This category covers everything thing you need to know about company and business registration in Nigeria, including annual returns filing, removal of a company secretary or shareholders and change of a company name among others.
Nigeria’s agency in charge of registering and keeping compliance-related records of companies and businesses has disclosed that it would strike off 100,000 defaulters from its database.
The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) stated this Thursday, July 16, 2026, on its social media platforms.
There are some misconceptions about an annual report in Nigeria. Some companies, most especially sole proprietorship, believe that they might be heavily taxed if they continue to file annual returns with the CAC.
In this post, we’ll tell you what annual returns really mean and the simple procedures you to the filing of company’s annual returns for existing Business Name, Enterprises, Incorporated companies in Nigeria.
ALSO READ: What To Do If CAC Delisted Your Company
Before we move fully into how to get that done, it’s germane to know what the jargon means in relation to business registration.
An annual return is not the profit your company made in a year, it is not a financial document, rather it’s a record of publicly available information about your business which appears on the Companies Register on CAC database.
The information includes
All the above details constitute annual returns which must be updated every year.
Failure to abide by this may get your company sanctioned by delisting your company from the register database.
Every registered business in Nigeria is expected to file their annual returns with the Corporate Affairs Commission not later than 30th June every year.
The only exception to this is when the calendar year in which the business name is registered does not end by December.
CAC may delist your business name or company from the Register of companies.
The commission may not grant the request for due diligence from Banks in respect of your application for the opening of a bank account or bank loans.
You will pay penalty fees if you want to re-register your company
You will pay a filing fee
READ ALSO: How To Check If Your Business Name Is On CAC Database
Now that you know the importance of filing annual returns of your company, see below what you need to get it done
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For instance, if you registered a company with the commission in 2016 and you failed to file a return, there is a possibility that your company will be delisted.
So, in this post, we’ll share with you useful steps to take so that your company will be legally recognised.
Failure to take swift action to address the issue will be seen by the commission that the company no longer carries out business.
Your company will no longer be regarded as legal registered entities
Your business will lose all privileges so accorded them by law.
You can no longer use the name as a legal entity in accessing government loans
READ ALSO: How To Solve The Issue of CAC Unverified Status If You Just Registered Your Company
The last delisting exercise by the commission was carried out in 2017, when it stated that names of over 38,000 companies were removed from its register.
Their offence:
The affected companies failed to file annual returns to the commission, the Registrar-General of CAC has said.
When such happens, only the court can give an order for the companies to be readmitted into the register of CAC.
READ ALSO: Check CAC Database If Your Company Has Not Been Delisted
The delisted companies may have not been liquidated, the companies have up to 20 years to reapply for re-registration, says the law.
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Unfortunately, some applicants are having a problem verifying their registration on the CAC portal.
One of the applicants sent in a question: “My CAC ihowing unverified, lease what Should I do?
In this post, we’ll show with you what exactly you need to do to get your CAC application verified on the registration portal.
This is very important for you to get a CAC registration number (RC) and use it for loan application
The CAC Code is a code you need to input on your registration file to complete your company registration status.
Your company only become a legal entity recognised by the government and individuals when registration has been verified and authenticated by the commission.
If you followed the process of free business registration in one of our guides, you will need code to be able to complete the registration process immediately after getting approval from CAC for your business name.
The verification code can be found on the approval note. But you would have to download it form the CAC portal.
In the past, it’s tasking to get CAC code because you’d have to visit one of the branches of the commission.
Today, everything is done online in the comfort of your home and can be done within minutes.
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CAC is Corporate Affairs Commission, a government agency saddled with the responsibility of registering, arranging and conducting an investigation into the affairs of any company in Nigeria as stipulated under section 7 of the Companies and Allied Matters Act.
It’s very important for individuals or corporate bodies looking to do business with another company in Nigeria to first check if your prospective partner company is registered.
The information you can find about a business on CAC database includes the business name, company’s registration number also known as RC Number, address of the company.
To find out if a company is registered with CAC in Nigeria, follow these 5 fastest steps
I’m sure you want to take a step further by embarking on a manual check
As earlier mentioned, your first step before dealing with any business that claimed to be registered is to check the authenticity of such entity on CAC database.
Note: The fact that a company is legally registered with a government agency doesn’t totally make it scam-free, it could do so to win the trust of unsuspecting individuals.
The good news is you can dig into some of the business transactions of such company before committing anything.
Now that you’ve got the company’s name, company’s registration number on CAC portal next is to delegate someone to check if the address the company claim is real or not.
This is very important!
For a company to enjoy legal backing, it must be registered by the CAC, however, it’s very important to carry out more background check on the company before transacting with such company to avoid being scammed.
The fact that a company isn’t registered doesn’t make it bogus, however, a serious business would get government’s certificate of operation in order to win the goodwill of a prospective customer.
Registering your company makes it legitimate, makes foreign and prospective customers to trust you.
Recently, Pinkoin owned by Inksnation scam hundreds of its investors in one of the biggest cryptocurrency scams in Nigeria.
One of the steps the brain behind the Pinkoin to gain the trust of Nigerians was to register a company called Ibsmartify (RC No: 2956459) through which the owner Omotade-Sparks Amos Sewanu=&5=&
According to him, one of the APC-led government is to enable SMEs to register their business names free with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
It is part of Buhari-led government’s post-Covid-19 Pandemic survival intervention to support micro and small businesses to formalise their businesses.
According to the Federal Government, 250,000 businesses would benefit from free registration.
There would be 6,606 Business Names to be registered for free in each of the states, except Abia, Lagos and Kano. They would have 7,906, 9,084 and 8,406 respectively.
It’s opened for all:
If your business is registered with CAC, it becomes a legal entity, as such, you can enjoy the following benefits:
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How exactly can you get your business registered in Nigeria?
CAC is the government’s agency responsible for handling the registration of all businesses in Nigeria whether an enterprise business or a big limited liability company.
1) Registering your gives you the opportunity to apply for contracts.
2) It portends your seriousness about your business.
3) When your business is legally registered, foreign firms will be ready to do business with you, since most of them takes issues of legitimacy seriously.
Your business doesn’t really need to be big, it could one of the legitimate ways to make money online
We’re going to use registration of a construction company as a case study.
To register your company you need to make get below requirements set:
1) At least three proposed name of your company.
But in a situation whereby you’re handling the registration by yourself without a third party, you can use CAC portal to reserve your business name, simply create an account and proceed.
Whether you’re handling it yourself an employing the services of an agent, here are some of the tips to choose the best business name for a company
Avoid generic names as they are most likely be taken by another.
Avoid names that are preserved for government agencies. Some words to avoid while selecting your company name include: “federal government” “agency”, “Chamber of Commerce”, “Federal”, “National”, “Regional”, “State”, “Government”, “Municipal” or “Chartered”, “Co‐operative” or the words “Building Society” etc.
Also avoid names that portray violence or that can instigate hatred against another group.
For your own benefit make your preferred name a priority.
To even assist you in this regard, you can use Google Search to check the likely availability of the name.
We’re in a digital, virtually all companies have online presence, but your search may not absolutely be 100% correct, it will give you an insight into how to modify your own name.
Note:
It’s easy to handle the registration of your business with CAC by yourself if it’s an enterprise one (I.e) sole proprietorship. In this case, you take cognisance of the required fees
But if it’s a limited liability company like a construction company, there are some section (SECTION E) which needs the services of a lawyer. We have some of them as CAC agents, anyway.
2) The business registered address. Most of the time this address is the same as head office address, but in a situation whereby they different specify it.
3) The name of the owner and partners (in case of the construction company, three directors are okay).
4) The address of directors
5) Means of identification of the directors. Any of the following ID is accepted: INEC Voter’s Card, NIMC National ID Card, International Passport, and Driver Licence.
6) Passport photographs of the directors
The above details are documented. Make sure you check and cross check before documentation takes place.
Usually your handler would send the form to you to cross-check, before it’s submitted for documentation.
Note:
Documentation is done when the pre-registration requirements are met.
After documentation, making any change becomes difficult. So make sure there are no mistakes in the form.
Usually, if an agent is handling the registration for you, then the half-completed form is printed out for you to complete the required spaces.
Let’s to the from right away: what and where to fill:
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