Nigeria received a record $1.57bn in diaspora remittances through International Money Transfer Operators in the second quarter of 2026, the highest quarterly inflow in the available data series stretching back to 2019, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Q2 2026 Statistical Bulletin.
The figure represents a rise of about 33 per cent from the $1.18bn recorded in the corresponding period of 2025, and it breaks the previous quarterly high of approximately $1.47bn set in the third quarter of 2024. It also surpasses the previous second-quarter record of roughly $1.26bn posted in 2024.
Monthly data from the bulletin show that stronger receipts in May and June more than offset a decline in April. Inflows fell to $513.81m in April from $597.44m a year earlier, then recovered sharply to $472.13m in May against $288.17m in May 2025, and climbed to $580.16m in June, up from $292.25m in the same month of 2025. June was the strongest month of the quarter, and May and June together accounted for more than $1bn of the total.
The performance extends the recovery that began in the first quarter, when IMTO inflows reached $1.29bn, an increase of 45 per cent from $888.47m in the first quarter of 2025. Taken together, first-half receipts through the formal channel stood at about $2.86bn, roughly 38 per cent higher than the $2.07bn of a year earlier.
That marks a turnaround from the first half of 2025, when inflows through the operators fell by 11.78 per cent. Quarterly data show second-quarter inflows of $551.86m in 2019, $482.58m in 2020, $638.19m in 2021, $954.61m in 2022 and $810.84m in 2023, before the surge to $1.26bn in 2024 and the dip to $1.18bn in 2025. The bulletin also shows inflows of approximately $1.40bn in the fourth quarter of 2025, indicating that the recovery has been building across three consecutive quarters.
The figures matter for the wider economy because IMTO receipts represent the portion of diaspora remittances routed through licensed operators rather than informal channels. Remittances are among Nigeria’s largest sources of foreign exchange, and every additional dollar captured through formal channels adds to the supply of foreign currency the Central Bank and the banking system can track.
The rebound has coincided with regulatory changes affecting the remittance market. In January 2024, the regulator removed the cap on the exchange rates quoted by International Money Transfer Operators, which had previously been required to quote within a band of minus or plus 2.5 per cent around the preceding day’s closing rate on the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market, widening the margin operators could offer senders and recipients.
In March 2026, the bank went further, directing every licensed operator to open and maintain naira settlement accounts with authorised dealer banks and to route transactions through them, including payments to recipients, with compliance set for May 1, 2026. The directive was designed to improve monitoring of remittance transactions and strengthen transparency in the foreign exchange market, and revised guidelines for operator conduct followed as part of the same push.
The Q2 record is the first full-quarter reading since that compliance deadline, and the timing of the May and June surge is likely to sharpen the debate over whether the transparency measures are succeeding in pulling transfers that previously moved through informal channels into the supervised system. The bulletin itself makes no attribution for the increase, and the underlying motives of senders, from household support to investment, cannot be read from the quarterly totals alone.
What the data do establish is a clear trend. Formal-channel receipts have now risen for three consecutive quarters, from roughly $1.4bn at the end of 2025 to successive records in 2026. Whether the momentum holds into the third quarter will show whether the second-quarter record is a step change in the remittance market or a peak before a plateau.