Nigerian State Tax Offices — The 36 State IRSes and FCT-IRS Reference (2026)

Nigerian tax administration runs on a federal-state split that determines which authority holds the record for any given tax line. Federal taxes — Companies Income Tax (CIT), Value Added Tax (VAT), Withholding Tax (WHT), capital gains for companies, stamp duty on instruments, the non-resident regime — sit at the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS, formerly FIRS). Personal Income Tax (PIT) including Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) sits at the State Internal Revenue Service of the taxpayer's state of residence. The Joint Revenue Board (JRB, formerly JTB) coordinates across the two layers and runs the central Tax ID infrastructure that both authorities query.

This article serves a mixed audience — individuals confirming which state IRS holds their PIT and PAYE record, and employers identifying which state IRSes to register with based on where employees are resident. The article is the cluster's reference for the state-level institutional layer; the federal NRS portal landscape is covered in the partner reference at the NRS portal landscape.

The substantive shape of the federal-state split:

• Personal Income Tax (PIT) is administered by the state IRS of the taxpayer's state of residence. The PIT rate framework is uniform across the federation under the Personal Income Tax Act as updated by the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 (the 0% / 15% / 18% / 21% / 23% / 25% progressive bands apply at every state IRS).
• Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) is the monthly mechanism by which an employer remits PIT on behalf of each employee to the employee's state IRS of residence. The employer is the agent for the relevant state IRS under PITA.
• State-level taxes other than PIT — withholding tax on payments by individuals or unincorporated entities, state-level levies, business premises levies, road taxes (motor vehicles) — sit at the state IRS or related state revenue agencies depending on the line.
• Federal taxes (CIT, VAT, WHT on corporate-counterparty payments, capital gains for companies, stamp duty on instruments, non-resident regime) sit at NRS and do not pass through the state IRS.

The PAYE framework — the most operationally significant of the state-IRS competencies for the typical reader — is covered in detail at the PAYE walkthrough and the payroll tax walkthrough. The substantive framework:

Nigeria has 36 State Internal Revenue Services (one per state) plus the Federal Capital Territory Internal Revenue Service (FCT-IRS), giving 37 sub-national tax authorities under the federal NRS layer. Each operates under the relevant state Revenue Administration Law or, in the FCT case, under the FCT Internal Revenue Service Act 2015 — the only "state" IRS established by an Act of the National Assembly.

The portal maturity, service window, and office network vary state to state. The major IRSes whose portal infrastructure is most developed are listed below with their current portal URLs and principal-office context.

The 31 other state IRSes (Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Plateau, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe, Zamfara, and one each per state not listed in the major-IRS table) operate under their respective state Revenue Administration Laws with portal infrastructure at varying stages of development. For any state not listed above, the route is to search for the state IRS's institutional URL (the pattern is typically state-irs-name.gov.ng or a sub-domain under the state government's main URL at state-name.gov.ng) or to consult the state government landing page for the IRS contact route.

State IRS portal maturity varies — LIRS and FCT-IRS publish full e-services; some smaller state IRSes operate partly manual workflows still and the route to a particular service at those IRSes may run through the state-office counter rather than a portal flow.

The state-IRS layer sits within the cluster's three-actor architecture. Naming the actors makes the routing decisions clear.

For state-IRS operations specifically:

• The State IRS is the substantive operational authority for PIT and PAYE within its jurisdiction. The state IRS holds the taxpayer's PIT record, receives the employer's PAYE remittance against each employee resident in the state, issues the state-side TCC, processes PIT-side refund claims, and handles state-level WHT for payments by individuals and unincorporated entities.
• The Joint Revenue Board (JRB) coordinates across the 36 state IRSes plus FCT-IRS plus the federal NRS. The JRB operates the central Tax ID infrastructure that lets the same 13-digit Tax ID work across every state IRS portal — a taxpayer's Tax ID retrieved at taxid.nrs.gov.ng is the credential every state IRS reads against. The JRB does not run state-level operations directly.
• The Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) holds the federal-tax record. NRS and the state IRSes operate at different layers; a query about CIT or VAT goes to NRS, a query about PIT or PAYE goes to the state IRS. The wrong-actor routing error is the single most common source of compounded confusion for first-time taxpayers.

The compass for a routing question: name the tax type first, identify the substantive authority, then find the right desk or portal. For a federal tax, NRS Rev360. For a state tax (PIT, PAYE, state-level WHT), the relevant state IRS portal or counter.

PAYE is the operationally heaviest interaction between the typical employer and the state-IRS layer. Every month, every Nigerian employer with employees resident in a given state remits PAYE for those employees to the relevant state IRS.

The mechanics:

• The employer deducts PAYE from each employee's gross salary using the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 progressive bands. The deduction reflects the allowable reliefs (pension at 8%, NHF where applicable, rent relief at 20% up to a ₦500,000 ceiling under NTA 2025) and the chargeable income that remains.
• The employer aggregates each employee's deduction by state of residence. Employees resident in Lagos go to LIRS; employees resident in FCT go to FCT-IRS; employees resident in Oyo go to OYIRS; and so on for each state where any employee is resident.
• The employer remits each state's PAYE figure to the relevant state IRS by the standard monthly remittance deadline (typically the 10th day of the following month at the major state IRSes; smaller state IRSes may publish a different deadline).
• The annual Form H1 employer-side return is filed at each state IRS where any employee was resident during the year, summarising each employee's gross income, reliefs, taxable income, PAYE deducted, and PAYE remitted across the twelve months. Due 31 January of the year following the year of assessment.

The state-IRS-portal route for the employer side varies:

• At LIRS, PAYE remittance routes through the e-Tax portal at etax.lirs.net with the schedule-upload feature handling multi-employee remittances in one transaction.
• At FCT-IRS, PAYE remittance routes through taxporta.fctirs.gov.ng with similar schedule-upload capability.
• At OYIRS, the self-service portal at selfservice.oyostatebir.com supports PAYE returns, withholding tax returns, and assessment history; the substantive surface for employer-side use.
• At RIRS, RIVTaMIS at rivtamis.riversbirs.gov.ng is the route.
• At KIRS, KADIRS, and other smaller state IRSes, the route may combine a portal-based remittance for the figure with a manual schedule submission at the state-office counter; the specific route varies by IRS and is documented on the state IRS's institutional landing page.

The employer's discipline is to set up portal access at each state IRS where any employee is resident, rather than concentrating everything at LIRS or FCT-IRS by default. PAYE remitted to the wrong state IRS is a downstream reconciliation problem — the figure is at the wrong authority and the employee's state of residence has no record of the contribution.

The full employer-side payroll walkthrough lives at payroll tax. The full employee-side payslip walkthrough lives at PAYE.

A Tax Clearance Certificate (TCC) issued by a state IRS reads against the taxpayer's PIT and PAYE record at that state IRS over the preceding three years of assessment.

The state-IRS issuance picture varies:

• At LIRS, the e-TCC platform is integrated with the e-Tax portal at etax.lirs.net. A salaried Lagos resident with a clean PAYE record can apply, receive, and download an e-TCC typically same-day for a clean application. LIRS-issued e-TCCs carry a machine-verifiable validity stamp that downstream verifiers (banks, immigration desks, procurement portals) check against the LIRS verification surface.
• At FCT-IRS, the tax portal at taxporta.fctirs.gov.ng supports TCC issuance with verification at the same surface. Similar same-day or 24-hour issuance for clean applications.
• At OYIRS, RIRS, KIRS, and KADIRS**, TCC issuance is operational with service windows varying from same-day to a working week depending on the IRS and the season.
• At smaller state IRSes, the route may run through the state-office counter with a longer service window. The state IRS's published service-window page is the canonical source for the figure that applies.

State IRS TCC application typically requires the 13-digit Tax ID, the PAYE-record history showing three years of compliance, proof of state residence over the relevant period, and the standard application form (the LIRS Form A or its state-IRS equivalent). The full TCC reference lives at tax clearance certificate.

State-IRS tax payments — PAYE remittance by an employer, PIT self-assessment payment by an individual — route through the state's own Remita configuration or the state IRS's published payment partners. The route depends on the state IRS's published payment infrastructure.

The banking-side context for an entity making state-IRS payments routes through the entity's corporate bank account. Under the CBN tiered KYC framework, the higher-tier corporate accounts that handle substantive PAYE remittances and PIT payments operate under specific KYC requirements:

For an entity remitting PAYE for multiple employees each month, the corporate account that processes the remittance is typically a higher-tier account where the daily transaction cap accommodates the aggregate PAYE figure. The full bank-account opening walkthrough lives at how to open a bank account and the tier-1 reference at Tier 1 bank account.

For an individual making a PIT self-assessment payment to the state IRS, the route is typically through online banking using the state IRS's published RRR or through the state IRS portal's payment-integration surface. The 7-to-10-working-day Remita auto-reversal protocol applies to failed state-IRS payments the same way it applies to federal NRS payments; the diagnostic and recovery sequence lives at tax payment pending.

The Nigeria Tax Administration Act 2025 and the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 effective 1 January 2026 are federal legislation. Their primary impact is on federal tax administration through NRS. The state-IRS layer is affected through three secondary channels.

• The Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Act 2025 renamed the Joint Tax Board as the Joint Revenue Board and widened its statutory mandate covering the harmonisation of revenue administration across the federal NRS and the 36 state IRSes plus the FCT-IRS. The JRB's substantive role in state-IRS coordination is unchanged in essence; the new framing makes the federal-state harmonisation function statutorily explicit.
• The 13-digit Tax ID format (the NIN-as-TIN for individuals; the CAC-number-as-TIN for entities) became the federal-side standard from 1 January 2026 and is the identifier every state IRS portal now reads against. State IRSes that previously held their own state-specific Tax ID alongside the federal TIN are aligning their portals to read the 13-digit federal Tax ID; some state IRSes still hold a state-side reference (RIVTIN at RIRS, for example) alongside the federal Tax ID.
• The Nigeria Tax Act 2025 PIT bands (0% / 15% / 18% / 21% / 23% / 25%) apply through PAYE at every state IRS. The substantive rate framework is uniform across the federation; the state IRS's role is to administer the framework, not to set it.

The reader's takeaway: NTAA 2026 did not change the federal-state split or the substantive PIT framework. It changed the identifier-stack (the 13-digit Tax ID became standard), the federal portal landscape (Rev360 replaced TaxProMax), and the federal-state coordination framing (JRB replaces JTB with widened mandate). The state IRSes continue to operate as the substantive authorities for PIT and PAYE within their jurisdictions.

The major-IRS table covers Lagos, FCT, Oyo, Rivers, Kano, and Kaduna — six of the 37 sub-national authorities. For the 31 other state IRSes, the route to finding the institutional URL and the principal-office contact:

• Search for the state IRS by name — patterns vary: [state name] State Internal Revenue Service (Anambra State Internal Revenue Service, Delta State Board of Internal Revenue, Ebonyi State Internal Revenue Service); [state name] State Board of Internal Revenue (the older naming convention some state IRSes retain); [state name] State Revenue Service (a few state agencies use this naming).
• Check the state government's main URL at state-name.gov.ng (or the state-government-published equivalent) — the state IRS typically has a profile page on the state-government site with the institutional URL and contact route. Examples: edostate.gov.ng for Edo, deltastate.gov.ng for Delta, anambrastate.gov.ng for Anambra.
• Look for the .kdsg.gov.ng pattern as the precedent — Kaduna State runs KADIRS under the state-government KDSG sub-domain at kadirs.kdsg.gov.ng. A similar pattern may apply at other state-government domains (the substring is typically the state's abbreviation followed by .gov.ng).
• Visit the state-secretariat Revenue House — every state has a principal IRS office at or near the state secretariat. For Delta State this is in Asaba; for Edo in Benin City; for Cross River in Calabar; for Akwa Ibom in Uyo; and the equivalent state capital for any other state.

Where the state IRS portal has limited e-services, the state IRS counter at the principal office handles the manual flow for PAYE remittance, PIT self-assessment filing, TCC application, and TCC verification. The counter route is functionally equivalent to the portal route for the substantive tax compliance; the difference is the operational friction and the service-window length.

The state-IRS reference connects to the cluster's PAYE, payroll, TCC, and filing walkthroughs.

• PAYE — the employee-side payslip walkthrough; reads the state IRS as the substantive authority for the monthly PAYE deduction.
• Payroll tax — the employer-side payroll walkthrough; covers the employer's monthly remittance to each state IRS and the year-end Form H1 cycle.
• Tax clearance certificate — the compliance-anchor document; state-IRS-issued TCCs sit alongside NRS-issued TCCs in the wider compliance picture.
• How to file a tax return — the multi-tax filing-cycle reference; PIT files at the state IRS, alongside the federal-tax filings at NRS.
• NRS portal landscape — the partner architecture-reference covering the federal portal layer; together with this article it covers both layers of the Nigerian tax-portal architecture.
• How to get a TIN — the gateway-credential walkthrough; the 13-digit Tax ID anchors records at every state IRS portal.
• Tax payment pending — diagnostic for state-IRS payments that stick at the Remita reconciliation surface.
• How to open a bank account — banking-side context for the corporate account that processes substantive PAYE remittances.