Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory generated N5.15 trillion in internally generated revenue in 2025, up 40.93 per cent from N3.65 trillion in 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
The bureau published the figures on Thursday in its 2025 Internally Generated Revenue report, citing the Nigeria Revenue Service as its source. It said the growth reflected stronger tax collection across the country, with tax revenue making up 73.64 per cent of the national total.
The headline number, however, hides a heavy concentration. The NBS said Lagos alone earned N1.77 trillion, about 34 per cent of everything the states and the FCT brought in. Rivers followed with N428.42 billion and Enugu with N406.77 billion.
Below the top three, the figures fall away sharply. The bureau put the FCT at N356.34 billion and Ogun at N252.36 billion, with Delta, Edo, Oyo and Kano trailing. At the bottom of the table, the NBS listed Yobe at N16.01 billion, Ebonyi at N17.18 billion and Sokoto at N20.48 billion as the lowest earners.
On the composition of the revenue, the bureau said the money came from two broad sources: tax revenue and receipts from Ministries, Departments and Agencies. Pay As You Earn was the single largest line, contributing N2.64 trillion, or 69.51 per cent of all tax revenue collected. Capital gains tax was the smallest at N12.40 billion.
The report matters because it measures how far states can fund themselves without leaning on Abuja. Internally generated revenue is the money a state raises from its own taxes, levies and agencies, as distinct from the monthly allocations shared from the Federation Account.
On that measure, the 2025 data confirms a pattern independent analysts have tracked for years. A BudgIT report released in September, titled Nigeria’s Economic Reforms: What Has Changed Across Nigeria’s States, found that only eight states earned enough IGR in 2025 to cover their personnel costs alone.
According to BudgIT, the remaining states raised about N1.16 trillion internally but spent roughly N1.91 trillion on salaries, leaving a wage gap of about N747 billion filled by federal transfers. The organisation reported that FAAC’s share of total state revenue rose from 68.7 per cent in 2022 to 73.3 per cent in 2025, meaning dependence on the centre deepened even as IGR grew.
That gap between rising revenue and rising welfare is where the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria has entered the conversation. At the opening of the institute’s 19th Annual Banking and Finance Conference in Abuja, its president and chairman of council, Dr Dele Alabi, said economic gains had to be felt in people’s daily lives to count as progress.
Alabi said stronger fundamentals should be judged by their effect on households rather than by macroeconomic indicators alone. He identified lower living costs, more jobs, higher real incomes, affordable credit and reduced poverty as the real tests of whether reforms were working, according to the institute.
His point speaks directly to the IGR data. Larger tax takes can sit alongside stretched household budgets if the revenue does not translate into services, and food inflation stood at 20.31 per cent in July 2026 by the bureau’s own count, even as headline inflation eased.
The concentration in the figures also carries a longer term risk for planning. When a single state accounts for a third of all subnational revenue, the fiscal health of the other 35 states and the FCT depends far more on oil linked FAAC receipts, which move with crude prices and the naira.
Part of the 2025 jump also reflects reform of the tax system rather than pure economic expansion. The Nigeria Revenue Service, named by the NBS as its data source, is the successor to the Federal Inland Revenue Service under the tax laws passed to take effect in 2026, and improved collection and reporting have lifted recorded revenue in several states.
It is worth noting a small discrepancy in the reporting of the figures. Some accounts named Sokoto as the lowest earning state, while the NBS table itself placed Yobe at the bottom with N16.01 billion, ahead of Ebonyi and then Sokoto. The bureau’s own ordering is the more reliable reference.
What the report does not settle is whether the growth is durable. The NBS figures are a record of what was collected, not a forecast, and the 2026 numbers will show whether the new tax regime sustains the increase or whether 2025 marked a one off lift from administrative change.
For most states, the harder question remains the one BudgIT and the CIBN both point to. Raising more money is only the first step; converting it into services that reach ordinary residents is the measure that has so far lagged behind the headline totals.