How to File a Nil VAT Return on Rev360 (Nigeria)

If your business is VAT-registered but had no sales and no purchases in a month, you still have to file. That filing is called a nil return, and it goes through the same Rev360 portal and the same Form VAT 002 workbook as any other month — just with zeros in the schedules.

This is the single most commonly skipped filing in Nigeria, usually by businesses that assume "no activity, nothing to declare". The NRS does not see it that way: the penalty is for failing to file, not for failing to pay.

When you need a nil return

File a nil return for any month where all of the following are true:

• Your business is VAT-registered (you have a TIN and are on the VAT register)
• You made no taxable sales in the period
• You have no input VAT to claim on purchases

A few situations that catch people out:

Situation	Do you file?
Registered but not yet trading	Yes — nil return every month until you deregister
Dormant company, still registered	Yes — registration, not activity, creates the duty
Sales this month but all zero-rated or exempt	No, not nil — these are still reportable supplies; file a normal return
No sales, but you bought stock and paid input VAT	No, not nil — file a normal return and claim the input credit

The third and fourth rows matter. A month with zero-rated sales is not a nil month, and filing it as nil understates your turnover on the NRS's record. A month where you only made purchases is also not nil — and filing it as nil throws away input VAT you were entitled to recover.

The deadline is the same

Nil returns are due by the 21st of the month following the period, exactly like a normal return. A nil return filed on the 22nd is a late return and attracts the same penalty as any other late filing.

Transaction month	Nil return due
January	21 February
February	21 March
March	21 April

Filing it on Rev360

The process mirrors a normal return, because Rev360 does not have a separate "nil" route — you submit the standard Form VAT 002 with zero values.

1. Sign in to Rev360

Go to the NRS Rev360 portal and sign in with your TIN and password. If your account is tied to a tax officer's approval, make sure the VAT obligation is showing as active for the period you are filing.

2. Select the VAT obligation and period

Choose VAT and select the month you are filing for. Confirm the period before you go further — filing a nil return against the wrong month leaves the real month unfiled, and you will not notice until a demand notice arrives.

3. Download the Form VAT 002 workbook

Rev360 works off the official multi-sheet Excel template rather than a simple web form. Download the current version from the portal each time; do not reuse an old copy, because the NRS updates the template and an outdated workbook can be rejected on upload.

4. Complete the workbook with zeros

• Schedule A (Sales) — leave empty, or enter zero where the sheet requires a value. Do not delete the sheet or its header rows.
• Schedule B (Sales Adjustments) — leave empty.
• Schedule C (Purchases) — leave empty.
• Main return sheet — output VAT 0, input VAT 0, net VAT payable 0.

Fill in your business identifiers (TIN, name, period) exactly as they appear on the portal. The most common cause of a rejected nil upload is a mismatch between the TIN on the workbook and the account filing it.

Do not restructure the workbook. Deleting unused sheets, renaming tabs, adding columns, or re-saving through a tool that reformats numbers will fail validation on upload.

5. Upload and submit

Upload the completed workbook, let Rev360 validate it, and submit. Where a return has no purchase invoices to attach, there is nothing to upload in the invoice step.

6. Save the acknowledgement

Download the filing acknowledgement or receipt and keep it. For a nil return this is the only evidence that you filed at all — there is no payment reference to fall back on, so if the acknowledgement is lost you have nothing to show during an audit or a Tax Clearance Certificate application.

What it costs to skip

The penalty applies to the failure to file, so a nil month is not a free pass:

• ₦50,000 for the first month of default
• ₦25,000 for each subsequent month the return remains unfiled

A dormant company that files nothing for a year is looking at a substantial bill for returns that would each have been zero. It also blocks your Tax Clearance Certificate, because the NRS will not issue a TCC against a record with missing periods — which is how most businesses discover the problem, usually when a contract or a tender depends on the certificate.

Common mistakes

Filing nil to buy time. If you had sales but the paperwork is not ready, filing nil is not a holding position — it is an incorrect return, and correcting it later means an amended filing and questions about the difference.

Assuming no invoices means nil. If you paid VAT on purchases, you have input VAT to claim. Filing nil forfeits it for that period.

Forgetting to deregister. If the business has genuinely stopped trading, filing nil returns forever is not the answer. Apply to deregister for VAT and the obligation ends; until it does, every month you skip is a fresh penalty.

Filing nil for a zero-rated month. Zero-rated supplies are taxable supplies at 0% — they belong on Schedule A. Exempt supplies are reportable too. Neither makes the month nil.

How Finora helps

Finora tracks your VAT position from the transactions you have already recorded, so you do not have to work out whether a month is genuinely nil. If there were no taxable sales and no input VAT, the period shows as nil and you can file with confidence rather than guessing. If there were zero-rated sales or a stray purchase invoice, it shows those instead — which is exactly the case where filing nil would have been wrong.

Because the figures come from your invoices and expenses rather than a spreadsheet you rebuild each month, the schedules that feed Form VAT 002 are already populated when a period is not nil, and the filing deadline sits in the tax calendar rather than in someone's memory.

Frequently asked questions

Can I file several months of nil returns at once?

You file each period separately on Rev360. The penalty accrues per outstanding return, so filing the backlog does not consolidate it into one charge — but it does stop the monthly penalty growing.

Does a nil return need a payment?

No. There is nothing to pay on a nil return. The obligation is the filing itself.

I registered for VAT but have never traded. Do I really have to file?

Yes. The duty follows registration, not turnover. File nil returns each month, or apply to deregister if you do not intend to trade.

What if I filed nil by mistake and I did have sales?

File an amended return for that period as soon as you notice. The longer the gap, the more likely it is to surface as a discrepancy during a VAT audit, when it is treated far less sympathetically than a voluntary correction.

Do nil returns affect my Tax Clearance Certificate?

Filed on time, no — a complete record of nil returns is a clean record. Unfiled, yes: any missing period will hold up the certificate.