This guide follows a single import from the moment a supplier sends you a proforma invoice to the moment your goods leave the port gate. It is written for Nigeria and Ghana specifically, because the ECOWAS corridor has requirements — Form M, PAAR, ICUMS, SONCAP — that generic import advice does not cover.
The recurring theme: most of the work happens before the goods ship. Importers who treat clearance as something that starts when the vessel arrives are the ones paying demurrage.
Stage 1 — The proforma invoice
The proforma invoice is your supplier's formal offer. It is not a receipt and not a contract in itself, but it becomes the document every subsequent filing is built on, so errors here propagate through the entire process.
Check every one of these before you accept it:
- Full legal name and address of the supplier, matching their business registration. This must match the name on the bill of lading and on the bank transfer.
- Your own company name and address, exactly as registered. This will become the importer of record.
- A precise goods description. Not "electronics" — the actual product, model, material, and specification. Customs will classify from this.
- HS code. Ask the supplier for theirs, then verify it independently. Suppliers routinely give the code that suits their export paperwork, not yours.
- Quantity, unit price, and total, with the currency stated.
- The Incoterm, with named place and year. "CFR Apapa, Incoterms 2020", not "CFR".
- Country of origin. Distinct from country of shipment, and it determines any preferential rate.
- Payment terms.
- Estimated production and shipping lead time.
A proforma invoice with a vague goods description is the single most common root cause of a delayed clearance in this corridor. Everything downstream — Form M, PAAR, the entry — inherits that description.
Stage 2 — Regulatory pre-clearance
This is the stage that cannot be fixed retroactively, and it is where the corridor differs most from generic guidance.
Nigeria: Form M and PAAR
Form M is an electronic declaration filed through an authorised dealer bank before the goods ship. It registers the transaction with the Nigeria Customs Service and the Central Bank, and it is valid for 180 days for general goods, 360 for capital goods.
You cannot file it after shipment. Goods arriving against a transaction with no Form M are in an immediate and expensive problem.
Filing requires the proforma invoice, your tax identification, your registration documents, and a completed regulatory certificate where the product is controlled.
PAAR — the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report — is issued by Customs against your Form M. It carries the classification and valuation Customs will apply. It is generated from the documents you submitted, which is why an inaccurate proforma produces a PAAR you will then have to argue with.
SONCAP. Regulated products need a SONCAP Certificate, which depends on a Product Certificate obtained on the supplier's side from an accredited body. Start this early; it involves testing and the supplier has to cooperate.
NAFDAC registration applies separately to food, drugs, cosmetics, medical devices, and chemicals. It is a slow process measured in months, not weeks, and it attaches to the product, not the shipment.
Ghana: ICUMS and standards
Ghana consolidated its clearance onto the ICUMS platform, run by the Ghana Revenue Authority. Declarations, valuation, permits, and payment all flow through it.
Depending on the product you may need an import permit from the relevant sector regulator, and conformity assessment through the Ghana Standards Authority. As in Nigeria, the controlled-product processes take time and some require supplier-side testing.
The practical rule
Identify which of these apply to your specific HS code before you pay a deposit. A supplier who cannot produce the certification your market requires is not a supplier you can use, and that is much cheaper to discover at quotation stage.
Stage 3 — Payment
Your options, in rough order of buyer protection:
Letter of credit. Bank-intermediated, document-triggered. In Nigeria the LC is opened through your authorised dealer bank and ties into the Form M. Strong protection, real cost, and it usually requires cash cover or a credit line.
Escrow. A third party holds funds and releases them on an agreed trigger. Cheaper and faster than an LC, well-suited to the order sizes most first-time importers are working with.
Staged telegraphic transfer. Commonly 30% deposit, 70% against shipping documents. Widely used and workable with a supplier you have vetted — but understand that once the deposit leaves, your recourse is commercial goodwill.
Full advance payment. Avoid on a first order. If a supplier will accept nothing else, that is information about the supplier.
Whatever you choose, pay to the supplier's registered company account in the supplier's own country. Payment redirected to a personal account, a third-party "trading arm", or an account in an unrelated jurisdiction is the classic fraud pattern. If bank details change mid-transaction, stop and verify by voice on a number you already held.
Stage 4 — Production and inspection
While the goods are being made, two things should happen.
Book your pre-shipment inspection. An independent inspector visits when production is complete and at least 80% packed. Give them a written checklist: specification, dimensions and tolerances, function tests, packaging, labelling, carton count, and your AQL levels. See the separate guide on inspection for how to set these.
Confirm the inspection gates your payment. The inspection is worth very little if the balance has already been released. Structure it so a failed inspection means unreleased funds.
Note again that a commercial inspection is not the same as SONCAP or GSA conformity assessment. Regulated goods need both — one proves the goods meet your specification, the other proves they may legally enter.
Stage 5 — The shipping documents
When the goods ship, your supplier produces a document set. Check it immediately and in detail, because errors are far cheaper to correct before arrival.
- Bill of lading. Confirm it is clean (no damage notation) and on board (actually loaded). Check the consignee, the notify party, the port of discharge, and the goods description against the invoice. Confirm whether transhipment is involved, and that the description matches your Form M.
- Commercial invoice. The final version, matching the proforma unless you agreed changes.
- Packing list. Carton count, gross and net weights, dimensions.
- Certificate of origin. Required for any preferential rate, and issued by a chamber of commerce or equivalent in the supplier's country.
- Insurance certificate, if the Incoterm requires the seller to insure. Read the cover level — CIF obliges only minimum ICC (C) cover, which excludes theft and most water damage.
- Regulatory certificates — SONCAP, conformity, phytosanitary, or fumigation certificates as applicable.
Send the complete set to your clearing agent the moment you have it. This single habit is the difference between a three-day clearance and a three-week one.
Stage 6 — Appointing a clearing agent
You will need a licensed customs agent. Choose deliberately.
Verify the licence. Unlicensed intermediaries subcontracting to a licensed agent add a margin layer and remove accountability.
Understand that you are the importer of record. Legal liability for the declaration is yours, not the agent's. An agent offering to "reduce your duty" through creative classification is offering you their convenience and your liability.
Agree the fee structure in writing, separating their fee from disbursements paid on your behalf, and ask for receipts for disbursements. A single bundled figure is where margin hides.
Appoint them before the vessel sails, so they can pre-lodge the entry and have it ready on arrival.
Stage 7 — Duty, VAT, and levies
Both Nigeria and Ghana apply the ECOWAS Common External Tariff, with bands of 0%, 5%, 10%, 20%, and 35%, and both assess duty on the CIF value — freight and insurance are added back even if you bought FOB.
Nigeria, on top of duty: a 7% surcharge, 1% CISS, a 0.5% ETLS levy, and VAT at 7.5%.
Ghana, on top of duty: VAT at 15%, plus NHIL at 2.5%, GETFund at 2.5%, and a 1% COVID-19 Health Recovery Levy. Several of these are computed on a duty-inclusive base, so they compound.
Rates change. Treat these as indicative and confirm against the current schedule before committing to an order.
A worked example
$20,000 of goods, $1,700 freight and insurance, into Ghana at a 20% band:
- CIF value: $21,700
- Duty at 20%: $4,340
- Base for levies (CIF + duty): $26,040
- VAT 15%: $3,906
- NHIL 2.5%: $651
- GETFund 2.5%: $651
- COVID-19 levy 1%: $260
Total border cost: roughly $9,808 — about 45% on top of the goods value, before your agent's fee, terminal handling, or inland transport.
If you priced your selling margin off the supplier's invoice, this is where the business model fails.
Stage 8 — Arrival, examination, release
On arrival the entry is lodged (ideally already pre-lodged), duty is assessed and paid, and the consignment is routed to a risk channel:
- Green — released without check.
- Yellow — documentary examination.
- Blue — released now, audited later.
- Red — physical examination, usually after scanning.
You do not choose the channel, but you influence it. Consistent, accurate declarations from a compliant importer score better over time; erratic values and shifting classifications push you toward red permanently. This is the strongest practical argument against creative declaration — the real cost is a permanent examination tax on every future shipment.
Before the container leaves you must also settle terminal handling and shipping-line charges, and return the empty container within the free period or pay detention.
The costs that ruin margins
Demurrage is owed to the shipping line for holding their container beyond the free days. Storage is owed to the terminal for occupying space. They are separate, they both compound daily, and together they are the largest avoidable cost in West African importing.
Both are almost always caused by a document that was late or wrong. Apapa and Tin Can Island in Lagos are congested enough that a two-day paperwork delay routinely becomes a two-week release.
FX timing is the other silent cost. Where currency must be sourced through a formal process, the gap between agreeing a price and settling it can move your landed cost materially. Build the exposure into your pricing rather than discovering it at settlement.
A timeline that works
- T-45 days: Confirm HS classification. Model landed cost fully. Identify every regulatory requirement for the code.
- T-35 days: Proforma invoice agreed and checked. Begin SONCAP / conformity processes.
- T-30 days: Form M filed through your bank. Payment structure agreed.
- T-21 days: Deposit paid. Production begins.
- T-10 days: Book pre-shipment inspection.
- T-5 days: Inspection passed. Balance released against documents.
- T-3 days: Full document set received and checked. Sent to clearing agent. PAAR obtained.
- Shipment: Bill of lading issued.
- T+0 (arrival): Entry pre-lodged, duty arranged.
- T+2 to T+5: Examination, release, delivery.
After release
Keep everything. Customs administrations in both markets conduct post-clearance audits reaching back several years, examining whether your classification, valuation, and origin claims were correct. If they were not, you pay the difference plus penalties — long after you sold the goods at a price based on the duty you actually paid.
Retain, for at least five years: the commercial invoice, packing list, bill of lading, certificate of origin, Form M and PAAR, the entry, proof of payment, your classification rationale, and any advance ruling.
And build your own cost model from what you actually paid. After three or four consignments you will have corridor-specific numbers more accurate than any general guidance — including this guide.