Nigeria’s Startup Act was meant to make the difficult parts of building a company a little less punishing. Four years later, many founders can still point to the law more easily than they can point to a benefit they have used.
That is why NITDA’s latest Startup Act meeting in Abuja matters. The agency brought together more than 15 government bodies to work out how the law’s incentives should move from policy language into things founders can actually access.
- The Startup Act promises a route to funding, tax and fiscal support, regulatory help, training and other incentives, but those benefits do not appear automatically when a company is incorporated.
- The official portal and startup label are real parts of the system, yet many of the benefits behind them require other agencies to agree on the rules, the process and who is responsible.
- NITDA’s latest session is progress, but it is also an admission: the practical work of making the Act useful is still unfinished.
The point is not that the Act has failed because every incentive is not visible at once. The point is that a founder cannot pay staff, meet a tax deadline or make a hiring decision with a promise that is still waiting for a process.
The law has a front door
The Nigeria Startup Act is not only a policy document. Its official portal exists, and it allows companies to apply for a Startup Label, while also registering investors, accelerators, incubators and innovation hubs in the ecosystem.
That label matters because it is the front door to the framework. The portal says a company must be technology-enabled, incorporated and less than 10 years old to qualify. Once the coordinator is satisfied that the requirements have been met, the startup can be entered in the register and issued a label.
For founders, that is a useful start. It creates a formal way for government to recognise the kind of business the law is talking about.
But recognition is not the same thing as relief.
A label does not by itself tell a founder when an investor can claim a tax incentive, how a fund will be accessed, whether a regulatory sandbox is ready for a particular product or which desk can solve a problem that crosses two agencies. That is where the waiting begins.
One law still has too many doors
The Startup Act spreads its promise across issues that do not sit with one office.
The official portal names agencies such as the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority, CAC, the Nigeria Revenue Service, CBN, NIPC, NEPZA, ITF and the Nigerian Copyright Commission as relevant to startups. That makes sense: a company looking for funding may also need tax clarity; a business trying to export may need regulatory approvals; an investor may need a working labelling system before deciding whether a fiscal incentive applies.
It also explains why the latest NITDA meeting was not a simple press conference.
ONDI said the Act contains more than 31 incentives across tax and fiscal policy, regulatory support, funding, exports and trade, ecosystem support, and training. No single agency can deliver all of that alone. A benefit can exist in the law and still feel absent in daily life if the agencies around it have not agreed on the route, the documents, the timeline and the person responsible for the final answer.
The latest meeting is a useful admission
NITDA did not announce that every incentive is now live for every startup. Its message was more honest than that.
The agency said it wants to move from policy design to operational delivery. It has already pointed to the portal, the Startup Consultative Forum and governance structures as progress. But it also said the real test is whether businesses can easily access relief, funding and other resources under the Act.
That distinction matters.
A session to clarify responsibilities can be a necessary step. It can help agencies identify gaps, simplify processes and stop founders from being sent from one office to another. But a co-creation session is not a grant disbursement, a tax credit or a regulatory approval.
Founders should read the current moment for what it is: an implementation push, not a finished service menu.
Founders need a clearer path than “check the portal”
The portal is still useful. It gives founders a place to understand labelling and see the broad support the law is designed to create.
What is missing is the kind of clarity that changes a company’s Monday morning.
Can a labelled company see which benefits are active today? Is there a checklist for each one? Which agency owns the response? How long should an application take? What happens if a founder is eligible on paper but a required agency has not set up its delivery process?
Those are the questions that turn a law into operating support.
The same practical pressure sits behind the iDICE Growth Lab deadline. Founders do not only need big promises about capital. They need to know who qualifies, what is being offered, what they must give up and what happens next.
The best sign of progress will be boring
The strongest proof that the Startup Act is working will not be another speech about innovation.
It will be a labelled founder who can find an active benefit, understand the process without a consultant, receive a clear answer from the right agency and use that answer to make a decision about hiring, funding, exporting or building a product.
That sounds boring beside the language of a $100 billion digital economy. It is also how useful policy normally works.
Nigeria does not need founders to keep celebrating the existence of a Startup Act. It needs them to be able to feel it in the costs, timelines and obstacles that make starting up here harder than it should be.
Also read: 5 things founders should fix before iDICE closes on August 19
Also read: What founders should do before GITEX Nigeria opens on August 31
Have you tried to use a Startup Act benefit or get a Startup Label? What happened when you did? Drop your experience in the comments below.
