Supporting family in Nigeria from Ireland and mainland Europe

The Nigerian community in Europe, in numbers

• Ireland: 20,559 residents born in Nigeria at the 2022 census, up 24% on 2016; 8,861 of them aged 45 to 64 and only 276 aged 65 and over. The parents are in Nigeria.
• Italy: 132,129 Nigerian citizens resident on 1 January 2025, the largest Nigerian community in continental Europe, concentrated in Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Piedmont and Veneto. Italy was among Nigeria's top five remittance sources in the last World Bank bilateral matrix, and Italian data record €257.8 million sent to Nigeria in 2024.
• The Netherlands: 22,463 people of Nigerian origin (13,979 born in Nigeria), mostly in North and South Holland. Spain: 36,367 Nigerian nationals in 2022, led by Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. Germany: roughly 72,000 (2019), the last figure found.

What it costs to send euros to Nigeria

• World Bank Remittance Prices Worldwide, Q3 2025, for a €200-equivalent transfer: Italy to Nigeria averaged 4.55% (cheapest 0.74%, dearest 19.31% across ten providers); Germany 2.85% (one app better than the reference rate); Spain 2.88%. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most expensive region to send to, at 8.46% on average.
• On 19 September 2026 a €100 transfer from Ireland arrived as between about 152,000 and 161,000 naira depending on the app, against a mid-market rate of about 1,527. Apps that show a separate fee charged under 1% on €1,000; others advertise no transfer fee to Nigeria and take their margin in the rate.
• There is no legal ceiling on how much or how often a private person may send from the EU; anti-money-laundering checks apply, and the sender's identity is verified for transfers above €1,000. SEPA's equal-charges rule applies to euro transfers inside Europe, not to the currency conversion into naira.
• Ireland's consumer protection body advises checking that any money transfer provider is on the Central Bank of Ireland's register (registers.centralbank.ie) and comparing the rate as well as the fee.

The three questions, from the eurozone

• What is the money for? A fixed monthly sum for food and a separate, larger, unpredictable one for health. Health inflation in Nigeria runs ahead of the headline rate: blood-pressure medicines rose 134% in the private market in one year to February 2024.
• Who spends it? The relative on the ground, with all the trust and strain that carries, or a plan in the member's own name that pays hospitals and pharmacies directly within its benefits.
• What happens the month something goes wrong? A hospital deposit in Lagos is a cash call at 2am, in a currency that has moved since the last transfer.

A plan in the member's name, from Europe

• Billed monthly, the Kinship Plan is £20 a month. Add 1, 2 or 4 visits per month for monthly totals of £60, £95 or £160. Brothers and sisters in different countries can chip in as one payment.
• The member in Nigeria holds the plan, a qualified nurse visits the home in Lagos on the schedule chosen, a named Kinkeeper reviews every visit update, and everyone the member has invited reads the same update in the app, whatever the time zone.
• Health benefits are coming soon. When they launch, they will apply at network hospitals across Nigeria in the member's name, so the hospital's first question is the card, not the relative abroad.

Questions people ask

Related

• Supporting family in Nigeria from the US or Canada
• Sharing the cost of a plan