MTN Nigeria’s tax payments climbed to N878.7bn in 2025, underscoring the increasingly central role of large corporates in funding government finances as Abuja pushes to reduce reliance on oil revenues and broaden its tax base.
The telecoms operator said in its 2025 Sustainability Report that remittances to federal and state authorities rose 15 per cent from the previous year, extending a sharp upward trend that has mirrored the company’s rebound from currency-induced losses and the wider recovery in Nigeria’s corporate earnings cycle.
The latest figure compares with N764bn paid in 2024 and N543.9bn in 2023, reflecting a cumulative increase of more than 60 per cent in two years.
The payments covered company income tax, value-added tax, spectrum charges, import duties, Nigerian Communications Commission levies, and infrastructure-related tax credit obligations, placing MTN among the country’s largest non-oil contributors to public revenue.
The increase came as the telecoms group returned strongly to profitability after navigating one of the most volatile periods in Nigeria’s foreign exchange market. Profit after tax rose to N1.11tn in 2025, while revenue surged 54.8 per cent to N5.2tn. Operating profit nearly tripled to N2.08tn from N778.2bn a year earlier.
The figures highlight how currency reforms that initially eroded corporate balance sheets have begun to favour companies with pricing power, scale and strong demand fundamentals. Telecom operators, banks and consumer-facing multinationals have increasingly emerged as key pillars of fiscal stability at a time when oil receipts remain vulnerable to price swings and production disruptions.
MTN’s expanding fiscal footprint also reflects the Nigerian government’s growing reliance on private-sector participation in infrastructure financing.
Under the Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme, the company committed N202.8bn to the reconstruction of the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway, one of the country’s critical commercial corridors linking the southeast to major trading hubs.
The telecoms operator also deepened investments in digital infrastructure through the Rural and Urban Terrestrial Infrastructure scheme, which reached 50 per cent completion during the year after authorities approved an additional N23bn in tax credits for fibre expansion into underserved areas.
The report further showed that 62 per cent of procurement spending in 2025 went to local suppliers, up from 59.6 per cent a year earlier, reinforcing federal efforts to increase domestic participation across construction, logistics, software and power infrastructure value chains.
MTN ended the period with 85.4 million mobile subscribers and 51.1 million active data users. Smartphone penetration rose to 65.1 per cent, while the company renewed its 800MHz spectrum licence for another decade through 2034, securing a key asset in Nigeria’s intensifying race for digital market dominance.