Rent relief: the receipt your tenants now need from you

Expect tenants in the buildings you manage to ask for a better rent receipt, some of them this year and the rest before 31 March 2027, the deadline for filing 2026 tax returns. They will want it to show the dates their payment covers, and the landlord's full name with a phone number, Tax ID or NIN. A receipt that says "being rent for Flat 4" gives them neither.

They need those details because of rent relief. Since 1 January 2026, anyone in Nigeria who pays personal income tax can deduct 20% of the rent they pay, up to ₦500,000 a year, from the income their tax is worked out on. For a tenant whose income sits in the 18% tax band, the full deduction is worth up to ₦90,000 a year. To claim it, though, the tenant has to give their tax authority a short list of details, and the dates and the landlord's details are the two they are most likely to need from you.

What the relief is worth to a tenant

The sums explain why tenants will chase this receipt. Rent relief replaced the Consolidated Relief Allowance, the automatic deduction every earner got under the old Personal Income Tax Act whether they rented or not. Under the new Act the first ₦800,000 of everyone's taxable income is taxed at 0%. Apart from that band, rent relief is the only deduction tied to housing costs for someone who rents, so a tenant who never claims it pays tax on more of their income.

Income is taxed in bands set out in the Fourth Schedule to the Act, and income between ₦3 million and ₦12 million is taxed at 18%. Because the deduction comes off income before tax is calculated, it saves tax at the rate of the highest band the tenant reaches, provided the deduction doesn't take their income down into a lower band. Take a tenant whose income, after pension and other deductions, is ₦8 million. If they pay ₦2.5 million or more in rent, the full ₦500,000 deduction cuts their tax by ₦90,000 a year. On rent of ₦1.5 million the deduction is ₦300,000, which saves the same tenant ₦54,000.

The four details a claim needs

The Act is short on what a tenant must prove. Section 30(2)(a)(vi) grants the relief "provided that the individual accurately declares the actual amount of rent paid and other relevant information as may be prescribed by the relevant tax authority". Section 32 then lets that authority ask for documentary evidence and refuse all or part of the deduction if the evidence is missing or inadequate.

The detail is in the Personal Income Tax Guidelines published by the Joint Revenue Board, which coordinates the federal and state tax authorities. Paragraph 9.6 of the 2026 edition, whose cover is dated 24 February 2026, lists the minimum information a tenant must provide:

1. The legal tenant's name.
2. The actual rent paid and the period it covers.
3. The landlord's full name, and one of their mobile number, Tax ID or NIN.
4. The property address.

A tenant can supply the name and the address without anyone's help, and may have the rest in a tenancy agreement or bank transfer records. In a building you manage, though, the receipt your office issued is often the clearest record of what was paid and for which months, so that is the document they will come back to you about.

Salaried tenants give these details to their employer, who applies the relief through payroll (paragraph 7.4). Every taxable person, salaried or not, must also file an annual return for 2026 by 31 March 2027 under paragraph 11.1, although states can move that date: Lagos gave filers until 14 April 2026 for last year's returns. The authority they file with is usually the internal revenue service of the state they live in, and in Lagos that is LIRS. TechCabal's walkthrough of the LIRS eTax portal reports that the portal already asks each filer whether they rent or own their home and, if they rent, for the rent amount and the landlord's details.

Which months count

A tenant who pays a year in advance from any date other than 1 January is paying for months in two calendar years, which raises the question of which year the rent belongs to. Paragraph 9.5 of the guidelines answers it: where a payment spans more than one calendar year, only the part covering months in the year being assessed counts toward that year's relief, "regardless of the payment cycle".

Suppose a tenant renews on 1 October 2026 and pays ₦3.6 million for the year to 30 September 2027. Three of those twelve months fall in 2026, so ₦900,000 of the rent belongs to 2026 and the relief for 2026 is 20% of that, ₦180,000. The guidelines' own example is worked the same way.

The guidelines' example stops at 2026, so it does not say whether the other half counts in 2027, a year in which no rent is paid. The same question hits any tenant whose 2025 payment runs into 2026: someone who paid in October 2025 for a year to September 2026 made no rent payment in 2026, although nine of those months fall in it.

Section 30 speaks of "payments made by the individual in a year of assessment", and paragraph 9.4 says that "rent paid in the year 2026 is available for relief for the 2026 year of assessment". Both wordings point against counting the nine months. The splitting rule in paragraph 9.5 points the other way, because it counts the months that fall in the year being assessed "regardless of the payment cycle". I could not find an official answer, so a tenant in that position should ask their state tax authority rather than rely on you or on this post.

Under either reading the tenant needs the start and end dates of the period they paid for, which an undated receipt doesn't show.

Your landlords will be named

The landlord's details are the item that needs a conversation, so have it with each landlord before any tenant asks. The guidelines accept the landlord's full name plus a mobile number, a Tax ID or a NIN. A landlord who has not been declaring rental income will be uneasy about appearing in a tenant's tax claim, whichever identifier is used.

The landlord cannot block the claim, though, because nothing in the Act or the guidelines makes a tenant's claim depend on the landlord's agreement. The landlord's own position is already set by section 4(1)(b) of the Act, which makes rent taxable income for the person who receives it. The guidelines also say nothing about whether tax authorities will compare the landlord details they collect with landlords' own returns, so a landlord with undeclared rental income gets no assurance from them that the details will go unused.

Agree with each landlord which identifier appears on their receipts, and keep a note of that decision on file. Ask each landlord for their Tax ID (their taxpayer identification number) first, since paragraph 3.2 of the guidelines says a Tax ID shall be stated on documents issued in respect of a transaction. If a landlord will only give a phone number, the rent relief list in paragraph 9.6 still accepts it. Put the landlord's name in the landlord field, not your firm's, because your firm is acting as agent. The exception is a building where your firm holds the head lease and sublets, since there your firm is the tenants' landlord. If a landlord refuses to allow any identifier, tell the tenant in writing, so they can raise it with their tax authority and look for the details in their tenancy agreement.

Fix the receipt template this month

To give tenants what paragraph 9.6 asks for, a receipt needs these fields:

• the tenant's name as it appears on the tenancy agreement
• the property address, including the flat or unit number
• the amount received and the date you received it
• the start and end dates of the period the payment covers
• the landlord's full name and the identifier they agreed to

Where two or more people share a tenancy, paragraph 9.3 lets each of them claim relief on the portion of the rent they bear, up to ₦500,000 each. One receipt in one name for the whole rent leaves the other sharers with nothing showing their portion, so if sharers pay you separately, receipt them separately. If they pay in one transfer and tell you how they split it, the receipt can name each sharer and their share.

For payments you have already receipted, a dated rent statement on your letterhead, listing the same fields for each payment, is simpler than reissuing receipts. Send one to every tenant who has paid since 1 January 2026, and to anyone whose 2025 payment runs into 2026, because their claim may be refused but the statement does no harm if it is. Do it now, because a tenant who asks in March 2027 will want the statement within days, and every other tenant in your portfolio is working to the same deadline.