Abuja residents deal with a tax authority that is not quite like a state government's own revenue service, since the Federal Capital Territory is not a state. FCT-IRS still runs the same kind of personal income tax system, with its own online portal.
Who files with FCT-IRS rather than a state
FCT-IRS applies to residents of the Federal Capital Territory. The rule is the same one that applies everywhere else: you pay to the tax authority of the state where the employee lives, and for someone actually living inside the FCT, that authority is FCT-IRS.
Plenty of people who work in Abuja do not live inside the FCT boundary at all. FCT-IRS's own FAQ gives the example of staff who work in Abuja but live in Suleja or Mararaba: they pay PAYE to the Niger or Nasarawa State IRS instead, whatever their office address says.
Registering on Taxporta
FCT-IRS has its own registration page at fctirs.gov.ng/taxpayer-registration-with-fct-irs, and you should register before anything else. Have your basic identifying details ready.
Skipping straight to filing on taxporta.fctirs.gov.ng without registering first can leave you stuck on your first attempt.
Filing your return and paying through the portal
FCT-IRS treats electronic filing on taxporta.fctirs.gov.ng as the approved way to submit an annual return. That is Taxporta, a separate address from the registration page, so bookmark both rather than assuming one covers the other.
Payment is handled on its own page too, at fctirs.gov.ng/payment-of-taxes-to-fct-irs. Filing and paying are two separate actions on two separate FCT-IRS pages. FCT-IRS also runs a separate TCC verification page at fcttaxportal.fctirs.gov.ng/tccver.aspx, for checking a tax clearance certificate.
The one-off 2026 deadline extension
FCT-IRS pushed the 2026 individual return deadline from 31 March each year to 30 Apr 2026, giving residents an extra month that year. FCT-IRS said the statutory deadline itself remains 31 March each year, so treat the later date as an extension for that filing season only.
Treat any extension the same way: real for the year it was announced, not a new permanent date. Our compliance calendar tool is a better place to track the date that actually applies to you than memory alone.
What to check before assuming an extension still applies
FCT-IRS announces extensions on its own site when they happen, not by changing the underlying law. Before assuming a later date applies in any future year, check FCT-IRS's own notices rather than relying on what happened the year before.
If you are unsure which date binds you in a given year, plan to file by 31 March each year, the statutory date. For the annual return duty itself, see filing your individual annual tax return, and for the rest of the series, the PAYE and state tax hub.