Moving to Nigeria from Canada

Our residency index: 50/100, possible, with conditions. It is our own rating of how realistic long-term residency in Nigeria is for Canadian citizens, based on the routes Nigeria publishes. Long-term residence runs mainly through employer-sponsored CERPAC permits under the expatriate quota system, with self-funded permanent-residence routes for investors and for retirees arriving from abroad.

The cheapest self-funded routes we track:

• Investment: about $250k (Nigeria N3A Small Scale Enterprise Investor Visa, US$250,000-500,000 imported and retained as investor's capital; as of June 2026)

Check the official requirements before you apply: amounts, conditions and exchange rates change, and what a couple needs can differ from a single applicant's threshold.

For short visits, Canadian passport holders need an e-visa or eTA before a visit, according to the passport-index dataset. Short-stay entry covers visits; living there takes a residence permit.

Ranked by our match model for a typical couple who both hold Canadian passports, using the preset answers of our best places to live list. Your own answers would change the order. We pick the cities, up to five, by how often English Wikipedia readers looked them up over the past year. Cities in regions of Nigeria under a US State Department "Level 4: Do Not Travel" advisory (checked 13 October 2026) are left out.

1. 1

   1. Abuja

   51% match

   Est. cost

   €2,039/mo

   Avg temp

   26°C

   Safety index

   38/100

2. 2

   2. Benin City

   51% match

   Est. cost

   €2,013/mo

   Avg temp

   26°C

   Safety index

   38/100

3. 3

   3. Ibadan

   51% match

   Est. cost

   €2,057/mo

   Avg temp

   26°C

   Safety index

   38/100

4. 4

   4. Port Harcourt

   51% match

   Est. cost

   €2,024/mo

   Avg temp

   26°C

   Safety index

   38/100

5. 5

   5. Lagos

   50% match

   Est. cost

   €2,144/mo

   Avg temp

   27°C

   Safety index

   38/100

Our estimate for a couple living centrally runs from €2,013 a month in Benin City to €2,144 in Lagos. For comparison, we estimate €3,991 a month in Toronto. Use these figures to compare places rather than to set a budget.

Nigeria is in our low to medium tax tier (moderate personal income tax); Canada is in our high tax tier (high personal income tax). Tiers describe each country's own income tax. They do not cover tax you may still owe in Canada after you leave, or the treaty between the two countries, so check both with a tax adviser before you move.

• Best places to live in Africa

• Moving to Nigeria from the US
• Moving to Nigeria from the UK
• Moving to Nigeria from Australia
• Moving to Nigeria from Ireland
• Moving to Nigeria from New Zealand

Every country and origin we cover

Every figure here comes from the datasets behind our city and country pages:

• Short-stay entry: the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT license), which records the entry rule for short visits on each passport.
• Residency index, routes and thresholds: the OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. It is a summary, not legal advice.
• City ranking: our match model, the one behind the quiz, run with a typical couple's preset answers and both partners holding Canadian passports. It ranks up to five of the country's best-known cities: of the cities in our quiz (100,000 people or more, capitals and a few towns movers seek out, such as Faro), the five most read about on English Wikipedia over the past year. It folds suburbs into their main city and leaves out countries with a residency index under 40 and areas under a US State Department Level 4 advisory, as our best-cities lists do.
• Costs: our cost model, a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026).
• Tax tiers: three coarse bands we assign by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation.