CERPAC & Residence Permits FAQ

CERPAC — the Combined Expatriate Residence Permit and Aliens Card — is the residence permit issued by the Nigeria Immigration Service to foreigners residing or employed in Nigeria. It serves two functions at once: proof of your legal right to reside in Nigeria, and a form of identification for foreigners within the country.

Its purpose is to let foreign nationals live and work in Nigeria legally for an extended period — typically one year and above — subject to renewal. It is governed by sections 37, 38 and 39 of the Immigration Act 2015 and by regulations 11 to 14 of the Immigration Regulations 2017.

Any foreigner intending to reside in Nigeria for at least one year may be eligible, including those entering on a Temporary or Permanent Residence Visa. The recognised categories are:

• Business owners — foreigners who own businesses in Nigeria
• Employees — foreigners employed by Nigerian companies
• Students — foreign students studying in Nigeria
• Dependants — dependants of foreigners already residing in Nigeria
• Retirees — foreigners aged 65 and above wishing to reside in Nigeria after their working years

The applicable fee depends on your category: USD 2,000 for employed foreigners, USD 600 for students, and the permit is issued gratis (free) for foreigners married to Nigerian citizens.

The process runs in five stages:

• Online application submitted through the NIS portal
• Document upload — a valid passport bearing a Nigerian visa, and proof of employment, business registration, or student status, plus any other required supporting documents
• Payment of the applicable fee online
• Biometric capture — fingerprints and photograph taken at a designated NIS office
• Processing — NIS verifies the documents and issues the permit

Because biometric capture requires an in-person visit, budget for that step separately from the online portions of the process.

Yes. NIS has transitioned CERPAC to a fully electronic platform — e-CERPAC — accessible before an expatriate even arrives in Nigeria and before the relevant visa is issued. The e-CERPAC functions as an entry permit valid for 30 days on arrival, and the newly-introduced system removes the need for post-arrival regularisation altogether, since authorisation is secured before entry.

Physical CERPAC forms were discontinued with effect from 1 August 2025; all applications must now go through the official e-CERPAC/CERPAC online platform. The e-CERPAC currently covers two visa classes: R2A (Employment (Expatriate) Visa – dependent on Quota) and R3A (Employment (Expatriate Free Zone) Visa).

The e-CERPAC platform and the general/standard CERPAC route apply to different visa classes; not all classes have yet migrated to the R2A/R3A e-CERPAC pathway.

CERPAC is issued under twenty subclasses, each tied to the underlying visa category the holder entered on:

• R4A — Employment (Government Official)
• R5A — Employment (INGO)
• R6A — Employment (Cleric)
• R7A — Student
• R8A — Academic Exchange Programme
• R9A — Interns
• N1A — Spouse of Nigerian Citizens
• N2A — Nigerian by Birth Who Renounced Nigerian Citizenship
• N2B — Spouse of Nigerians by Birth Who Renounced Nigerian Citizenship
• N3A — Investor (Small Scale Enterprise)
• N3B — Investor (Medium Scale Enterprise)
• N3C — Investor (Large Scale Corporations)
• N3D — Investor (Ultra Large Scale Corporations)
• N3E — Investor (Oil, Gas & Power Sector)
• N4A — Highly Skilled Immigrant
• N5A — Retirement (Retired in Nigeria)
• N5B — Retirement (Retiree from Abroad)
• N6A — Spouse of Permanent Resident Visa holder
• N6B — Dependant (Under 18) of Permanent Resident Visa holder
• N6C — Dependant (18 and above) of Permanent Resident Visa holder
• N6D — Dependant (Aged Parents, 65 and above) of Permanent Resident Visa holder

The standard employment CERPAC for expatriates hired under a company's Expatriate Quota (R2A-type employment) sits alongside these; your employer's immigration or HR team will typically confirm which subclass applies to your specific visa.

Three practical benefits: it confirms your legal residence in Nigeria, so you are not exposed to overstay or unlawful-residence enforcement; it functions as a form of identification for foreigners, useful for everyday transactions such as opening certain accounts or dealing with government offices; and it demonstrates compliance with Nigerian immigration regulations, which matters if your status is ever checked at a port of entry, during routine immigration checks, or by your employer's compliance team.

A visa is your authorisation to enter Nigeria for a stated purpose. CERPAC is what confirms your ongoing right to reside once you are already in the country on a Temporary or Permanent Residence Visa. In practice, you first obtain the appropriate residence visa (or, for long-term employment, the STR visa followed by regularisation), then apply for CERPAC once resident.

Holding a valid entry visa without also holding CERPAC does not, on its own, entitle you to remain in Nigeria for the extended period CERPAC is designed to cover.

Yes — CERPAC is issued for a defined period (commonly one year, aligned to your underlying residence status) and must be renewed to remain valid. Because it is your proof of legal residence, letting it lapse exposes you to the same compliance risks as never having obtained it in the first place: it can affect your ability to travel in and out of Nigeria, your standing with your employer's immigration compliance obligations, and any future application for a different residence category.

Renewal timelines should be tracked against your specific CERPAC subclass and any conditions attached to your underlying employment, business, or investment approval, since these can change the renewal requirements.

Each investor tier carries its own specific capital-import threshold and a correspondingly longer multiple-entry residence permit — the investment is not a one-off fee but capital that must be imported into and retained in Nigeria for the permit period:

• N3A (Small Scale Enterprise) — US$250,000 to US$500,000 imported and retained. 3-year multiple-entry residence permit.
• N3B (Medium Scale Enterprise) — US$500,000 to US$1,000,000. 4-year multiple-entry residence permit.
• N3C (Large Scale Corporations) — US$1,000,000 to US$10,000,000. 6-year multiple-entry residence permit. Requires the applicant to have previously held or currently hold an F4B or F4C short-visit business visa.
• N3D (Ultra Large Scale Corporations) — US$10,000,000 and above. 8-year multiple-entry residence permit. Also requires prior or current F4B/F4C.
• N3E (Oil, Gas & Power Sector) — as published on the individual NIS N3E page, US$100,000,000 imported and retained, with a 10-year multiple-entry residence permit and the same F4B/F4C prerequisite.

All five tiers also require security clearance from the applicant's place of residence, a valid passport, proof of investment specific to the relevant enterprise, a business plan, and certificate of incorporation or business registration documents. Family and dependants apply separately under N6A (spouse), N6B (dependant under 18), N6C (dependant 18 and above), or N6D (aged parent dependant).

N4A — Highly Skilled Immigrant Visa: unlike the investor tiers, this is not capital-based. It requires a letter of recommendation from the Nigerian Skills Gap Assessment (administered under the Industrial Training Fund, ITF), vetted professional credentials and a CV/skill profile, and a police clearance report from your country of residence. It carries a 5-year, renewable, multiple-entry residence permit and expressly permits both work and residence — unlike most PRV categories, which restrict employment.

N5A / N5B — Retirement: N5A (Retired in Nigeria) is for foreign nationals aged 65 and above who retired in Nigeria after a minimum of 20 years of service; N5B (Retiree from Abroad) is for foreign retirees aged 65 and above relocating to Nigeria from overseas. Neither authorises paid employment.

N6A–N6D — Dependants of Investor, Highly Skilled, or Retiree PRV holders: these apply specifically to family of N3A–N3E, N4A, N5A, or N5B holders. N6A (spouse) requires a marriage certificate, police clearance certificate, and medical clearance/insurance evidence. N6B (dependant under 18) and N6C (dependant 18 and above) require a birth certificate, medical insurance and clearance evidence, and (for minors) parental/guardian consent. All three are single-entry-application but grant multiple-entry residence tied to the principal's validity, and none permit employment — a working-age adult dependant who wants to work must separately qualify under their own category, such as N4A, rather than relying on N6C status.

The Nigeria Immigration Service has periodically run a dedicated regularisation (amnesty) window for exactly this. The most recent, widely publicised window — the "Expired Visa Initiative (Amnesty)" — covered foreign nationals holding an expired Visa on Arrival, an expired Single or Multiple Entry Visa, or a CERPAC unrenewed for more than 30 days past expiry, allowing them to obtain a Stay Permit via a dedicated amnesty portal without the enforcement consequences that normally attach to overstaying.

That specific window has closed. NIS's own page for the initiative stated an end date of 30 September 2025, while other official and press coverage of the same programme gave 31 July 2025. These amnesty windows have not historically been a standing, year-round feature.

The amnesty is not universal. It specifically excludes holders of employment- and diplomat-linked categories who are expected to keep their status current through their sponsoring employer or mission rather than through a general amnesty — including Accredited Diplomat visas and their dependants (R1A–R1E), Employment/Expatriate visas across the Government, Free Zone, Government Official, INGO and Cleric categories and their dependants (R2–R6, all sub-classes), Student visas and their spouses (R7A/R7B), and Academic Exchange Programme visas and their spouses (R8A/R8B).

If you hold one of these excluded categories, timely renewal or extension through the normal channel — not the amnesty — is the correct route, and delaying risks enforcement action.

An unregularised overstay or lapsed CERPAC leaves you without proof of lawful residence, which carries real consequences: exposure to enforcement action, complications re-entering Nigeria if you travel, difficulty for your employer in maintaining its own immigration compliance record, and a weaker position for any future visa, CERPAC or citizenship application. Where a regularisation window is open and your category qualifies, using it is materially safer than waiting.

Yes — this changed materially in 2025 and is worth knowing precisely, since it now carries real financial and travel consequences. Effective 2 August 2025, Nigeria introduced a specific overstay penalty structure:

• From the date of visa expiration: a daily fine of US$15.
• Overstay of three months or more: the US$15 daily fine plus a five-year entry ban.
• Overstay of one year or more: the US$15 daily fine plus a permanent entry ban.

This sits alongside a separate but related reform: since 1 May 2025, the old paper landing and embarkation/disembarkation cards have been replaced by a mandatory digital Landing and Exit Card system (lecard.immigration.gov.ng). All non-Nigerian inbound passengers must complete the Landing Card online before boarding their arrival flight, and all outbound passengers (Nigerians included) must complete the Exit Card online before departure. The platform is integrated with the visa processing system, which is what allows the overstay penalties above to be applied automatically at the point of exit rather than discovered later.

The same reform discontinued Visa on Arrival (VoA) as a standing category — VoAs already issued before 1 May 2025 remained valid only until 30 May 2025. A three-month grace period (1 May to 1 August 2025) allowed foreign nationals with expired visas to depart voluntarily without penalty; that grace period has since closed, so the penalty structure above is now live and being actively enforced, not a future risk to plan around.

An overstay that might once have been resolved quietly on exit now triggers an automatic, calculated fine and, past three months, an entry ban that a subsequent regularisation application cannot necessarily undo.

Not quite. Regularisation resolves the immediate breach — the expired visa or overdue CERPAC renewal — by issuing a Stay Permit that brings you back into lawful status. It is generally a precursor step, not a substitute, for holding a current, properly renewed CERPAC. Once regularised, the ordinary CERPAC renewal obligations described earlier in this guide continue to apply going forward.