Last checked 22 September 2026
You paste in your brother’s Nigerian account number. Ten digits, exactly as he sent them. You pick his bank, tap continue, and get “invalid account number”. You try again and get the same thing. Before you ask him for a different account, check the bank you selected — in Nigeria the account number alone does not identify an account.
The short version
A Nigerian account number is ten digits, and the Central Bank of Nigeria’s standard says plainly that it is unique within each deposit-taking institution — not across the country. The same ten digits can exist at another institution and belong to somebody else entirely. That is why every transfer form makes you choose a bank as well.
So an “invalid account number” error almost always means one of three things, and each needs a different fix: the number is wrong, the institution you selected is wrong, or the provider could not verify the account just then. Re-typing the same digits fixes none of them.
What NUBAN actually is
NUBAN stands for Nigeria Uniform Bank Account Number. The CBN first issued the standard in August 2010 to give every deposit money bank the same account-numbering structure, then replaced it with a revised standard covering Other Financial Institutions as well. That revision is why fintechs such as OPay, PalmPay, Kuda and Moniepoint issue account numbers that look and behave exactly like a traditional bank’s.
The number you are given is ten digits: nine identifying the account, and a final check digit. That check digit is not decorative. It is calculated from the account serial together with a six-digit code identifying the institution — which is the single most important thing on this page, because it means a real account number can fail validation purely because the wrong bank was selected.
Two things follow:
- Mistyped digits usually get caught. Change one number and the check digit no longer agrees, so the form rejects it. That is the system working.
- The institution is half the identification. Right digits, wrong bank, and the check fails exactly as though you had mistyped it.
You never need to do this arithmetic yourself — the institution issues the number. If a digit looks wrong, ask the recipient to read it out again. Never try to work out a replacement check digit.
Bank code, sort code, SWIFT, NUBAN — which is which
| Term | What it identifies | When you need it |
|---|---|---|
| NUBAN | The recipient’s account — the ten digits they give you | Always, for a Nigerian bank deposit |
| Bank / institution code | The institution holding the account. Three digits for a bank, five for an other financial institution | Alongside the account number, for a naira payout |
| Sort code | Institution, state and branch, under Nigeria’s own sort-code structure | Only when a form specifically asks for a Nigerian sort code |
| SWIFT / BIC | A bank in the international messaging network | Only for an international wire — not a normal naira payout |
Wise, for example, asks for the recipient’s full name in English characters, a bank code, and the ten-digit account number. It does not ask for a SWIFT code for that payout method, and it does not ask for an IBAN — Nigeria does not use IBANs for naira deposits.
Do not copy a code off an unrelated bank-code lookup site because the digits look about right. Use the institution exactly as it appears in your provider’s own recipient list.
Six reasons a Nigerian account number gets rejected
“Invalid account number” is a generic message. Providers run several different checks — does this look like a valid number, does this account exist, does the name match, can we even reach that institution — and the error rarely tells you which one failed. Work through these in order.
1. A leading zero has vanished
If the number is 0012345678 and it has passed through a spreadsheet, a notes app, or anything that treats it as a number rather than text, it arrives as 12345678 — eight digits instead of ten.
This is the most common cause of all. Copy account numbers as text, and if digits are missing, go back to the original rather than guessing how many zeros to put back.
2. The wrong institution is selected
A real account number checked against the wrong institution fails, for the reason explained above. This happens constantly with the fintechs, whose names sit close together in a long dropdown.
If your recipient uses PalmPay, select PalmPay — not the first plausible entry in the list. And if the institution is not in the list at all, that is a different problem: not every service reaches OPay, PalmPay, Kuda and Moniepoint.
3. A digit is simply wrong
The check digit catches many typing errors but not all of them. Compare the whole number against the recipient’s details one digit at a time. A number that passes validation can still belong to a stranger.
4. The account-holder name does not match
Nigeria’s interbank infrastructure includes a name-enquiry service that lets institutions confirm who an account belongs to before money moves. Many apps show you that name before you pay.
Read it. If you are sending to Chinedu Okafor and the app returns a different name, stop. Do not edit the name to make a warning go away, and do not proceed because the digits look right. Ask the recipient to explain the name on the account — married names and business names have innocent explanations. A name you cannot account for means an account you should not pay.
5. The provider does not reach that institution
An account can be entirely valid, work perfectly for domestic Nigerian transfers, and still be unreachable through the service you are using. Wise documents naira payouts to Nigerian personal and business bank accounts but does not publish which institutions those are.
If the institution is not in the provider’s recipient list, no amount of re-typing will help. You need a different provider, or a different account.
6. Verification failed at that moment
Sometimes nothing is wrong with the number — the provider simply could not reach the service that confirms it. A failed lookup is not proof of an invalid account.
If you have checked everything and it still fails, ask support one specific question: is this a format problem, an unsupported institution, or a verification failure? Three different problems, three different fixes. What you must not do is keep submitting different combinations of details hoping one goes through.
If you have already sent it to the wrong account
Speed is the only advantage you have. Correcting details before the money moves is a completely different problem from recovering it afterwards.
If the transfer is still processing, contact the provider now and ask whether it can be amended or cancelled. Once the money has left their system, that option usually closes. If it has already landed in the wrong account, ask for a recovery investigation and do not assume it will bounce back by itself — money that reaches a stranger’s account and is withdrawn is often gone, and where the wrong details came from you rather than the provider, what you can claim is narrower. What to do when a transfer says delivered but nothing arrived covers how that plays out.
If the payment was rejected and returned, wait for written confirmation of the refund before sending again, or you risk paying twice.
The actual rule, for anyone who wants it
You do not need this to send money. It is here because it is hard to find stated correctly, and because it explains precisely why the wrong bank breaks a right number.
Internally the standard defines a 16-digit structure, ABCDEF-GHIJKLMNO-P, even though the customer only ever sees ten digits:
- ABCDEF — a six-digit institution identifier. A bank’s three-digit CBN code is padded with leading zeros (011 becomes 000011). An other financial institution’s five-digit code is prefixed with a 9 (50547 becomes 950547).
- GHIJKLMNO — the nine-digit account serial number.
- P — the check digit.
The check digit is calculated across all fifteen preceding digits using alternating weights of 3, 7, 3:
A×3 + B×7 + C×3 + D×3 + E×7 + F×3 + G×3 + H×7 + I×3 + J×3 + K×7 + L×3 + M×3 + N×7 + O×3
then take modulo 10, and subtract the remainder from 10.
If the result is 10, the check digit is 0.
The standard’s own worked example: a bank with code 011 and account serial 000001457 gives a weighted sum of 81. The remainder on dividing by 10 is 1, and 10 minus 1 is 9 — so the check digit is 9 and the customer’s account number is 0000014579. For an other financial institution coded 50547 with serial 000021457, the sum is 211, the remainder is again 1, and the number is 0000214579.
Notice what the institution identifier does in that sum. Change the institution and the weighted total changes, so the same nine-digit serial produces a different check digit. That is the arithmetic behind “right number, wrong bank, rejected”.
Sort codes are a separate structure in the same standard: three-digit bank code, state code, branch code and a check digit for banks, and a leading 9 followed by the five-digit institution code, state code and check digit for other financial institutions. A sort code is not an account number and the two are not interchangeable.
Common questions
Are all Nigerian account numbers ten digits?
For accounts at deposit-taking institutions covered by the standard, yes — it states that the number advised to a customer shall be ten digits. If someone gives you something longer, ask what it is; it may be an internal reference or a card number.
Can two Nigerian institutions use the same account number?
Yes. The standard requires uniqueness within each deposit-taking institution, not across all of them. That is exactly why the receiving institution must be identified separately.
Can I tell which bank someone uses from their account number?
No. The institution code goes into calculating the check digit but is not shown in the ten digits the customer hands out. The first three digits tell you nothing about the bank.
Is NUBAN the same as a BVN?
No, and the difference matters. A NUBAN identifies an account. A Bank Verification Number identifies a person across the Nigerian banking system. A BVN should never be typed into a field asking for an account number, and a sender should never be asked for one.
Do I need an IBAN to send money to Nigeria?
No. Nigeria does not use IBANs for naira bank deposits. Name, bank code and the ten-digit account number are what is asked for.
Can a valid account number still be rejected?
Yes. Passing a format check only says the number is well formed. It does not establish that the account exists, that it belongs to the person you named, or that your provider can pay into it. Those are separate questions and one error message covers them all.
Can I check whether an account exists using just the number?
Not on your own, and not through a random website. Verification runs through licensed payment institutions. Use your provider’s own name check, or ask the recipient’s bank. Typing someone’s banking details into an unfamiliar site is how those details get harvested.
How we checked this
The numbering rules, the check-digit algorithm and both worked examples on this page come from the Central Bank of Nigeria’s own document, Revised Standards on Nigeria Uniform Bank Account Number (NUBAN) for Banks and Other Financial Institutions, issued under circular PSM/DIR/CON/CWO/05/030. We read the standard itself rather than a summary of it, and we checked both of its worked calculations by hand before publishing them.
The provider details — what Wise asks for on a naira transfer, and which institutions appear in a provider’s recipient list — were read from those providers’ own pages on 22 September 2026.
This is general information, not advice about your particular transfer. If something here no longer matches what your provider tells you, let us know and we will correct it. Our methodology explains what we check and what we do not.