Nigeria’s minister for communications and digital economy, Isa Pantami, has announced that the Nigeria Startup Bill had been signed into law.
Since October 2021, stakeholders in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem have been working with several governmental parastatals to pass a bill—the Nigeria Startup Bill (NSB)—that provides an enabling environment for tech startups in Nigeria.
In the last two years, Nigeria has made regulatory changes that have stopped some startups in their tracks– like this 2020 state regulation that banned bike-hailing startups in Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous city.
With the Nigeria Startup Bill—now the Nigeria Startup Act—the gap between startups and regulators will be bridged. The Act will make tax break provisions for new startups. It will also provide tax incentives for foreign service providers. It also delineates requirements for registration and licensing or labelling of startups.
A draft bill was first submitted to the Presidency and the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
The NSB might be law in Nigeria, but there is still much work to be done before it’s the apex law guiding Nigeria’s tech ecosystem. Presently, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) is still toying around with a new NITDA Act that contradicts the NSB. For example, while the NSB will give tech startups tax breaks, the NITDA Act heavily taxes startups. This approval is only one battle won in the regulatory war for Nigeria’s tech ecosystem.
