How to Get a TIN After CAC Registration (2026)

The most useful framing for this question is the opposite of what it implies. The Tax Identification Number has been generated automatically on the CAC certificate since the CAC-FIRS integration that began on 29 June 2020. Every CAC certificate issued from that date carries a TIN on the document itself. For most readers the TIN is not something to apply for — it is something to read off the certificate they already hold.

Where this article earns its place is the small set of edge cases where the integration did not apply or did not land cleanly. Four edges need a manual route through the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS, formerly the Federal Inland Revenue Service / FIRS), and the Joint Revenue Board (JRB, formerly the Joint Tax Board / JTB). The renames came into force from 1 January 2026 under the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act 2025 and the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Act 2025 respectively; current 2026 sources still display both old and new names during the transition.

A reader whose CAC certificate is post-June-2020 and shows a TIN value on the document can stop reading here. The TIN is the value on the certificate. There is no further application step.

The federal tax agencies were renamed under two 2025 establishment Acts that took effect on 1 January 2026.

• The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) was renamed the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) under the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act 2025. The institution is the same; the name and the portal branding changed. The historic FIRS domain at firs.gov.ng now redirects to the NRS landing page.
• The Joint Tax Board (JTB) was renamed the Joint Revenue Board (JRB) under the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Act 2025. The JRB is the inter-government coordination body across the federal NRS and the state internal revenue services. The historic JTB domain at jtb.gov.ng currently displays JRB branding while operating as the same institution.

For the rest of this article the new names — NRS and JRB — are used. Where a pre-2026 event is referenced (for example, the June 2020 CAC-FIRS integration), the historical name is retained because that is what the source records say. The reader who finds an FIRS or JTB reference in a 2026 banking document or tax notice should read it as the same institution under the old name; nothing operational depends on which name appears on the page.

The portals worth bookmarking:

• NRS Tax ID portal — taxid.nrs.gov.ng. The front end for Tax ID lookup and issuance under the NTAA 2026 framework. The portal also exists at the JRB mirror taxid.jrb.gov.ng.
• NRS taxpayer self-service — selfservice.nrs.gov.ng. For taxpayers managing their tax obligations after the Tax ID is in place.
• NRS main portal — www.nrs.gov.ng. The institutional landing page.
• JRB main portal — www.jtb.gov.ng. Still on the historic JTB domain at the time of writing, displaying JRB branding.

The integration is the operational fact that most TIN questions land against. Three pieces of context the reader benefits from holding:

• The integration is at the back end. The registrant interacts only with CAC during incorporation. The CAC certificate-issuance step calls the FIRS (now NRS) Tax ID service in the background and writes the returned TIN onto the certificate. The registrant never opens a separate FIRS or NRS account at the moment of incorporation; the certificate carries the result.
• The integration covers Part A companies and Part C business names. Both Part A and Part C certificates issued since 29 June 2020 carry the TIN. Part F (incorporated trustees) coverage has historically been less consistent and is one of the four edge cases.
• The NTAA 2026 consolidation is the next step, not a replacement. Under the NTAA 2026 framework the CAC registration number itself may serve as the Tax ID for entities. In practice this means a counterparty asking for the entity's TIN may accept the RC or BN number directly; the NRS portal also supports retrieving the explicit 13-digit Tax ID for downstream systems that need that format.

For entities registered before 29 June 2020 the certificate predates the integration and has no TIN field. The route is a manual lookup or application at the NRS.

1. 1
   Try the NRS Tax ID portal lookup first
2. 2
   If the lookup fails, prepare the documentary bundle
3. 3
   Submit at the nearest NRS tax office
4. 4
   Save the TIN against the CAC record

The DIY route at the NRS portal is a first-class path. An accredited tax agent (chartered accountant, chartered tax practitioner) can run the same flow on the registrant's behalf where preferred — the agent's service fee sits on top of the free government route. Both routes are legitimate; the choice between them is operational, not regulatory.

The TIN field is on the certificate but the value cannot be read. Three common causes: a corrupted PDF from a partial download, a poor-quality print, or a render artefact from an older browser version.

1. 1
   Re-download the e-certificate from iCRP
2. 2
   Check the iCRP entity dashboard
3. 3
   If the value is genuinely missing, raise an iCRP support ticket

This is the edge case most readers misroute. The instinct is to start a fresh TIN application; the correct route is to recover the value that already exists.

Historically the CAC-FIRS integration covered Part A and Part C cleanly and was less consistent for Part F (incorporated trustees: NGOs, religious organisations, charitable bodies). The reader's first check is whether the certificate carries a TIN value. If it does, the entity is covered; if it does not, the manual route is the fallback.

The walkthrough for a Part F entity with no TIN:

• Run the lookup at taxid.nrs.gov.ng under the Incorporated Trustees option in the Corporate tab. Many Part F entities are in the NRS database from prior FIRS engagements and the lookup returns a value.
• If the lookup does not return a value, the manual route is an NRS tax-office application as in Edge 1. The documentary bundle is the same with two additions specific to Part F: the entity's constitution (or trust deed) and the trustees' full identification bundle (NIN and BVN for each trustee).
• Once the TIN is issued, the SCUML certificate route from EFCC remains a separate post-incorporation requirement for incorporated trustees and is needed before a corporate bank account can be opened for the entity. See the CAC registration requirements article for the SCUML walkthrough; the SCUML registration uses the TIN as one of its required fields.

The fourth edge is structurally different from the first three. It is the Tax ID for an individual, not for an entity. Under the Nigeria Tax Administration Act 2026 the National Identification Number (NIN) may serve as the Tax ID for individuals. The route does not pass through CAC at all.

The flow:

• Go to taxid.nrs.gov.ng.
• Click the Individual tab on the homepage.
• Select National Identification Number (NIN) as the lookup key.
• Enter the first name, last name, and date of birth exactly as captured at NIMC.
• The portal returns a 13-digit Tax ID linked to the NIN.

The flow is free. The NIN is the underlying credential; see the NIN registration walkthrough for the route to obtaining a NIN where the individual does not yet have one. The BVN-NIN relationship matters here as background context — most adult Nigerians who hold a bank account already have both credentials linked, so the underlying identifier stack is in place.

Where the individual is a director or proprietor of a CAC-registered entity, the individual's Tax ID and the entity's Tax ID are two separate identifiers. The entity's TIN is on the CAC certificate; the individual's Tax ID is the NIN-linked value at NRS. Both can exist against the same person and are used in different contexts (entity-side returns versus personal income tax returns).

The NTAA 2026 and the Nigeria Tax Act 2026 consolidate Nigerian federal tax administration. The pieces that touch the TIN question:

• CAC registration number serves as Tax ID for entities. Under the NTAA 2026 framework the RC or BN number itself may serve as the entity's Tax ID. The explicit 13-digit Tax ID is retained as a backward-compatibility identifier for legacy systems that expect that format; the NRS portal returns both.
• NIN serves as Tax ID for individuals. A unified identifier across NIMC's NIN database and the NRS's Tax ID database.
• NRS replaces FIRS as the federal revenue agency. Same institution, new name. The FIRS domains redirect to NRS landing pages.
• JRB replaces JTB as the inter-government coordination body. Same institution, new name. Current 2026 sources display both names during the transition.
• The 1 January 2026 effective date is the formal start of the consolidated framework. The CAC-FIRS auto-TIN-on-certificate integration from June 2020 is retained as the operational mechanism; the NTAA 2026 framework wraps the legal architecture around that integration and adds the individual-side NIN-as-Tax-ID flow.

The reader's takeaway: the TIN question has fewer moving parts in 2026 than it had in 2018. For most entities the value is on the certificate; for most individuals the value is the NIN. The four edge cases above cover the small set of readers for whom a manual step is still needed.

The TIN sits between the CAC registration and the wider banking and tax compliance picture. The adjacent routes:

• How to download your CAC certificate — the certificate where the entity's TIN already lives in most cases. The download walkthrough also covers the iCRP dashboard view where the TIN is displayed as text alongside the PDF.
• How to check your CAC status — the status check is separate from the TIN question but lives in the same iCRP authenticated dashboard.
• CAC annual returns — annual returns are filed at CAC against the RC or BN number; the entity's tax filings at NRS are separate and use the Tax ID. The two compliance streams are not interchangeable.
• CAC registration fees — the money page where the no-extra-fee status of the bundled TIN issuance is documented.

For the wider tax-cluster context (forthcoming): the deeper tax-side walkthroughs on personal income tax, company income tax, and value-added tax will live at /tax/ slugs. The NTAA 2026 framework, the NRS rename, and the new NIN-as-Tax-ID flow will all be covered in detail there. For the NIN-side underlying credential, see how to register for NIN and the wider NIN cluster.