Nigeria’s list of prohibited or restricted imports is as follows:

• Live or dead birds including frozen poultry
• Pork
• Beef
• Bird’s eggs, excluding hatching eggs
• Refined vegetable oils and fats (includes mayonnaise), but excluding refined linseed, castor and olive oil. Crude vegetable oil is NOT banned from importation.
• Cane or beet sugar and chemically pure sucrose, in solid form containing added flavoring or coloring matter in retail packs
• Cocoa butter, powder and cakes
• Spaghetti/noodles
• Fruit juice in retail packs
• Waters, including mineral waters and aerated waters containing added sugar, sweetening matter, or flavored; ice snow; other non-alcoholic beverages; beer and stout (bottled, canned or otherwise packed) but excluding energy or health drinks
• Bagged cement 
• Paracetamol tablets and syrups
• Cotrimoxazole tablets and syrups
• Metronidazole tablets and syrups
• Chloroquine tablets and syrups
• Haematinic formulations; ferrous sulphate and ferrous gluconate tablets, folic acid tablets, vitamin B complex tablets (except modified released formulations)
• Multivitamin tablets, capsules and syrups (except special formulations)
• Aspirin tablets (except modified released formulation and soluble aspirin)
• Magnesium trisilicate tablets and suspensions
• Piperazine tablets and syrups
• Levamisole tablets and syrups
• Clotrimazole cream
• Ointments – penicillin/gentamycin
• Pyrantel pamoate tablets and syrups
• Intravenous fluids (dextrose, normal saline, etc.)
• Waste pharmaceuticals
• Mineral or chemical fertilizers containing two or three of the fertilizing elements nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK 15-15-15), excluding organic fertilizer
• Soaps and detergents in retail packs only
• Mosquito repellant coils
• Rethreaded and used pneumatic tires but excluding used trucks tires for rethreading of sized 11.00 x 20 and above
• Corrugated paper and paper boards, and cartons, boxes and cases made from corrugated paper and paper boards, toilet paper, cleaning or facial tissue, excluding baby diapers and incontinent pads for adult use
• Telephone re-charge cards and vouchers
• Carpets and other textile floor coverings
• All types of footwear, bags and suitcases but excluding safety hoes used in oil industries, sports shoes, canvass shoes all complete knock down (CKD) blanks and parts
• Hollow glass bottles of a capacity exceeding 150mls (0.15 liters) of all kinds used for packaging of beverages by breweries and other beverage and drink companies
• Used compressors and used fridges/freezers
• Used motor vehicles above fifteen (15) years from the year of manufacture
• Ball point pens and parts including refills (excluding tip)
• Tomato paste or concentrate put up for retail sale

In addition, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has listed the following items as “absolutely prohibited” from importation into Nigeria:

• Air pistols
• Airmail photographic printing paper
• All counterfeit/pirated materials or articles including base or counterfeit coin of any country
• Beads composed of inflammable celluloid or other similar substances.
• Blank invoices
• Coupons for foreign football pools or other betting arrangements
• Cowries
• Exhausted tea or tea mixed with other substances. For the purpose of this item, exhausted tea means any tea which has been deprived of its proper quality, strength, or virtue by steeping, infusion, decoction or other means.
• Implements appertaining to the reloading of cartridges
• Indecent or obscene prints, painting, books, cards, engraving or any indecent or obscene articles
• Manilas
• Matches made with white phosphorous
• Materials of any description with a design which, considering the purpose for which any such material is intended to be used, is likely in the opinion of the president to create a breach of the peace or to offend the religious views of any class of persons in Nigeria
• Meat, vegetables, or other provisions declared by a health officer to be unfit for human consumption
• Piece goods and all other textiles including wearing apparel, hardware of all kinds, crockery, china or earthenware goods bearing inscriptions (whether in Roman or Arabic characters) from the Koran or from the traditions and commentaries on the Koran
• Pistols disguised in any form
• Second-hand clothing
• Silver or metal alloy coins not being legal tender in Nigeria
• Nuclear Industrial waste and other Toxic waste
• Spirits containing more than forty-eight and one-half per centum of pure alcohol by volume except denatured, medicated and perfumed spirits, and such other spirits which the Comptroller-General, in his discretion, may allow to be imported subject to such conditions as he may see fit to impose. Other than:
  • Alcoholic bitters, liqueurs, cordials, and mixtures admitted as such in his discretion by the Comptroller-General and which are not deemed to be injurious spirits within the meaning of any enactment or law relating to liquor or liquor licensing
  • Brandy, i.e., Spirit Distilled in Grape – growing countries from fermented grape juice and from no other material and stored in wood for a period of three years
  • Drugs and medicinal spirits admitted as such in his discretion by the Comptroller-General
  • Gin, i.e., Spirit – produced by distillation from a mixed mash of cereal grains only saccharified by the distaste of malt and the flavored by redistillation with juniper berries and other vegetable ingredients and of a brand which has been notified as an approved brand by notice in the Gazette and in containers labeled with the name and address of the owner of the brand, or
  • Produced by distillation at least three times in a pot still from mixed mash or barley, rye and maize saccharified by distaste of malt and then rectified by re-distillation in a pot still after the addition of juniper berries and other vegetable materials
  • Methylated or denatured spirit, i.e., Mineralized Methylated spirit mixed as follows: to every ninety parts by volume of spirits nine and one half parts by volume of wood naphtha and one half of one part by volume of crude pyridine and to every 455 liters of the mixture 1.7 liters of mineral naphtha or petroleum oil and not less than 0.7 grammes by weight of powdered aniline dye (Methyl violet) and so in proportion for any quantity less than 455 liters and Industrial Methylated spirit imported under license from the Comptroller-General and mixed as follows: to every ninety five parts by volume of spirits five parts by volume of wood naphtha and also one half of one part by volume of the mixture and;
  • Spirits denatured for a particular purpose in such a manner as the Comptroller-General in any special circumstance may permit
  • Perfumed Spirits
  • Rum, i.e., Spirit – Distilled directly from sugar-cane products in sugar-cane growing countries and stored in wood for a period of three years
• Weapons of any description which in the opinion of the Comptroller-General are designed for the discharge of any noxious liquid, gas or other similar substance, and any ammunition containing or in the opinion of the Comptroller-General or adapted to contain any noxious liquid, gas, or other similar substances

Beyond the import restrictions by NCS, in 2015, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) restricted access to foreign exchange at the official window for importers of several items. Instead, importers of the under-listed items source foreign exchange from the parallel market where the price of forex is significantly higher than the official rate. In May 2017, the CBN lifted the restriction on importers whose cumulative transactions are $20,000 and below per quarter.

Items which are ineligible for foreign exchange at the CBN’s Official Window are as follows: 

• Rice
• Cement
• Margarine
• Palm kernel/palm oil products/vegetables oils
• Meat and processed meat products                        
• Vegetables and processed vegetable products
• Poultry – chicken, eggs, turkey
• Private airplanes/jets
• Indian incense
• Tinned fish in sauce (geisha)/sardines
• Cold rolled steel sheets
• Galvanized steel sheets
• Roofing sheets
• Wheelbarrows
• Head pans
• Metal boxes and containers
• Enamelware
• Steel drums
• Steel pipes
• Wire rods (deformed and not deformed)
• Iron rods and reinforcing bars
• Wire mesh
• Steel nails
• Security and razor wire
• Wood particle boards and panels
• Wood fibre boards and panels
• Plywood boards and panels
• Wooden doors
• Furniture
• Toothpicks
• Glass and Glassware
• Kitchen utensils
• Tableware
• Tiles - vitrified and ceramic
• Textiles
• Woven fabrics
• Clothes
• Plastic and rubber products, polypropylene granules, cellophane wrappers
• Soap and cosmetics
• Tomatoes/tomato pastes
• Eurobond/foreign currency bond/ share purchases
• Fertilizer
• Dairy/milk
• Maize
• Sugar

In 2020, the government of Nigeria added milk and other dairy to the original list of 41 items ineligible for foreign exchange to import. In a partial reversal of the same ban, the government restricted the import of milk and dairy products to six dairy companies said to be promoting backward integration. The approved companies are:

• Friesland Campina WAMCO Nigeria Limited
• Chi Limited
• TG Arla Dairy Products Limited
• Promasidor Nigeria Limited
• Nestle Nigeria Plc. (MSK only)
• Integrated Dairies Limited

The Nigerian government has advised that by 2022 there will be a total ban on the importation of milk, though plans to implement do not appear to be in place.

In July 2021, the government restricted sugar imports to three approved companies that constitute the only companies permitted to import sugar through official foreign exchange sources: BUA Sugar Refinery Limited, Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc, and Golden Sugar Company.