Beyond the monthly remittance, an employer has one more PAYE date to keep: the annual return that summarises the whole year at once.
Employers file this return by 31 January, covering deductions made across the previous calendar year for every employee on the payroll.
When it falls
31 January each year. It looks back over the calendar year that just ended, not the year ahead.
An employer who has been remitting correctly every month for that year is largely just summarising what has already been paid. There should be no surprises in it, if the monthly habit was kept up.
What the return has to cover
The return draws together a full year of PAYE activity: every employee, every month, and every naira deducted and remitted. It is a summary of the twelve monthly remittances already made, not a separate calculation from scratch.
The Nigeria Tax Administration Act 2025 sets out this kind of annual filing duty. Every taxable person must file a return each year, even if no tax is due.
Why filing it on time matters
A late or missing annual return is a filing gap that can surface later, at exactly the moment a business needs a clean record, such as when applying for a federal tax clearance certificate, issued by the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), formerly FIRS, for a tender or a loan.
Keeping this date alongside the monthly ones in one place is simpler than trying to remember it once a year, out of context. A business that treats both PAYE dates as routine, rather than as an annual surprise, rarely finds its records in poor shape when a clearance certificate or an audit asks for them.
What the return does not replace
Filing the annual PAYE return is not the same as applying for a tax clearance certificate, and it does not automatically produce one. It simply keeps the record straight. A straight record makes a certificate application easier later, if one is ever needed.
Common mistakes with this deadline
- Assuming the annual return is optional if every month was already remitted correctly.
- Confusing it with the monthly remittance deadline, which is a different, more frequent obligation.
- Leaving the summary until the deadline itself, instead of compiling it as the year goes along.
- Losing track of which months were already remitted once staff or payroll software changes mid-year.
Keeping track of both PAYE dates
The compliance calendar is built to hold dates like this alongside other filing deadlines, so neither the monthly nor the annual one depends on memory alone. For the bands behind the amounts being reported, see the 2026 PAYE bands explained, and for the rest of this series, the PAYE and state tax hub.