Traveling to Lagos Advice

Appendix

Visa on Arrival in Lagos

If you’re coming for less than 30 days, getting a “Visa on Arrival” is the way to go.

However! “Visa on arrival” is kind of a misnomer because you must apply for it beforehand (no sooner than 2 weeks prior) and receive a pre-approval letter before you arrive. Once you land, you’ll go to the airport’s visa on arrival office. They will take your pre-approval letter, capture your fingerprints, and put the visa in your passport. At the Lagos airport, this can either be quick or take a few hours depending on how backed up they are. While annoying, this route is far easier than dealing with your local embassy.

To get the Visa on Arrival pre-approval letter, you’ll need to submit a:

• Scan of your passport
• Passport photo
• Copy of your round trip flight booking
• Invitation and introduction letter from a local company (here is a template)
• Local company’s corporate registration (CAC) certificate.

As an American, this theoretically costs $160 and you can pay and submit these documents yourself two weeks before your travel date via the Nigerian Immigration Service website. Practically, the payment portal is often broken and even if you are able to pay, they may not process your application promptly.

Because of this, I recommend submitting your documents through a local visa consultant (e.g. Putovati Consulting or Travel Range) who can help with the invitation letter + registration certificate and will be able to follow-up to make sure everything is processed on time and correctly. For Americans, this costs ~$220 and processing should only take a few days. For other countries, it can cost closer to $350.

If you don’t want to use a visa service, you can try to submit the documentation yourself via the immigration service website, but you should not expect it to be processed promptly. If you don’t have a local contact to help with the invitation letter or company registration certificate, ask your hotel or airbnb if they can help.

Note that the Visa on Arrival lasts 30 days and is typically single entry. I’ve heard that it can be extended once for another 30 days for a nominal fee at the immigration services office in Ikoyi.

Business / Tourists Visas

Alternatively, if you’re American and live in Atlanta, Houston, Washington DC, or NYC you can also get a tourist or business visa from one of the consulate-affiliated visa processing centers by scheduling an appointment and visiting them in-person (OIS or VFS depending on the city). If you’ll be coming back and forth to Nigeria numerous times over the next few years, this route makes sense because you can get a multi-entry visa and save the cost of multiple visas on arrival. Otherwise, I do not recommend this route because it’s much more hassle than the visa on arrival process. Trust me! Do the Visa on Arrival process outlined above!

Airport Arrival

While Lagos can be a wonderful place, the international airport is not. It’s confusing to navigate and likely to be your worst experience in Nigeria. If you’re lucky, you might arrive at the new international terminal which is very nice. Otherwise, you’ll be arriving at the old terminal which was recently upgraded but still rough around the edges.

After you get off the plane you usually pass through health screening. Theoretically, you need a yellow fever vaccine and corresponding yellow card to enter the country. Practically, they haven’t been checking for yellow cards since covid.

After the health checkpoint you’ll pass through immigration. If you have a Visa On Arrival letter, follow signs to the “VOA office” so they can take your fingerprints and put the visa in your passport. This might be quick or take an hour or two depending on how many people are ahead of you.

After you get your visa, you’ll queue through two immigration desks. The first (with a non-uniformed officer) is just checking whether your name shows up in an Interpol database. The second (uniformed) officer is the actual immigration official. The queuing process here will be confusing. Just relax, smile, and feel free to ask for help.

After immigration you’ll pick up your bags. If you have trouble locating your bag, be sure to check the pile of “priority” bags which they pull off separately at the beginning of the carousel.

Next is customs. Customs officials commonly ask for “tips”. Just smile and say “no thanks”. It’s definitely not necessary.

Keep your baggage tags handy. After passing through customs you’ll be asked to show them.

After you leave the arrival hall, you’ll want to stop and pick up a visitor SIM card if you don’t already have an international data plan. The airport is the only place you can do this because in the city, SIM cards need to be registered with an NIN (local ID number). MTN is the best network, followed by Airtel, but if you’re staying in Lagos, any SIM you can get is probably going to be fine.

To get into the city from the airport, I’ve always had a good experience using Uber, Bolt, or Indrive. Meeting up with a ride app driver is a bit tricky as they’re not supposed to come around the pickup loop. I usually meet them in the “multi-level car park on the ground floor by the cash point” which is a parking garage around the corner from the terminal. Just ask anyone to direct your towards the “car park” and they’ll lead the way.

If you’re arriving super late a night, it can be helpful to arrange a driver to pick you up beforehand as bolt / uber / indrive may be less active. But if you have any issues getting a car, or are just willing to pay more for convenience, there are plenty of drivers hanging around.

The moment you leave the terminal you will undoubtedly have multiple people ask if you need a ride. I’ve never had an unsafe experience with these drivers, you’ll just pay 2x the cost of an Uber (maybe 25k-35k Naira) which is still quite affordable by international standards.