How to Register a Business Name with CAC (2026)

Under Part C of CAMA 2020 — Sections 814 to 822 — a business name is registered through the CAC online portal at pre.cac.gov.ng. Two routes lead to the same certificate.

• Direct submission by the proprietor. Create your own portal account using a Nigerian phone number or NIN, complete the registration form, pay the statutory fee through Remita, and the certificate is issued to your dashboard. CAMA 2020 contemplates the proprietor as a first-class submitter; the framework does not require an intermediary.
• Submission by an accredited agent. A chartered secretary, qualified lawyer, or chartered accountant on the CAC accreditation register submits on the proprietor's behalf. The agent's account at the iCRP portal is a separate accreditation-flag account from a standard account. The agent's service fee is invoiced to the proprietor separately from the CAC statutory fee.

Neither route is preferred by CAC. Both produce the same Part C certificate with the same TIN auto-issued on it. The choice is a question of whose time you would rather spend on the form: yours, where the savings are the agent's fee and the cost is the half-day of attention; the agent's, where the savings are your attention and the cost is the service fee on the invoice.

The reader who reaches this page already running a trading name without registration should know the statutory pressure. Under Section 815 of CAMA 2020 a business carrying on under a name other than the proprietor's own surname must be registered within 28 days of commencement. Each day beyond the window accrues a statutory fine to the proprietor and, where applicable, to each partner.

The CAC framework rests on three actors. Knowing which one does what saves the reader from chasing the wrong counter when something goes wrong later.

The reader-facing implications:

• The CAC is the registrar. Submissions land at pre.cac.gov.ng for pre-incorporation business and at post.cac.gov.ng for everything that happens after the certificate has issued (annual returns, changes of address, changes of proprietorship). The certificate itself is generated by CAC.
• The FIRS and the Joint Revenue Board (the JTB renamed the JRB from 1 January 2026 under the Nigeria Tax Administration Act) integrate at the back end. The TIN appears on the CAC certificate automatically; no separate FIRS application is required for the routine case.
• The submitter — the proprietor directly or the accredited agent — is the customer-facing actor. The submitter is the doer; the other two institutions are infrastructure.

The parallel three-actor pattern on the banking side has been documented for the BVN: NIBSS holds the credential, CBN regulates, and the customer's bank handles the customer-facing interface.

The CAC instantiation is structurally similar but the bodies are different. CAMA 2020 replaces the CBN framework as the governing legislation; CAC replaces NIBSS as the credential holder; FIRS/JRB replaces nothing on the BVN side because there is no tax integration on a BVN.

The portal form runs against a small set of inputs. Have them assembled before you start the session so you do not lose work to a portal timeout.

For a partnership trading name (two or more proprietors trading under a single business name), each partner provides the same identity and BVN bundle. The form lists each partner separately in the proprietorship section.

The flow below assumes direct submission by the proprietor. An accredited agent runs the same flow from the agent's accreditation-flagged account at icrp.cac.gov.ng, with the agent's name appearing on the submission and the proprietor's details captured as the principal.

1. 1
   Run a public name searchVisit publicsearch.cac.gov.ng and search each of your three proposed names. Note any registered entity whose name is identical or confusingly similar. Drop those candidates from your list before paying the reservation fee — the reservation does not refund against a subsequent availability rejection.
2. 2
   Create an iCRP accountGo to pre.cac.gov.ng/register and create an account using your Nigerian phone number or NIN. The portal sends a one-time code to the registered number or email for confirmation. The account is yours from this point; the same login serves all subsequent CAC interactions including post-incorporation filings.
3. 3
   Submit a name reservationInside the portal select 'Reserve a Name' and submit your preferred name plus an alternate. Pay the statutory reservation fee through Remita. Name reservation is automated and the portal returns a reservation number on payment, usually within minutes.
4. 4
   Complete the business name registration formOnce the name is reserved, the portal exposes the business name registration form pre-filled with the reserved name. Complete the proprietor's details, the business address, the nature-of-business descriptor, and upload the photograph and signature. Each partner in a partnership trading name is added in the proprietorship section.
5. 5
   Pay the statutory registration feeThe portal generates a Remita Retrieval Reference (RRR) for the registration fee. Pay by card on the portal or take the RRR to a bank counter. Card payments on the portal usually reconcile within an hour; bank-counter payments can take a working day.
6. 6
   Wait for the issuance notificationOn a clean submission the certificate issues within a working day. The portal exposes the live status against the application reference. Where the submission triggers a query (a typo, an address-line mismatch, a similarity flag missed at reservation), the portal sends an email and routes the application into a query state for response.
7. 7
   Download the certificateThe certificate is generated as a PDF in your portal dashboard once the registration completes. The Tax Identification Number appears on the certificate. Save the PDF; a printed copy with the QR code is the working document at banks, tax offices, and customer premises that ask for proof of registration.

For a stuck payment between Remita and the CAC dashboard, see CAC payment pending for the four-state diagnostic.

A Part C business name certificate carries four pieces of structured information: the registered name; the registration number (a prefix of BN followed by digits); the date of registration; and the Tax Identification Number issued automatically through the CAC-FIRS integration. The certificate is the legal artefact that proves registration and bears the QR code that verifiers can scan against the CAC public-search database.

For a business name registered before June 2020 the TIN does not appear on the certificate, and the proprietor needs to apply separately through the JTB/JRB portal. For everything issued from the integration date onward the TIN is on the certificate at the moment of issuance; the post-incorporation TIN application is not needed for the routine case.

The natural next steps after the certificate is in hand:

• Open a corporate or business bank account. Most Nigerian banks accept the Part C certificate plus the proprietor's KYC documents and BVN. The certificate is the primary trade-document the bank holds against the business name. See the forthcoming how to open a corporate bank account guide for the banking side.
• Sort out tax compliance through FIRS or the state IRS. Although the TIN is on the certificate, an active filing obligation begins from registration. For a business name (Part C) the tax route runs through personal income tax at the state board, since the business is not a separate legal person; for a company (Part A) the route runs through company income tax at FIRS.
• Plan for the annual return. Section 822 of CAMA 2020 requires a business name to file an annual return at CAC; the first return falls due in the calendar year after registration. See the forthcoming CAC annual returns guide for the filing window and the penalty if missed.

If you reach this point and realise a business name does not suit your situation — you have several investors, you want limited liability, or you intend to take external funding — the comparison at business name vs limited company walks the trade-offs honestly. A Part A limited company is the right entity for those cases; converting a Part C business name into a Part A company involves a fresh incorporation, not a conversion of the existing registration.

The decision is not 'agent always' or 'DIY always'. The reader's circumstances point to one route or the other.

The DIY route is the right call when:

• The reader is registering a single business name with one or two proprietors, all of whom hold a BVN and a clean government ID.
• The reader has a working internet connection and an evening's attention to spare on the portal.
• The reader is comfortable reading the iCRP portal's prompts and asking the support channel when something is unclear.

The accredited-agent route is the right call when:

• The reader is registering a more complex entity than a business name (a company limited by shares, a company limited by guarantee, an incorporated trustee, a partnership under Part B) where the documentary chain is heavier and a misstep is expensive to undo.
• The reader is short on time and the agent's service fee is materially less than the value of the half-day the DIY route would consume.
• The reader is a foreign-resident investor or a diaspora applicant for whom the BVN side is the heavier part of the registration, and the agent runs the local-presence parts in Lagos or Abuja.

A note on informal 'CAC agents' or 'CAC consultants' who advertise on social media and offer fast-tracked registration for a fee. These are not accredited agents under the CAC framework; they hold no standing under CAMA 2020. The legitimate accredited agent is on the CAC accreditation register at icrp.cac.gov.ng and is identifiable by their NBA, ICAN, ANAN, or ICSAN credential. An agent who cannot name their professional body is not an accredited agent.

CAC's statutory fee schedule sits separately from any accredited-agent service charge; the agent's invoice itemises both, with the CAC statutory line passing through unchanged.

• Do NOT skip the public name search at publicsearch.cac.gov.ng before paying the reservation fee. A reservation against a name that subsequently fails the formal availability check does not refund.
• Do NOT typo the proprietor's name on the portal form. The spelling on the form propagates to the certificate; a post-issuance correction is a paid post-incorporation modification, not a free fix.
• Do NOT pay an informal agent on social media to expedite the registration. The CAC portal does not have a fast-track lane and informal 'CAC consultants' have no standing to invoke one. The legitimate accelerator is a clean submission.
• Do NOT use a different proprietor's BVN to clear the portal's identity check 'temporarily'. The BVN ties the registration to the BVN holder for life and the proprietor's later attempts to transact against the business will mismatch.
• Do NOT close the portal tab between Remita debit and the success-page redirect. The application may still complete in the background, but losing the success page complicates reconciliation if anything goes wrong. See [CAC payment pending](/cac/cac-payment-pending/) for recovery if the payment status sticks.
• Do NOT trade under the business name for more than 28 days before completing the registration. Section 815 of CAMA 2020 sets the window; each day beyond accrues a statutory fine.