Lagos traders opened the week’s final session with the naira sitting in familiar territory: firm-ish at the official window, still trading at a premium on the street. If you’re changing dollars today, here’s exactly where the numbers stand and what’s been pushing them there.
Quick Snapshot: Dollar to Naira Rates Today
| Market | Buy Rate (₦) | Sell Rate (₦) |
|---|---|---|
| Official NFEM (CBN) | — | 1,334.00 |
| Black Market (Parallel) | 1,375.00 | 1,390.00 |
| Spread (Official vs. Black Market) | — | ≈ ₦56 |
The Central Bank’s most recent confirmed print, from the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market, closed at ₦1,334.00 to the dollar on Tuesday, September 9, a mild slip from ₦1,322.90 the day before. That’s the figure banks and licensed operators are still working off as Friday’s trading gets underway, since the CBN hadn’t published a fresh NFEM close for September 10 by the time this was filed. On the volume-weighted basis the apex bank actually uses to calculate the “official” rate, Tuesday’s average came in at ₦1,329.21, on turnover of $544.1 million across 276 deals.
Away from the regulated window, aboki rates have been easing. Bureau de change operators in Lagos quoted the dollar at roughly ₦1,375 to buy and ₦1,390 to sell on Thursday, a small improvement on Wednesday’s ₦1,380/₦1,390 band. Abuja’s Wuse Zone 4 market, the other big reference point for parallel rates, has been tracking within a few naira of Lagos all week.
Official Market: What the CBN Data Shows
The naira’s run at the official window has been choppier than the headline number suggests. Early September saw the currency strengthen to around ₦1,320, its best showing in weeks, before Tuesday’s ₦11 slide interrupted the run. Zoom out and the picture still looks decent: the September range of roughly ₦1,315 to ₦1,329 on a volume-weighted basis is firmer than the ₦1,333–₦1,339 band the naira was trading in during the back half of August.
External reserves have been doing some of the heavy lifting. The CBN’s figures put reserves at $54.283 billion as of September 8, up from $54.209 billion the day before, the kind of steady, unglamorous accumulation that gives the central bank room to smooth out volatility when it needs to. Nigeria’s economy also grew 4.43% in the second quarter, a number the CBN has been happy to point to as evidence that the reforms of the last two years are paying off.
None of that means the naira is immune to bad days. Tuesday’s depreciation was the single largest one-day move of the month so far, a reminder that “stable” in Nigeria’s FX market still comes with a fair amount of daily wobble.
Black Market: Dollar to Naira on the Street
The parallel market tells a slightly different story right now, it’s actually been closing the gap with the official rate rather than widening it. Dealers were asking ₦1,410 for a dollar as recently as early last week. By Thursday, that had drifted down to ₦1,375–₦1,390, cutting the premium over the CBN rate to somewhere around ₦56, down from spreads north of ₦80 earlier in the month.
That narrowing spread matters more than it might look. A tighter gap between official and street rates usually signals that dollar liquidity is improving, importers and travelers are finding what they need through banks and BDCs rather than being pushed into the informal market. It’s also, not coincidentally, the metric the CBN watches most closely as a proxy for whether its reforms are actually working, as opposed to just looking good on paper.
Other currencies moved in smaller steps. The pound sat around ₦1,854–₦1,900 depending on the source, the euro traded near ₦1,593–₦1,600, and the Canadian dollar improved slightly to about ₦991, from ₦994 the previous session.
| Currency | Black Market Rate (₦) |
|---|---|
| US Dollar (USD) | 1,375 – 1,390 |
| British Pound (GBP) | 1,854 – 1,900 |
| Euro (EUR) | 1,593 – 1,600 |
| Canadian Dollar (CAD) | 991 – 1,022 |
Parallel market figures are indicative averages compiled from Lagos and Abuja dealer checks. Rates vary by location, dealer, and transaction size, treat them as a guide, not a quote.
Dollar to Naira Converter: Common Amounts
| Amount (USD) | Official NFEM (₦) | Black Market Sell (₦) |
|---|---|---|
| $10 | 13,340 | 13,900 |
| $50 | 66,700 | 69,500 |
| $100 | 133,400 | 139,000 |
| $200 | 266,800 | 278,000 |
| $500 | 667,000 | 695,000 |
| $1,000 | 1,334,000 | 1,390,000 |
Why the Naira Is Moving the Way It Is
A few things are keeping the market roughly where it is this week:
Reserves are climbing, slowly: Nigeria’s external buffer has been adding to itself in small increments for weeks now. It’s not dramatic, but a central bank with rising reserves has more scope to step in when the market gets jumpy, and traders price that in.
GDP growth gave the CBN a talking point: Q2’s 4.43% expansion isn’t just a statistic, it feeds directly into the confidence story the apex bank has been selling to foreign investors since the 2023 forex reforms. Whether that confidence is fully earned is a separate conversation, but it’s clearly influencing sentiment in the official market.
Global oil and dollar dynamics haven’t been kind or cruel: With Brent crude flirting with the $100 mark again, Nigeria’s oil-dependent forex earnings get a lift, though how much of that filters through to street-level dollar supply is always a slower, messier process than the headline number implies.
Seasonal demand is fairly ordinary right now: September doesn’t carry the same import and school-fee pressure that hits the naira around January and July, which helps explain why the parallel market has had room to ease rather than spike.
What to Watch Going Into the Weekend
The obvious gap in today’s picture is the missing September 10 NFEM print, until the CBN publishes it, anyone quoting “today’s official rate” is really working off Tuesday’s close. Keep an eye on the CBN’s rate page directly if you need a transaction-grade figure rather than a media estimate.
Beyond that, three things are worth watching over the next few sessions: whether the ₦56 spread between official and parallel rates keeps narrowing (a genuinely good sign if it does), how oil prices behave now that Brent is back near triple digits, and whether the naira’s early-September strength was a blip or the start of something more durable. Nigerians sending money home, paying school fees abroad, or planning near-term imports would do well to check a live rate before transacting, these figures move by the hour, and the number you see at 9 a.m. is rarely the number you’ll get by closing time.
Exchange rates quoted here are compiled from Central Bank of Nigeria data and parallel-market checks across Lagos and Abuja as of September 11, 2026. Actual rates offered by banks and licensed bureaux de change may differ based on transaction purpose, volume, and location.
