Country code +234

Sending SMS to Nigeria

Nigeria is the largest mobile market in Africa and one where SMS still carries traffic that has moved to data elsewhere — bank alerts in particular. The NCC mandates a Do-Not-Disturb short code, and 2442 opt-outs are honoured at network level, which means a list bought rather than built will quietly stop delivering.

Sender ID

How your name appears in Nigeria

What shows up in the recipient’s inbox, and what has to be true before it can.

9:41

SMSLOCAL

Text Message

Your verification code is 4172. Valid for 10 minutes.

now

Delivered on +234

Sender ID rules for +234

Alphanumeric sender IDs are supported and should be registered with the operators to avoid filtering.

Number format+234 XXX XXX XXXX — mobile numbers drop the leading 0 in E.164.

Delivers across every major network in Nigeria: MTN Nigeria, Airtel Nigeria, Glo, 9mobile.

What people send most: Bank transaction alerts · Airtime and data top-up confirmations · Political and public information.

Message length: under the standard SMS encoding, a segment typically holds 160 GSM-7 characters, or 70 once a message uses Unicode — Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, emoji. Longer messages split into several segments automatically and are billed per segment; exact limits are confirmed for Nigeria as part of onboarding.

Before you send

What Nigeria requires

These are the constraints that decide whether a message is delivered, filtered or blocked — not general best practice.

Requirement 1 of 4: The NCC DND service (short code 2442) lets subscribers block promotional traffic at network level.

Requirement 1 of 4

The NCC DND service (short code 2442) lets subscribers block promotional traffic at network level.

Checked automatically on every message we send to Nigeria — nothing for you to track by hand.

Networks

Mobile operators in Nigeria

We deliver to every network below. Route quality is measured per operator, not averaged across the country.

4Networks

MTN NigeriaLive route

Airtel NigeriaLive route

GloLive route

9mobileLive route

Traffic

What businesses send in Nigeria

Bank transaction alerts

Sent the instant the triggering event happens — trusted for anything time-sensitive tied to money.

Airtime and data top-up confirmations

One of the use cases we see repeatedly in this market — SMS still outperforms other channels for anything that needs to be read quickly.

Political and public information

Typically exempt from marketing consent rules, but still expected to identify the sender clearly.

Dialling

How to dial Nigeria

Every part of the number, laid out separately, then the same thing written the way an API expects it.

+Exit

234Country code

XXX XXX XXXXNational number

+234 — +234 XXX XXX XXXX — mobile numbers drop the leading 0 in E.164.

From abroad, replace your exit code with +, then 234, then the national number — dropping the national trunk prefix if the country uses one (a leading 0 in most, though not in the +1 numbering plan). Store numbers in E.164 (+234…) and they work from any country and any API.

At a glance