Breaking News: New SONCAP Regulations in Nigeria

Editor: David

Calibration: May

Date: February 2, 2025

In early July 2025, the Nigerian customs terminal system was upgraded with the aim of enhancing efficiency, reducing customs clearance costs, and improving the long-term congestion at Nigerian ports through digital operation. The system was updated with new functions. All logistics companies and consignees need to provide documents that comply with the system, which strangely always includes soncap certification. Since both the PC and SC certificates need to be associated with the new system Custom B'odogwu platform after activation, in order to smoothly associate with the new platform, the HS CODE of the newly applied PC certificate must be from the destination port and must be 10 digits. The importer needs to carefully confirm that there are no errors before issuing the original. This regulation requires soncap certificate agencies and certification bodies to replace new documents to adapt to the new system. If the old format is continued to be used, it will cause the documents to be unrecognizable and the containers to be detained at the customs, resulting in economic losses for the customers.