Market note, May 2026. For current figures see our live rate board.

Most Nigerian importers buy from China. Most of them still pay in dollars. That surprises people the first time they notice it, and understanding why explains a good deal about how import pricing actually works.

Why the dollar sits in the middle of it

The dollar is the reference currency of international trade. Ocean freight is quoted in it. Insurance is quoted in it. Customs valuation works from a CIF figure that began life in dollars. Cross-border settlement moves through it. So even a transaction with no American party anywhere in it is frequently denominated in dollars, because that is the currency both sides can price against and neither has to guess at. For a Nigerian buyer it means one rate governs most of the cost of importing: the dollar against the naira. Freight, duty, insurance and the supplier invoice usually all trace back to it.

What that means practically

Build your costing in dollars per unit and convert once, at the end. It sounds like a small discipline and it is the difference between a model that survives a rate change and one that has to be rebuilt. If the rate moves, you alter a single conversion figure. If you costed in naira throughout, every line is now wrong and you will not necessarily notice which. It also makes quotations comparable. Two suppliers quoting in dollars can be compared directly. The same two converted at different rates on different days cannot.

Where it stops being the answer

The dollar governs the trade. It does not always govern your invoice. Deal directly with a Chinese factory rather than through a trading company and you may well be invoiced in yuan, because that is the currency the manufacturer’s own costs are in. At that point the yuan against the naira is the rate that decides your payment, and the dollar becomes background. The useful question is therefore not which currency matters more in general. It is which currency your invoice is actually written in, because that is the one that will take money out of your account. Watch both anyway. The dollar sets the freight and the duty even when your goods are priced in yuan.

Not sure which rate applies to your purchase? Send us the details and we will work out what it genuinely lands at, whichever currency the invoice is in. There is no charge. Request a cost review or get in touch.