Is there a DTAA between India and Nigeria for a property sale?
No. India has tax treaties with more than 90 countries, but Nigeria is not one of them, so there is no capital-gains article to cap or carve out the tax on your sale, and no Form 10F (Form 41 from FY 2026-27) or Tax Residency Certificate route, because those exist only where a treaty exists. If a website quotes you a 7.5 or 10 percent India-Nigeria rate on your property gain, it has confused Nigeria with a treaty country.
So the gain is taxed purely under Indian domestic law, at the ordinary non-resident rate, and the buyer withholds it at source. Losing the treaty doesn't mean you're stuck with the default deduction. It means your one saving lever is domestic: a lower-TDS certificate, not a treaty claim.
By default the buyer deducts 12.5% on your full sale value
For a long-term sale, one held more than 24 months, the buyer must deduct under Section 195 (Section 393(2) from FY 2026-27) at 12.5 percent on the entire sale value, not on your profit, with no threshold below which it's skipped.
| On a long-term NRI property sale | Deduction |
|---|---|
| Base TDS rate | 12.5% of full sale value |
| Plus surcharge (capped at 15% for LTCG) and 4% cess | Effective 13% to 15% |
| Computed on | The whole price, not the gain |
The 12.5 percent no-indexation rate applies to a sale on or after 23 July 2024. Before that it was 20 percent with indexation. If you've held the flat under 24 months it's a short-term sale, taxed at your slab rate, and the deduction is higher still. On a ₹1.5 crore flat that default withholding locks up more than ₹20 lakh on registration day, most of it money you'd never actually owe.
Form 13 is the single lever that cuts it, and you apply before you sell
One certificate does the work a treaty would have done. Before the sale, apply for a Form 13 lower-TDS certificate (Form 128 from FY 2026-27) under Section 197 (Section 395 from FY 2026-27). You submit the projected capital gain, the cost proof and any reinvestment you're claiming, and the Assessing Officer issues a certificate telling the buyer to deduct on your actual gain instead of the full price.
The gain itself can be cut too. Reinvesting under Section 54 or 54EC, and building that into the same application, drops the certificate figure further, sometimes to near nil. Where a flat has co-owners, each owner applies for their own certificate. The catch is timing: the certificate only works if it's in the buyer's hands before he pays, so start it weeks ahead of registration.
Where the double-tax relief sits: on the Nigeria side, not India's Section 91
Nigeria taxes its residents on worldwide income, so once you've paid Indian tax on the gain, Nigeria can tax the same gain again. The relief for that is claimed on the Nigerian side, under Nigeria's own foreign-tax-relief rules, not on your Indian return. From 1 January 2026 the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 folds an individual's capital gains into personal income tax, taxed at rates up to 25 percent, where it used to be a flat 10 percent. Your Nigerian advisor sets the Indian tax you paid against that Nigerian bill; we hand over the India-tax-paid figures they need.
Section 91, India's unilateral relief that many Nigeria guides cite, runs the opposite way. It helps a person resident in India who paid tax abroad, not an NRI's Indian-source gain. It becomes your lever only if you move back to India and still draw Nigerian income. On the Indian side your job is simply to keep the Indian tax as low as it can go, which is exactly what the Form 13 route does. If you also hold Indian FDs or shares, the refund route on that interest and dividend TDS works the same domestic way.
A worked example: Priya in Lagos sells her Mumbai flat
Priya, 44, has lived in Lagos for nine years and is a Nigerian tax resident. She's selling a Mumbai flat for ₹1.5 crore, with a long-term capital gain of about ₹50 lakh after cost.
With no certificate, the buyer must deduct 12.5 percent on the full ₹1.5 crore, about ₹18.75 lakh, and with surcharge and cess the withholding is close to ₹22 lakh. Priya's real tax is on the ₹50 lakh gain, not the whole price, so most of that ₹22 lakh is money she'd have to chase back through a refund that takes months.
Instead she files Form 13 first. The certificate is computed on the ₹50 lakh gain: 12.5 percent is about ₹6.25 lakh, roughly ₹7 lakh with surcharge and cess, so the buyer deducts around ₹7 lakh rather than ₹22 lakh, a cash unlock of about ₹15 lakh on registration day. If she reinvests the ₹50 lakh gain in another Indian house under Section 54, the certificate figure can fall to near nil. Nigeria then gives her relief for whatever Indian tax she finally pays, so the flat isn't taxed twice over.