VAT on tuition and school supplies in Nigeria

What the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 says about VAT on tuition and educational materials, and how a Nigerian school codes each invoice line in Achekam.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 5 min read · For Education businesses in Nigeria

Proprietors of Nigerian schools and training centres have heard every version of the VAT answer. "Education is exempt." "Only the uniforms are taxed." "Since the new Act, everything changed." Meanwhile the bursar has to put a tax treatment on every line of every fee invoice, and an auditor will one day ask why.

The Nigeria Tax Act 2025 gives a clearer starting point than most people realise. This article sets out what it says about tuition and educational materials, why "taxed at 0%" is a different thing from "exempt", and how to code your invoice lines in Achekam without guessing.

It is written at the time of the reform's first year, so treat it as a guide to the questions to ask, and confirm your own position with your tax adviser and the Nigeria Revenue Service.

What the new Act zero-rates in education

The Nigeria Tax Act 2025 commenced on 1 January 2026. Tax periods before that date stay under the laws it repealed, which include the old VAT Act, so invoices dated in 2025 follow the old rules even if you issue a credit note against them today.

Under the new Act, Nigeria's VAT rate is 7.5%, unchanged by the reform. The Act zero-rates a list of supplies, and two items on it matter to schools:

• tuition from nursery to tertiary level; and
• educational books and materials.

The same list also covers basic food, medical and pharmaceutical products, medical services and exported goods other than oil and gas, among others. You can read the text of the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 yourself; the zero-rating list is in section 187.

There is a separate question of whether your institution has to register for VAT at all. A small business in Nigeria is exempt from registering for, charging and filing VAT, but may choose to opt in. The turnover limit that defines "small" is itself contested between versions of the text, so this is a conversation to have with your adviser rather than a figure to take from an article.

Taxed at 0% is not the same as exempt

The words sound interchangeable. They are not.

A zero-rated supply is a taxable supply on which the rate happens to be nothing. It still belongs on your VAT records, and it is still a supply you make in the course of a VAT-registered business.

An exempt supply sits outside the charge to VAT altogether.

The practical difference usually shows up on the other side of your books: in many VAT systems, whether you can recover the VAT you pay on your own costs depends on whether your sales are taxable or exempt. For a school that buys buildings, furniture, laptops and printing, that difference can be material. How it works out for your institution under the new Act is precisely the question to put to your adviser.

Coding each invoice line in Achekam

Once the Nigeria country pack is activated in your workspace under Settings, Jurisdiction & regulators, every invoice line takes its own tax code. The choices are standard, zero-rated, exempt, out of scope and reverse charge. Only lines coded standard carry VAT, at the approved rate for Nigeria.

That per-line choice is what a school needs, because one fee invoice often mixes items with different treatments. A worked example in words:

Two cautions about where you raise the invoice:

• Use the invoice form under Accounting, which follows the country's tax codes. The New invoice form under Billing & Finance currently offers only 15% or 0% VAT and shows rand, so it does not follow Nigerian VAT.
• Look at the PDF before you send it. The PDF downloaded or e-mailed from the invoice screen is, at the time of writing, always headed TAX INVOICE and cites the South African VAT Act, whatever the business's country. That is a known defect, and a parent or sponsor may query it.

Why a standard-rated line can be refused

Suppose you sell something you have been advised is standard-rated, such as merchandise at the school shop. You code the line standard, and Achekam refuses to issue it.

That is deliberate. Achekam does not assume tax rates. While the Nigerian VAT rate rule is waiting for approval on the platform, Achekam refuses to charge standard-rate VAT on a Nigerian workspace's invoice and tells you to choose a tax code without VAT or to wait. It is better for an invoice to be held than to go out with a rate nobody has confirmed.

If this happens, do not recode the line as zero-rated just to get the invoice out. That would be the wrong treatment. Either hold that invoice, or take the standard-rated item off and invoice it separately once the rate is approved.

Supplies to take to your adviser

Bring this list to your next meeting with your tax adviser, with one real invoice for each:

1. Tuition at each level you offer, including any adult or professional courses that may not fit "nursery to tertiary".
2. Application, registration and examination fees charged separately from tuition.
3. Books, materials and devices you supply, and whether they are sold or included in the fee.
4. Uniforms, meals, transport, boarding and excursions.
5. Anything you sell to the public: hall hire, events, shop sales.
6. Invoices dated before 1 January 2026 that may still need credit notes.

Once you have answers, write them down as a one-page coding guide for whoever raises invoices, so the same item is coded the same way every term. Credit notes follow the codes of the invoice they correct, which is one more reason to get the codes right first time; see handling overpaid fees and students who leave. If you bill in instalments, the codes sit on the fee invoice itself, as described in fee instalments as part payments.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.