From 1 January 2026, gains you make selling US stocks, ETFs or Eurobonds through Bamboo, Trove or Chaka are, in principle, taxable in Nigeria — but most retail investors won't owe anything, because the Nigeria Tax Act (NTA) 2025 exempts anyone whose total disposal proceeds stay under ₦150 million and whose total gains stay under ₦10 million in any 12-month period. The bigger practical risk for dollar-savers isn't the stock gain itself — it's that the same Act now treats foreign currency as a chargeable asset in its own right, and that gains from *foreign* shares only get a clean exemption if the proceeds come back into Nigeria through a CBN-authorised channel (Premium Times, Reanda International).
The old regime was simple and, for investors, forgiving: a flat 10% capital gains tax (CGT) that was rarely enforced on retail share trading. The NTA 2025 — signed into law in June 2025 and effective from January 2026 — tears that up. Two big shifts matter to you:
- CGT for individuals is no longer a flat rate. Gains are folded into your normal personal income tax computation and taxed at your progressive PIT band, which now tops out at 25% for the highest earners, alongside a new ₦800,000 tax-free floor on total income including chargeable gains (Bloomberg Tax, Mondaq).
- Companies, and anything treated as a company for tax purposes — including mutual funds and unit trusts — see CGT harmonised with the standard 30% company income tax rate (AnooreHR). If you hold a US-stock ETF wrapped inside a Nigerian mutual fund structure rather than owning the shares directly, this is the rate that applies at the fund level, not the individual scale.
The Act also defines "chargeable assets" broadly — property, shares, options, digital assets and, notably, foreign currency itself (Section 34) — which is the detail most consumer coverage of this reform glosses over.
This is the part where the reporting gets fuzzy, and you should treat it as such. The headline exemption — no CGT if your 12-month disposal proceeds are ≤₦150 million *and* your gains are ≤₦10 million — is consistently reported for "shares," and most retail coverage (Nairametrics, Premium Times, SOW Professional) does not carve out foreign shares from it. Separately, though, several tax-advisory sources describe a distinct, explicit exemption for gains on foreign share disposals that are repatriated into Nigeria through a CBN-authorised channel — which strongly suggests foreign shares are treated as their own category, not simply folded into the general NGX-shares exemption (Premium Times).
What's unambiguous:
- Reinvestment relief only rewards you for staying in Nigerian companies. Rolling your proceeds into more Nigerian shares within 12 months can exempt an otherwise taxable gain — but this relief is tied to reinvestment in Nigerian company shares. Recycling profits into more US stock on Bamboo doesn't appear to qualify.
- You're taxed on worldwide gains as a Nigerian tax resident. The location of the broker (a US clearing partner behind Trove or Bamboo) doesn't move the gain outside Nigeria's reach.
- Practical guidance here is genuinely still settling. Given the ambiguity between general coverage in the press and the more specific repatriation-based exemption described by tax advisers, this is a case where a few hundred naira spent on a session with a chartered tax practitioner before filing is worth it, especially once your annual gains approach ₦10 million.
If your dollar savings sit in Nigerian Eurobonds rather than US equities, the news is simpler and better. FIRS clarified that interest and gains on most bonds and short-term securities became taxable under the new regime — except Federal Government bonds and Eurobonds, which keep their exempt status (Nairametrics). Coupon income and capital gains on FGN Eurobonds — the dollar-denominated bonds many Trove and Bamboo users hold as a lower-volatility dollar play — stay outside CGT and withholding tax from January 2026. State and corporate bonds don't get the same protection, so check which specific instrument you hold before assuming you're covered.
The detail that gets the least attention in mainstream coverage is also the one most relevant to a USD-earner: the NTA 2025 defines any currency other than the naira as a chargeable asset, and explicitly brings foreign-exchange gains into the tax base (Reanda International). In principle, that means a naira depreciation that inflates the value of dollars you're holding — separate from any stock gain — could itself be a chargeable event when you dispose of or convert those dollars. How this applies in practice to ordinary domiciliary-account holders versus active currency traders isn't yet clearly spelled out in public guidance, and it's a question worth putting directly to a tax adviser rather than assuming either way.
Separate from Nigerian CGT, the US Internal Revenue Service withholds 30% at source on dividends paid to non-US holders of US stocks and ETFs, and Nigeria has no tax treaty with the US that reduces this rate — unlike Egypt, Morocco, South Africa or Tunisia, which do have treaty relief. Bamboo and Trove handle the W-8BEN paperwork for you automatically and simply pay out the net amount, but it's worth knowing that 30% is gone before Nigerian tax even enters the picture, and it applies to dividends only, not capital gains on the shares themselves.
All three platforms are regulated by Nigeria's SEC in some form — Bamboo under a digital sub-broker licence, Trove through an SEC-licensed broker-dealer it acquired in January 2026, and Chaka's retail book having moved under Risevest since 2023. None of them currently files your Nigerian personal capital gains tax return for you. They can show you your trade history and realised gains in dollar terms; converting that into a naira CGT computation, tracking it against the ₦150m/₦10m threshold, and filing with the tax authority is on you.
- Export a full trade and dividend history from each platform (Bamboo, Trove, any legacy Chaka/Risevest holding) at year-end, not just when you remember.
- Log the naira/USD exchange rate on both the purchase and sale date of every position — you'll need it to compute the naira-equivalent gain.
- Track Eurobond holdings separately from equities and ETFs; they're currently exempt, and mixing them into one "investments" bucket makes it harder to isolate what's actually taxable.
- Keep a running 12-month total of both proceeds and gains across all foreign-share disposals — the exemption test is cumulative, not per trade.
- Get a same-year opinion from a Nigerian tax professional on how the foreign-currency-as-asset rule applies to your specific pattern of dollar holding and conversion, rather than guessing.
For most people quietly compounding a few hundred or a few thousand dollars a month into US stocks and ETFs through Bamboo or Trove, the ₦10 million gains threshold means 2026 changes little in practice. The people who need to pay closer attention are larger investors nearing that threshold, and anyone assuming Eurobond-style tax exemption automatically extends to US equities — it doesn't. If you're tracking naira and dollar balances across several of these apps alongside a domiciliary account, a tool like Kampe — which reads and aggregates your linked accounts into one clear number without ever moving or holding your money — can make it easier to see your combined dollar exposure and gains at a glance, though it doesn't replace filing advice from a qualified tax professional.