How to send money from the UK to Nigeria without losing a fortune

Most people comparing ways to send money to Nigeria look at one number: the fee. It’s the number providers want you to look at, because it’s the small one. The big cost sits in the exchange rate, and it never appears on a line labelled “cost”.

This guide walks through where the money goes, what has changed in Nigeria since the currency reforms, and how to check a provider in a few minutes. This is general information, not financial advice, and it recommends no company.

Where the money actually leaks

A transfer has up to three costs. There’s the visible fee. There’s the markup, which is the gap between the rate you’re given and the mid-market rate (the midpoint between what buyers and sellers are quoting in the wholesale market). And there can be a fee at the other end, taken by a receiving bank or agent.

The markup is the one to watch. A fee of 3 pounds is easy to see and easy to compare. A markup of 3% on 500 pounds is 15 pounds, and it’s folded into the rate so you never see it as a charge.

For scale, the World Bank’s Remittance Prices Worldwide database says that globally, sending remittances costs an average of 6.36% of the amount sent (as of August 2025, the page’s last update). That’s an average across all corridors, so it’s a ballpark, not your price.

The naira has two prices, and Nigerian payout rules

Before 2023, Nigeria ran a tightly controlled currency regime, and the street rate sat far above the official one. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has since moved to a more market-driven system, usually called the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market (NFEM), which replaced the older investors’ and exporters’ (I&E) window. Nairametrics reports that the CBN put the premium between the official and bureau de change (BDC) rates at 62.23% in May 2023, and at 2.11% by 9 December 2025.

That’s a huge shift, but it isn’t a straight line. In December 2024, Nairametrics reported a gap of about N205 per dollar, with the official market near N1,545 and the black market at N1,750. In February 2026 the same outlet reported a gap of about 6.4%, which briefly passed N100 per dollar in late January. More recently, a September 2026 report put the gap at about N44 per dollar, and on 29 October 2026 another outlet quoted the official rate near N1,346 against street selling rates near N1,385, roughly 2.9% above official (all as of the months given).

The gap is much smaller than it was, but it has widened and narrowed more than once, so anyone promising it will stay put is guessing. These come from Nigerian news sites reporting daily quotes, and street rates vary by city and dealer.

In July 2023, the CBN told international money transfer operators (IMTOs) that they could pay out in naira as well as foreign currency, using the I&E window rate as the anchor rate for the day (per Nairametrics and TechCabal, reporting a CBN letter dated 10 July 2023). Before that, naira payouts had been barred since December 2020. In plain terms, your recipient can now be paid in naira through a licensed operator, at a rate tied to the official market rather than the street.

That removes one old reason to use informal channels, but it doesn’t make every payout fairly priced. “Anchored” to the official rate still leaves room for a provider to apply its own margin on top. I could not find a current source on dollar payout rules for this article, so if your recipient wants dollars, ask the provider how it’s handled and what rate applies. Don’t assume.

The practical test is simple: ask the provider what rate it uses to pay the naira out, and compare that with the official rate shown on the day. Our GBP to NGN page gives you a reference point for the pound, and the USD to NGN page is useful when a quote is built around dollars. Rates move, so check both right before you send.

A worked example with real arithmetic

Let’s use an illustrative rate. It is not a live quote. Suppose the mid-market rate is 1 GBP = 1,800 NGN, and you send 500 pounds.

Provider A charges a 3 GBP fee and applies a 3% markup. Your 497 pounds (after the fee) is converted at 1,800 × 0.97 = 1,746 naira per pound. That’s 867,762 naira.

Provider B charges a 2 GBP fee and applies a 0.7% markup. Your 498 pounds is converted at 1,800 × 0.993 = 1,787.4 naira per pound. That’s 890,125.2 naira.

Illustrative example (500 GBP sent, mid-market 1,800 NGN)	Provider A	Provider B
Fee	3 GBP	2 GBP
Markup	3%	0.7%
Rate you get	1,746	1,787.4
Naira received	867,762	890,125.2
Total cost, in pounds	about 17.91 GBP	about 5.49 GBP
Total cost, as % of 500	about 3.58%	about 1.10%

At no fee and no markup, 500 pounds would be 900,000 naira. Provider A loses you 32,238 naira, which is 17.91 pounds at the illustrative rate (3 in fee plus 14.91 in markup). Provider B loses 9,874.8 naira, about 5.49 pounds. The difference between them is 22,363.2 naira, or roughly 12.42 pounds.

The fees differ by 1 pound; the markup is where nearly all the damage sits.

“Zero fee” and other friendly phrases

“No fees” is the oldest trick in this business, and it still works because it’s technically true. A provider can charge nothing on the face of the transfer and recover everything through the rate. Run the earlier example with a zero fee and a 4% markup: you’d lose 20 pounds on 500, more than Provider A.

Watch for “best rate” with no figure attached (best compared with what?), introductory rates that fade after the first transfer, and any rate that only appears after you have entered your card details. You should see the exact naira amount your recipient gets before you commit.

To be fair, some providers show the mid-market rate beside their own and state the margin plainly. That’s the standard. If you can’t work out the markup in a minute, that’s information too.

Why the delivery method changes the price

Bank deposit, mobile wallet and cash pickup aren’t priced the same, and the reasons are mundane. Cash pickup needs an agent network, staff and liquidity at the counter, so providers tend to pass that on. Bank deposits depend on the local banking rails and sometimes on intermediary banks that take their own cut. Mobile wallets can be cheap where both sides use the same ecosystem, but not every wallet is available for every recipient.

I haven’t got a verified, current price comparison between these three for the UK-to-Nigeria route this month, so I won’t give you one. What I can say is that the same provider can show quite different rates for the same amount depending on how it’s delivered, so test each option rather than assuming one is cheaper. Speed is worth paying for in an emergency, and rarely for a bill due in two weeks.

Also ask whether the recipient’s bank charges to receive. That fee never shows on your side of the screen.

Check the firm, then compare quotes

In the UK, non-bank money transfer providers must be authorised or registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA says you can use its Financial Services Register to confirm that a provider is authorised and has permission for the service it offers. The brand name you see in an app may not be the name on the register, so look for the operating company’s name, usually in the website footer or terms.

Protection is where people get a nasty surprise. According to the FCA, if a non-bank provider fails, your money isn’t covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). Authorised e-money and payment institutions have to safeguard customer money, meaning keep it separate from the firm’s own funds, but the FCA says some smaller providers (small payment institutions) don’t have to. If a firm doesn’t safeguard, ask what protections it has.

A quick routine before your first transfer:

Find the company’s legal name and address in the footer or terms.
Search the FCA Financial Services Register for that name and check that its status and permissions cover payment services.
Ask, or look for, whether customer funds are safeguarded.
Compare the exact naira your recipient will get, not the headline rate.
Send a small test amount first if it’s your first time with that provider.

To compare quotes, get the final naira figure from at least three providers, same amount, same delivery method, same few minutes. Check it against the mid-market rate on our GBP to NGN page, and if you want to see how the pound is doing against other currencies at the same time, the rates grid lays them out side by side.

Red flags and scams

Most losses in this area are not about rates at all. They’re about people being talked into sending money. Get Safe Online’s advice is blunt: never send money to someone you haven’t met in person, never send money in advance to cover a prospective employer’s costs, and don’t send funds from a cheque until it has officially cleared, which can take weeks.

Warning signs worth treating as a stop sign:

Someone you only know online asks you to send money, especially a romantic contact you’ve never met.
A “buyer” overpays you and asks you to return the difference.
You’re asked to pay an upfront fee to receive a prize, loan, job or rental.
A message from a “relative” in urgent trouble that you haven’t verified by phone.
A provider that isn’t on the FCA register under the name it uses, or that won’t tell you its legal entity.
Pressure to pay by transfer to a personal account, or to send now before a rate disappears.

If you think you’ve been caught, contact the provider immediately, because a transfer that hasn’t been collected can sometimes be stopped. Report fraud to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or at actionfraud.police.uk (Police Scotland on 101 if you’re in Scotland).