🇳🇬 Your Nigerian Pension (RSA) from Ireland: Withdrawals, the PenCom Diaspora Scheme and Irish Tax

When can you withdraw your RSA while living in Ireland?

• At 50 or retirement. You take a lump sum and the rest as a programmed withdrawal from your PFA, or as an annuity from a life insurer. The lump sum can be more than 25% only if what's left still pays at least 50% of your annual pay at retirement. Since 1 June 2025 your PFA approves and pays these benefits itself, within two working days of a complete application; PenCom approval is now needed only for death benefits and depleted accounts (Guardian).
• Loss of a job. Someone who retires or is disengaged before 50 and can't find other employment after four months can take up to 25% of the RSA. It's for people out of work, not a relocation benefit.
• A home deposit in Nigeria. Since September 2022, an RSA holder in active employment with at least 60 months of contributions, and at least three years from retirement, can once use up to 25% of the balance as the equity contribution on a residential mortgage from a CBN-licensed mortgage lender (Udo Udoma & Belo-Osagie on Legal 500).
• Medical grounds. Retirement on medical advice or for permanent disability opens the RSA at any age.
• Keeping it going from Ireland. PenCom lets Nigerians working abroad keep contributing, and since 2025 that can be in US dollars (below).

Does Nigeria tax the withdrawal?

• The exception is voluntary contributions. Income earned on voluntary contributions is taxed if you withdraw them within five years of contributing (PenCom FAQ).
• No treaty means no credit, but here it doesn't matter. Ireland has no tax treaty with Nigeria (see is there an Ireland–Nigeria tax treaty?). With no Nigerian tax on the pension, there's nothing to credit: whatever Ireland charges is the whole bill.
• Nigerian residence is a separate question. The 2025 Act tests residence by domicile, a permanent home, habitual abode, economic or family ties, and 183 days. It matters for your other Nigerian income, not for an exempt pension.

How does Ireland tax an RSA payout?

• Why the RSA is unlikely to qualify. PenCom's mortgage rule lets RSA holders take up to 25% for a home deposit, and the four-month rule pays out on losing a job. Revenue says the test fails even if you never used that access. It hasn't named Nigerian funds, but its stated position on foreign lump sums paid before 2023 is that they were taxable in full as foreign income, apart from a concessionary €200,000 exemption that doesn't apply to payments from 2023. Plan on the lump sum being taxed at your marginal rate, not on the €200,000 scale.
• Programmed withdrawals and annuities may be exempt. Section 200 TCA takes a foreign pension paid for past employment out of Irish tax if the paying country has an income tax like Ireland's and wouldn't tax that pension on its own residents (Revenue manual 07-01-09). Nigeria exempts pensions paid under the Pension Reform Act, and section 200 has no "sole purpose" test, so a programmed withdrawal or annuity from an RSA built from employment contributions should qualify. Revenue hasn't ruled on RSAs, and its guidance on foreign lump sums doesn't extend this to lump sums. If it didn't apply, the payments would be taxed each year at your marginal rate with USC.
• If you're not Irish-domiciled (a Nigerian domicile of origin usually stays until you've settled here for good; an Irish passport doesn't change it by itself, though the intention to keep living here that you declare when naturalising is evidence Revenue can weigh), you're taxed only on what you bring into Ireland. Revenue's manual says so for section 200A lump sums, and the same remittance basis applies to foreign income generally. See the remittance basis guide and keep the payout in its own account.
• If you're Irish-domiciled, the whole payout is taxable in the year it's paid, wherever the money sits.
• It goes on Form 11. A foreign pension or lump sum above the Form 12 limits makes you a chargeable person. See our Form 11 guide.

Worked example: a ₦20 million lump sum at 50

Starting data (assumptions): Emeka resigned from a bank in Lagos in 2019, when his salary was ₦6,000,000 a year, and has made no RSA contributions since. He has been a data analyst in Dublin since then, earning €58,000 in 2026, so his top rates are 40% income tax and 3% USC. He's single, Irish resident and still Nigerian-domiciled. He turned 50 in 2026, and his PFA approves a ₦20,000,000 lump sum from his ₦60,000,000 RSA, with the rest paid as a programmed withdrawal of ₦250,000 a month (₦3,000,000 a year, 50% of his last salary, which is what lets the lump sum exceed 25%). He leaves his 2026 programmed withdrawals in Nigeria. He has had no earlier pension lump sums anywhere. We use €1 = ₦1,700; because he's taxed on what he brings in, Revenue would look at the euro that actually reaches his Irish account.

Leaving the money in Nigeria defers the Irish tax rather than removing it: it becomes taxable when Emeka brings it in while he's still Irish resident. Money he spends in Nigeria, on family or on a house there, is never brought in. If he moves back to Nigeria before drawing the RSA, the timing matters: section 200A applies only to lump sums paid while you're Irish resident, but if Revenue treats the payout as ordinary foreign income, ordinary residence can keep it within Irish tax until you've been non-resident for three full tax years (for someone not Irish-domiciled, only the part brought into Ireland). Ask before you move.

Should you join PenCom's dollar pension from Ireland?

• No Irish relief. Migrant member relief, the Irish relief for contributions to an overseas pension where no treaty applies, covers plans set up in an EU member state or the UK, and the plan must be for the sole purpose of retirement benefits (Revenue Pensions Manual chapter 17). A Nigerian RSA meets neither condition.
• The withdrawal question. A fund that pays out 60% after six months isn't a foreign pension arrangement on Revenue's test. Whether Ireland would tax only the growth or the whole withdrawal as foreign income hasn't been tested, and the worst case taxes money you've already paid tax on.
• The Irish alternative. €200 a month into a PRSA or an Irish pension costs a 40% taxpayer €120 after relief, within age-related limits of 15% to 40% of earnings. The same €200 sent to an RSA gets nothing back. See AVC and pension tax relief.
• When it can still make sense: if you're sure you'll retire in Nigeria and want the savings in dollars there. Ask before you start, not after the first withdrawal.

What Revenue actually asks for

• The PFA's benefit or approval letter showing the lump sum, the programmed withdrawal and the dates.
• Your RSA statements, showing the balance and any earlier withdrawals, including any 25% taken for a mortgage or after losing a job.
• Bank records of every transfer from the account the money was paid into, if you're not Irish-domiciled. Keep the RSA payout separate from savings you had before you arrived, because those aren't taxed when brought in.
• Your Form 11 for the year, with the foreign income declared.

Where do you start?

Ask your PFA for a current RSA statement and the date you can first draw on it. Then work out whether you're Irish-domiciled and where you'll want the money. Those three facts decide whether the payout costs you nothing in Ireland or up to 51% of it, or of what you bring in if you're not Irish-domiciled (40% income tax plus USC, including the 3% surcharge on non-PAYE income above €100,000). Settle them before the PFA pays, and before you sign up for the dollar scheme.

Related reading

• Is there an Ireland–Nigeria tax treaty?
• Tax refunds for Nigerian workers in Ireland
• Sending money home from Ireland: what's taxed
• The remittance basis for non-domiciled residents
• Pension lump sum tax in Ireland: the €200,000 lifetime limit
• Withdrawing a South African retirement annuity from Ireland
• Tax guides by nationality

Questions we get asked