. Losing the treaty does not mean losing the ability to cut the tax. It just means the levers are domestic, not treaty-based.
Your Indian income is taxed at the normal non-resident rates
Without a treaty, your Indian income is taxed at the standard rates for a non-resident, deducted at source under Section 195 (Section 393(2) from FY 2026-27). There is no threshold below which the deduction is skipped.
| Indian income | TDS rate for an NRI |
|---|---|
| NRO interest (FDs, savings) | 30% plus surcharge and cess |
| Dividends from Indian shares | 20% plus surcharge and cess |
| Long-term property gain | 12.5% plus surcharge and cess |
NRE and FCNR interest stays exempt in India whether or not there is a treaty, so nothing is deducted there. The 12.5 percent long-term property rate applies to a sale on or after 23 July 2024, without indexation. Before that date it was 20 percent with indexation.
How you still cut the Indian tax, and where the double-tax relief sits
Two India-side levers do the work a treaty would have done, and the double-tax relief itself moves to the Nigerian side.
First, file your Indian return as a non-resident. The 30 percent flat deduction on NRO interest is only a withholding, not your final tax. On the return your interest is taxed at slab rates after the basic exemption, so the actual tax is usually far below what was withheld, and the difference comes back as a refund with interest under Section 244A. Second, before you sell Indian property, apply for a Form 13 lower-TDS certificate (Form 128 from FY 2026-27) under Section 197 (Section 395 from FY 2026-27). It tells the buyer to deduct on your actual gain, not the full sale price, so lakhs are not locked up for a year.
The relief for the same income being taxed again in Nigeria is not an Indian job here. Nigeria taxes its residents on worldwide income and its own law gives a resident a credit for foreign tax already paid, so your Indian tax is set against your Nigerian bill on the Nigeria side. We give you the India-tax-paid figures your Nigerian advisor needs. Section 91, India's unilateral relief, runs the opposite way: it helps a person resident in India who paid tax in Nigeria, so it becomes your lever only if you move back to India and still draw Nigerian income.
A worked example: Anil in Lagos
Anil, 47, runs a trading business in Lagos and is a Nigerian tax resident. Back in India he holds a ₹90 lakh NRO fixed deposit paying 7 percent, about ₹6.3 lakh of interest a year, and an old Surat flat he is now selling.
On the interest his bank withholds 30 percent plus 4 percent cess, about ₹1.97 lakh, because there is no treaty to lower it. That deduction is not his final tax. When Anil files his Indian return, the ₹6.3 lakh is taxed at slab rates after the basic exemption, so his actual tax is a small fraction of what was withheld and most of the ₹1.97 lakh is refunded to him with interest under Section 244A. On the flat, which he sells for ₹1.2 crore against a ₹40 lakh long-term gain, a Form 13 certificate limits the buyer's deduction to about ₹5 lakh on the gain, instead of roughly ₹15 lakh on the whole price. Nigeria then credits the Indian tax he finally pays against his Nigerian liability, so the same income is not taxed twice.