Nigeria FAAC allocation explained: what states receive and what is deducted

Every month, the Federation Account Allocation Committee — FAAC — meets to share out the pool of federally collected revenue: oil receipts, VAT, company income tax, and import and excise duties. The money is split three ways, between the federal government, the 36 states plus the FCT, and the 774 local government councils. For most states it is the largest single line of revenue. For the majority of the 774 councils it is the only significant one. That is why a FAAC number is never just a federal-budget story.

The ₦2 trillion run

Monthly FAAC first crossed ₦2 trillion on July 2025 revenue and stayed above it through October, peaking at ₦2,225bn in August. It eased to between ₦1.89trn and ₦2.00trn over the turn of the year, then cleared ₦2trn again in March 2026 and set new highs:

A run above ₦2trn is not new on its own: the 2025 run lasted four months and then fell back. What is new is two successive records. The drivers are identifiable: improved NNPCL remittances after the subsidy reform, naira-denominated valuation gains on dollar-priced oil revenue once the currency was floated, and sustained FIRS non-oil collections.

Reconciliation receipt: which month is a FAAC number?

FAAC figures are quoted inconsistently across the press, because a single allocation has three dates: the month the revenue was earned, the month the committee met, and the month the cash was disbursed. Two outlets can report different totals for “the same” FAAC and both be right. ONYX keys every allocation to the revenue month and records the total distributed across the three tiers, so the series is internally consistent and comparable over time. Where a communiqué and an NBS release disagree, we resolve against the primary communiqué and keep the alternate as a dated audit record. One consequence worth knowing: no FAAC communiqué announced a headline figure for revenue-month January 2026. The money was shared in February, and the Accountant-General’s disbursement report puts it at ₦2.000trn (₦3.040trn gross). ONYX labels that month with the OAGF source rather than a communiqué.

What the record conceals

A record FAAC month improves the inflow side of the ledger. It does nothing to the outflow side. Nigeria’s total public debt was ₦159.3tn at the end of 2025 (DMO), and debt service took 76.7% of FGN retained revenue in January–September 2025 (Budget Office). On the ONYX fiscal-stress composite the reading sitsat: Composite scores are being recomputed on actual data (17 Oct 2026). The revenue picture got better; the structural constraint did not move.

The number that matters is subnational

The national headline flattens the part that actually drives decisions. FAAC is shared by a formula, but the amounts — and the dependence on them — vary enormously across the federation:

At state level, the meaningful ratio is FAAC against internally generated revenue (IGR). A handful of states — Lagos foremost — raise enough of their own IGR that a strong FAAC month is a top-up, not a lifeline. For most states, FAAC is the majority of the budget, so a sustained high-FAAC environment changes fiscal headroom directly — and differently in each one. The FAAC-to-IGR ratio, not the allocation alone, is the honest measure of a state’s fiscal resilience.

At LGA level (state observed, LGA apportioned: estimated from state data, not council records), the distribution is extreme. Across all 774 councils, the top decile receives allocations several times larger than the bottom decile, and for most councils there is virtually no IGR to cushion the gap. That ratio decides which local governments can fund basic service delivery and which cannot — the evidence layer most Nigeria analyses skip because it is expensive to assemble. ONYX records each OAGF state schedule as it is posted.

Every figure here shows its receipts

Each allocation above carries its source, its revenue month, and its capture method in the ONYX platform, with the state-by-state series behind it. For a checked note on two states, built from the OAGF state schedule: request a free state note.

Correction, 17 October 2026. An earlier version of this article said FAAC never distributed January 2026 revenue and that the month was never officially published. That was wrong. January 2026 revenue was shared in February 2026: ₦2.000trn to the three tiers and the 13% derivation fund, from ₦3.040trn gross, as published in the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation’s disbursement report for February 2026 (Table I). What is true is narrower: no FAAC communiqué announced a headline total for that month. We confused a disclosure gap with a distribution gap, and the arithmetic we cited as corroboration counted announcements, not payouts. The same review corrected our description of the ₦2 trillion run: we had said March 2026 was the first month above ₦2 trillion on record and that three months running was a first. On our own series, FAAC first cleared ₦2 trillion on July 2025 revenue and held above it for four months; August 2025’s ₦2,225bn stood as the high until April 2026. The text above has been corrected.

Correction, 17 October 2026. An earlier version of this article said federal debt service takes about 40% of FGN retained revenue. That figure had no source, and it was wrong. The Budget Office’s budget implementation reports put debt service, including the sinking fund, at 76.7% of FGN retained revenue (excluding government-owned enterprises) for January to September 2025: ₦12.63trn against ₦16.48trn. For 2024, the last full year, it was 63.5% (provisional). The text above has been corrected.