How to Correct the Name on Your NIN (2026)

Four reasons account for nearly every NIN name correction NIMC processes. The portal step at the end is the same in every case; the document bundle that gets you to that step is what changes. Sort yourself into one of the four before gathering paperwork, because the wrong bundle will not be accepted and your ₦2,000 per-field fee is wasted on a rejected submission.

• Marriage. Adopting a spouse's surname, the single most common reason in the wild. Marriage certificate, affidavit, newspaper publication.
• Divorce. Reverting to a maiden name. Divorce decree, affidavit, newspaper publication.
• Court-ordered name change. Full legal name change for non-marital reasons such as religion, traditional naming, or correcting an adult misalignment. Court order, affidavit, newspaper publication.
• Misspelling at enrolment. The original NIMC capture put the wrong letters in. Birth certificate, affidavit explaining the discrepancy, sometimes a school or family document.

Crucial framing first: your eleven-digit NIN does not change after a name correction. The number is permanent. What updates is the live record at NIMC and the slip you print after. If a verifier (bank, telco, NIS passport portal) was failing because of the old spelling, see NIN validation failed first — sometimes the fix is on the verifier's side, not yours.

The most common path. A reader who married in the last few years and wants the NIN to show the married name.

The newspaper publication is the step most readers underestimate. A small classified-style line is not enough; the publication has to be a recognisable change-of-name notice, and the upload to NIMC is the photograph or scan of the entire page on which the notice was printed. Outlets typically charge a few thousand naira for the publication; most papers run the notice within 24 to 48 hours of payment.

The bundle is structurally similar to the marriage case but with the divorce decree replacing the marriage certificate.

Practical caveat: divorce reversions sometimes coincide with a fresh tax filing, a new bank account, or a passport re-issue. Sequence the NIN correction first. Every downstream system (BVN, passport, driver's licence) pulls from the NIMC record at some point, and starting with NIMC saves you cycles later.

A reader changing their name for reasons unconnected to marriage. Religious conversion, traditional renaming, full legal restructuring of identity for personal reasons. The bundle's centre of gravity is the court order itself.

The lightest bundle in the four, because nothing legal has changed — the original NIMC capture just got a letter wrong. Common patterns: an enrolment officer typed OLABIMTAN as OLABIMPTAN, or KEHINDE as KHENINDE, or a hyphenated double-barrel surname as a single word. The birth certificate is the anchor.

Because no legal name change has happened, the misspelling case sometimes succeeds without the newspaper publication. The court affidavit and the birth certificate carry most of the weight. If NIMC's reviewer asks for the newspaper notice after submission, add it then; the modification is paused, not rejected, while you provide it.

Once the bundle for your reason is ready, the portal step is the same for everyone.

1. 1
   Sign in to the self-service modification portalOpen [selfservicemodification.nimc.gov.ng](https://selfservicemodification.nimc.gov.ng/) on the browser and device you originally registered with. Since 7 August 2025, NIMC ties self-service accounts to that specific browser-and-device pair; access from a fresh device is blocked.
2. 2
   Pick 'Modification' and select the name fieldsOn the dashboard, choose the modification flow and tick the specific fields you are changing. If you are correcting both surname and a given name, tick both. The fee is per field, calculated at submission.
3. 3
   Upload the document bundleUpload the marriage certificate, divorce decree, court order, or birth certificate as applicable; the court affidavit; the newspaper publication (scanned full page); and any supporting government ID. PDFs and clear photographs are accepted.
4. 4
   Pay the per-field fee₦2,000 per field through Paystack on the portal. A surname-and-given-name change is two transactions. The portal generates a receipt; save it.
5. 5
   Wait for NIMC reviewClean submissions clear in a few working days. Where a reviewer asks for an additional document, the case pauses rather than rejects; respond promptly to keep the cycle moving.
6. 6
   Download the corrected slipOnce NIMC confirms the change, generate a fresh slip from the portal. See [how to download and print your NIN slip](/nin/how-to-download-and-print-nin-slip/) for the slip-download mechanics — the slip you held before the correction is no longer current.

The corrected slip is the start, not the finish. Several systems hold a cached copy of the old name and need to refresh before they verify the new one.

• Banks and telcos. Most refresh their NIMC cache within 24 to 72 hours of the new slip being issued. If a verification fails after that window, open a ticket with the bank or telco and attach the corrected slip; the back office pushes a manual refresh from there. NIN validation failed walks through the diagnosis when a verifier holds onto an outdated name.
• Passport. A Nigerian passport does not auto-update from a NIN correction. The NIS treats the new name as a change-of-data re-issue. The full walkthrough is at how to change the name on a Nigerian passport; the same affidavit, certificate, and newspaper publication work for both the NIMC and the NIS submissions. If a passport application is already in flight and stalled at NIN Verification, see name mismatch on passport application for keeping the file alive.
• BVN. The BVN system has its own name correction route through your bank. Sequence it after NIMC; the BVN-NIN reconciliation usually triggers a verifier-side flag that resolves once both records show the new name.
• Driver's licence, tax, voter card. Each agency handles its own name update. Use the NIMC correction as the canonical source when each of them later asks for proof.

A reader correcting a name sometimes discovers another field is also wrong. The order matters.

• Name and DOB together. Start with the date of birth, because that is the harder modification — it costs ₦28,574 non-refundable and depends on an NPC certificate the name correction does not need. See how to change date of birth on NIN for the legal stack.
• Name and address / phone / email. These are the lighter modifications, all at the same ₦2,000 per field through the same portal. The bundle differs by field; see how to update address on NIN, how to update phone number on NIN, and how to update email on NIN for the specifics.

NIMC processes each field independently, so paying ₦2,000 for the name and ₦2,000 for the address in the same session is two transactions, not one combined charge.

NIMC enrolment-centre review queues run differently from centre to centre; a Lagos or Abuja centre often sees a longer turnaround than a state-capital centre during a busy week. Plan the bundle once, submit clean, and the variance becomes background noise rather than the headline.