Most founders meet this fee for the first time when they try to file something small, and get stopped before they even reach the payment screen.
The fee itself is rarely the surprise. What catches people out is what stands in front of it.
What counts as a post-incorporation filing
A post-incorporation filing is any change you make to your company's record after registration, other than the annual return itself. This covers a wide range of small updates to your company's file.
CAC groups these under one fee schedule, separate from both the incorporation fee and the annual return fee. Whether the change itself feels minor to you does not change which schedule it falls under.
The fee for a small company
A small company pays ₦5,000 for most filings in this group. Companies limited by guarantee pay the same rate.
This is a flat fee, not one that scales with your share capital the way the incorporation fee does. It applies whether the filing is a single small update or a more involved one, as long as it falls under this schedule.
The fee for other private and public companies
A private company that does not qualify as small pays ₦10,000 instead. A public company pays ₦20,000, the highest of the three.
Check which category your company falls into before you budget for a filing, since the gap between the small-company rate and the others is significant.
The prerequisite that can block your filing
Up-to-date annual returns and PSC information is normally required before CAC will process most post-incorporation filings. This applies broadly, not just to one type of change.
In practice, this means the portal can stop you before you reach payment at all, if your annual returns are not current or your significant-control information is out of date. See PSC disclosures when you register a company for what CAC expects to stay current there.
Finding this out mid-filing is more common than founders expect, so check your annual return status before you start a new filing.
Clearing it before you try again
If a filing stalls, check your annual return history first. See check if your CAC annual returns are up to date for how to confirm that before you try again.
Once your record is current, you can resubmit the filing. Trying to push a filing through while an old return sits unfiled tends to waste more time than clearing the return first.
You can start a CAC company registration if you have not yet registered, and our guide to what's in a CAC incorporation pack covers what you keep on file from day one to avoid this problem later. A little organisation early on saves a stalled filing further down the line.