LagosNigeria
Lagos is a U.S. Foreign Service post in Nigeria, in the State Department's Sub-Saharan Africa bureau, with a 30% hardship differential. The current U.S. travel advisory for Nigeria is Level 3, reconsider travel. It is a designated R&R post. Daily life runs on English. Bidders will find 1 international school for mission families and summers to 90°F, winters to 75°F, ~206 rain days/yr. This post report brings together allowances, schools, safety, weather, flights, embassy holidays, and anonymous community reviews from Foreign Service families who have served in Lagos.
Served in Lagos? Leave an anonymous review, the next family bidding on Lagos gets a real answer.
Write a reviewSnapshot
Climate & weather
Temperature range, F
Rain days
Air quality, monthly PM2.5 (ug/m3)
Green under 12 (good) · amber to 35 (moderate) · red above (unhealthy for sensitive groups)
Real data: Open-Meteo archive (2022-2024 daily, temperature, rain, daylight) and Open-Meteo air quality API (CAMS, hourly PM2.5 2022-2025), aggregated to monthly normals.
Embassy holidays 2026 (official)22 closure days
local US federal
Real data: official embassy holiday schedule ↗. Observed-at-post dates; religious holiday dates are subject to lunar confirmation.
Pay & allowances
Paycheck simulator
What Lagos's allowances actually do to your pay, estimate only
| Base salary | $100,000 |
| Hardship differential (30%)taxable, % of base | $30,000 |
| COLA (0%)non-taxable, % of spendable income | $0 |
| Estimated annual total | $130,000 |
Estimate only, for planning purposes; figures may not reflect the most recent DSSR updates. COLA is applied to spendable income (approximated here at 48.5% of salary, the official tables vary by salary and family size). Grade/step fills from the official Overseas Schedule (includes Overseas Comparability Pay); taxes and premium-pay caps are not modeled. Allowance rates: allowances.state.gov, fetched 2026-09-21. Verify current rates in the DSSR and with your HR office before making career decisions.
Community & mission
Community ratings COMMUNITY-REPORTED
Loading community ratings
What do these categories mean?
- Housing
- Community average (1-5) for assigned housing: size, condition, commute, and how the housing pool compares to expectations. Housing type (government-leased, compound, apartments) is on each post page.
- School rating
- Community average (1-5) of how families rated the schools their kids actually attended: academics, support for arriving mid-year, special needs, and how happy the kids were. Reviewers' grade levels vary, read individual reviews for your kids' ages.
- Morale
- Community average (1-5) for overall post morale, the intangible sum of community, leadership, workload, and whether people would bid it again. Often the number seasoned bidders read first.
- Internet (community rating)
- How livable the internet actually felt (1-5): reliability and VPN-friendliness, not just headline speed. Can diverge from the measured Mbps, outages and throttling show up here first.
- Spouse / partner employment
- Community average (1-5) of how realistic it is for an accompanying spouse or partner (EFM) to work at this post. It reflects three paths: jobs inside the mission (EFM positions), local-economy work (depends on the bilateral work agreement and language), and remote work for a U.S. employer (depends on time zone and internet). 1 ≈ career pause likely · 5 ≈ multiple realistic options.
- Healthcare
- Community average (1-5) for healthcare at post: local care you would actually use, English-speaking providers, and how much falls back on regional medevac, a real factor for families and chronic conditions.
Foreign Service overlay
- Housing
- Allowances source
- allowances.state.gov (public) · fetched 2026-09-21
Housing and EFM notes are crowdsourced from the community, never from internal systems.
Location
- Local time right now
- --:--:--
- Coordinates
- 6.52, 3.38
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Elevation
- 8 m (26 ft)
Life at post
The parts the fact sheet leaves out
Getting away
Nonstop routes for R&R, long weekends, and getting home · official R&R relief point: London, UK
Cheapest weekend round trips · typical fares
Also nonstop
Family visiting? US passport holders need an eVisa, stays up to 30 days.
~$ = typical round-trip economy fare, refreshed monthly, plan with it, don't book with it. Routes fetched from Wikipedia (Airlines & destinations), 2026-09-04.
Health
- Malaria (CDC)
- All areas; atovaquone-proguanil, doxycycline, mefloquine, or tafenoquine
- Yellow fever (CDC)
- Vaccine recommended for all travelers; certificate required if arriving from risk countries.
Security & context
- Official U.S. travel advisory
- Level 3: Reconsider Travel Read the full advisory ↗Real data: travel.state.gov, fetched 2026-09-21
- Earthquake exposure
- Low seismicity, 0 quakes of M5+ within 300 km since 2000.Real data: USGS earthquake catalog.
- What crime looks like
- Governance & daily freedom
- Federal democracy with real elections and real corruption; police checkpoints are frequent and sometimes ask for 'dash'.
- Relations with the US
- Cooperative, with a large Nigerian diaspora in the US. Americans are welcome, but read the security guidance.
Home & daily life
- Power & plugs
Plug type: D/G · 230V 50Hz , US plugs won't fit, bring adapters. Phone and laptop chargers are fine on 230V; only US-only appliances (hair dryers, kitchen gear) need a transformer.
- Household help
- Pets
- Quarantine: None with paperworkStart prep: 1-2 months
- Few airlines accept pet cargo to Abuja; routes and crates book out early.
- Official import requirements for Nigeria (USDA APHIS) →
Getting around & fitting in
- Getting around
- Rules of the road (and the bar)
- Drives on the rightDriving age 18Drinking age no limitRoad deaths 20.7/100k (US ~14)
- Language
- English
Tell the posts page what you speak to filter all posts by your languages. It is never shown to anyone.
LGBTQ+ travelers
Official State Dept guidance for Nigeria · page updated June 25, 2026
Consensual, same-sex sexual relations are illegal in Nigeria. Entering same-sex marriage contracts and civil unions (defined to include “any arrangement between persons of the same sex to live together as sex partners”) is also criminalized, with punishments including fines and prison sentences of up to 14 years. Same-sex marriage contracts and civil unions entered into in a foreign country are not recognized under Nigerian law. Public displays of affection between persons of the same sex are also punishable by up to ten years imprisonment. Furthermore, the law allows for the prosecution of persons who support or belong to advocacy groups relating to LGB issues, with prison sentences of up to ten years. U.S. citizens who participate in free speech or assemblies relating to same-sex marriage could potentially be prosecuted under this law. In the following northern states, where Sharia law applies, penalties can also include death: Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara. See our LGB Travel Information page.
Same-sex spouse and MOH accreditation is decided post by post and is not published publicly. Community reviews are the best read on how it works here in practice, and glifaa (LGBTQ+ employees of foreign-affairs agencies) maintains member resources.
Money & prices
- Local currency
- Nigerian naira · 1330.64 NGN/USD. Has strengthened sharply against the dollar over 24 months (+19% vs. USD). A weakening currency stretches a dollar salary further; a strengthening one quietly shrinks it.
- Local inflation
- 23% CPI inflation (2025). High inflation means posted prices age fast, and COLA reviews chase reality.
- Overall price level
- Local prices run about 13% of US prices overall (World Bank PPP, 2025). Imported and expat-favorite goods usually cost more than this average suggests.US 100%
Medications & prescriptionsADHD stimulants: Restricted, documentation required
- ADHD stimulants (Adderall, Ritalin class)
- Restricted, documentation required. Controlled-substance import needs documentation; carry the original Rx and a doctor's letter.
- Other controlled classes (benzos, opioids, sleep meds)
- Codeine products are heavily restricted after the OTC ban; counterfeit meds are a real risk, buy only from vetted pharmacies.
- Refills on the ground
- Most officers run all maintenance meds through the pouch; local sourcing is a last resort.
Curated snapshot, not legal advice: rules change and enforcement varies. Verify every medication by substance name with the INCB listing and post's health unit before you bid, and again before you pack. Community reviews keep the refill reality current.
Schools & reviews
Schools
The Lagos directory is brand new. Served here? Pass along the pediatrician or dry cleaner the next family will need.
Free with an account, no Premium required. Recommendations only, never ratings.
Community reviews
Anonymous by default · countingReviews publish through the Post Report form and appear here immediately. Loading the latest...
Deep researchCurated links for going past what fits on one page
External sites open in a new tab. PostCompass links out rather than scraping, public data stays with its source and its context.
Keep exploring
Posts like Lagos
Closest overall profiles across all metrics, worth a look before you finalize a list.