Explainer: What to know as Nigeria’s National Single Window goes live March 27

The National Single Window (NSW), Nigeria’s most anticipated trade reform in two decades, is set to go live on March 27, 2026, promising to change for the better how importers, exporters, and their agents conduct business at Nigerian ports

The unified digital system has been considered Nigeria’s best chance at reversing a reputation for treacherous trade procedures that have slowed down activities at its aged ports.

The project, contracted to CrimsonLogic, a Singaporean global technology company, is designed to model successes in Benin, Djibouti and Kenya, where it helped reduce business costs, smoothen Customs processes and improve cargo turnaround times.

Read also: National Single Window to go live in Nigeria March 27

Phased implementation

The project will unfold in three phases over 12 months, according to the NSW Secretariat.

The first phase, set to go live on March 27, will open for the submission of import permits for non-oil goods and manifests, and will allow for centralised risk management. The second phase is expected in the second to third quarter of the year and will open the system to all non-oil export-related processes.

The final phase, set to go live in the first quarter of 2027, will include Customs declarations and full system integration. The oil and gas sector will be incorporated in the third phase, Tayo Fakolade, director of the NSW Project, confirmed on Monday in Lagos.

“It’s always better to launch in phases,” Fakolade explained. “When you launch in phases, even if there are issues, it’s very easy to fix those issues and make sure that it doesn’t have a negative impact on the importers or their agents.”

The secretariat has completed two rounds of user acceptance testing and will begin training licensed customs agents and freight forwarders next week.

Key changes coming March 27

The first phase of the rollout, to focus on non-oil imports, will introduce three major changes, according to the Secretariat.

The first is the unification of import permits. Importers have continuously complained of having to carry the same documents to multiple government agencies, waiting for approvals for weeks as containers sit idle, caught in a tangle of paperwork and overlapping procedures. The National Single Window (NSW) promises to change that.

“Now they just have to log on to one platform,” Fakolade said. “So if they want to apply for a permit, they’ll be able to apply for their permit on the single window platform. If they need to submit a declaration, they do it on the single window platform. Whatever they need, in terms of their end-to-end processes, will happen on the single window platform.”

Instead of submitting pre-arrival forms at each agency, importers and traders will now submit all required documents once, online. “We have interaction with the SON system, the NAFDAC system, and the B’Odogwu system. But from the user perspective, they are only using one platform. And what this does is, it streamlines the process,” he said, assuring that all stakeholders involved in import procedures have been onboarded.

For manifest submissions, shipping lines and airlines will submit air and sea manifests once through the platform, which will automatically distribute them to all relevant agencies.

And for the first time, all regulatory agencies could have access to a unified risk management system, similar to what Customs currently uses, to profile high-risk consignments based on country of origin, importer compliance history, and product type.

Read also: FG sensitises S/East, S/South stakeholders on National Single Window implementation

“Risk management basically means using data, historical data, to be able to profile consignments,” said Fakolade. “Assumably, it could be that most of the things that come from India, not always what is declared, is what we see, you know. So, with that, you know, consignments that come from those southern countries can now be flagged.”

Transparency, he said, “is what is extremely important when it comes to the single window.”

Promising efficiency

The secretariat said the Single Window system incorporates multiple features designed to reduce delays and cost, including data harmonisation which means information entered once will auto-populate across all applications, eliminating repetitive data entry.

“I fill in the name of my company, the product I’m bringing, and the country of origin. What data harmonisation does is, if you have filled in a data once. And you go to, you want to apply for another license for the same assignment. The data will automatically be populated. Because it’s been filled in once,” Fakolade said.

Real-time tracking will provide visibility at every stage of the clearance process. “We can see at every state, at every point in time, where everything is,” he added.

The secretariat plans to establish service level agreements with agencies to flag delays in application processing times.

Fakolade also said electronic payments will be integrated into the platform, but BusinessDay later learnt this process will be rolled out later in the year, and not during the first phase.

He assured that the system, built to handle a massive volume of user data, would be protected from first and third-party interference. “We have engaged professional cybersecurity firms. We’re also working with the NTC and National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to ensure that we’re complying with all our regulations when it comes to IT infrastructure and data protection,” he said.

Ambitious long-term goals

While cautioning that benefits won’t materialise overnight, the NSW Secretariat has set what it calls a “North Star” ambition for 24-hour clearance times for both imports and exports, as opposed to the current 21 days.

“We are not putting a timeline on this, but we know where we want to be,” Fakolade said, noting this goal would make Nigeria far more attractive to foreign investors who cite clearing delays and costs as major obstacles.

The issue is particularly acute given that some importers currently find it faster and cheaper to ship goods to neighbouring countries’ ports, clear them there, and truck them into Nigeria through land borders, diverting revenue that should accrue to Nigerian ports, Fakolade admitted.

Adegboyega Oyetola, minister of Marine and Blue Economy, in January of 2025, noted that the high cost of doing business at Nigerian ports, up to 40 percent higher than in neighbouring West African countries according to the World Bank, leads to annual losses of N2.5 trillion.

The NSW Secretariat said they hope to bring in “an annual benefit of $2 billion” from the project’s operations, a lower bar from the $3 billion projected by Doris Uzoka-Anite, minister of state for finance, in January 2025.

Read also: Nigeria commences acceptance testing of National Single Window ahead of March 2026 operation

Managing expectations

“It’s going to take time to reap the full benefits of this,” Fakolade said when asking for public patience. “We are laying the right foundation, we are putting the right processes in place, and we are starting that journey.”

He acknowledged that any new technology system faces initial challenges and a learning curve for users. “The beginning will be a little bit uncertain, how does this work, I am not used to this new platform. Oh, I don’t know how to do this. There will be a period of that in the beginning.”

He said the system will go live on March 27 without a ceremonial event. “We want to focus on really getting the platform to work and providing the required support even after launch to make sure that everything works well and our users are having a good experience.”