The Lagos State Internal Revenue Service, LIRS, has extended the deadline for filing individual annual income tax returns to April 21, 2026, giving taxpayers in Nigeria’s commercial capital another week to complete their submissions after a sharp rise in activity on the agency’s electronic filing platform. The extension, announced in a statement on Friday, comes after LIRS had earlier shifted the deadline from the statutory March 31 date to April 14.
LIRS said the latest decision was prompted by a significant increase in traffic on its eTax platform, as more taxpayers rushed to meet the previous deadline. According to the agency, the extra time is intended to ensure that all eligible residents have “adequate opportunity” to file successfully while preserving the integrity and accuracy of submissions. The tax authority described the new date as a final extension and urged taxpayers not to delay further.
The agency also reiterated that all filings must be made electronically through the LIRS eTax platform, which it said remains the only approved channel for submission. That point is significant because Lagos has fully phased out manual filing for this category of returns, meaning taxpayers must rely on the digital system to comply. In its earlier March 31 extension notice, LIRS had already stressed that electronic filing was mandatory and framed timely compliance as a routine civic responsibility for all taxable persons.
Under Nigeria’s tax rules, individual taxpayers are required to submit a true and correct return of income earned in the preceding year within the first 90 days of a new assessment year. LIRS had reminded residents on February 25 that returns for the 2026 year of assessment were due by March 31, 2026, before the first extension was granted at the end of March.
The repeated deadline adjustments suggest the state tax authority is trying to balance strict statutory compliance with the practical challenges of high-volume digital submissions. For taxpayers, the message is now unmistakable: the window has been widened again, but only briefly. LIRS said the additional extension was granted in response to overwhelming taxpayer engagement and to improve convenience, but it also made clear that annual income tax filing remains a legal obligation, not an option.
