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How to Call Nigeria from the UK — The Honest 2026 Guide

Last updated: June 2026

Calling Nigeria from the UK can cost anywhere from 5.5p a minute to over £3 a minute depending on how you place the call. For the Nigerian community in the UK making regular calls home to Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt or anywhere else, the wrong provider can add hundreds of pounds to your annual phone bill. This guide walks through every realistic option — including the ones cheaper than ours — so you can make the right choice.

What do UK mobile networks actually charge for Nigeria?

UK mobile networks are by far the most expensive way to call Nigeria. Standard pay-as-you-go rates on Vodafone, EE and O2 range from roughly 50p to £3 per minute. Even on contract plans that advertise "international minutes", Nigeria is usually excluded from the inclusive bundle and billed at premium rates. A 30-minute weekly call to family at 50p/min works out to around £780 per year — a striking figure when cheaper options exist.

Dedicated international calling providers

This is the category where real savings live. A handful of operators focus specifically on the Nigeria diaspora market and compete on per-minute price:

• TISA Home (Call2Naija): 5.5p/min inclusive of VAT to any Nigerian mobile or landline. No connection fee, £5 minimum top-up, £1 free credit on signup.
• Lebara / Lycamobile: SIM-based international providers. Per-minute rates to Nigeria are typically around 7p, though they update rate cards frequently — always check the current rate on their own site before topping up.
• Boss Revolution: A long-established international calling service. Typically around 9p/min to Nigeria, with a US-centric onboarding experience.
• Rebtel: Uses a local-number routing trick — you dial a UK number that re-routes to Nigeria. Often marketed as 1–3p/min but usually requires a monthly subscription to unlock the lowest rate.
• Access-number calling cards (e.g. 0844 / 0871 numbers): Cheap published rates, but your UK network may charge you for the access number itself on top of the advertised per-minute rate. Read the small print carefully.

What about WhatsApp, Viber and free internet calls?

If both you and the person in Nigeria have a reliable internet connection and a smartphone, WhatsApp and Viber calls are free. Nothing is cheaper than zero. However, call quality depends entirely on the weaker of the two internet connections. In parts of Nigeria where mobile data is intermittent, or where the recipient is on a feature phone or landline, app-to-app calling simply isn't an option.

Services like TISA Home terminate the call to the Nigerian phone network itself, so the recipient doesn't need Wi-Fi, a smartphone or any app installed. That's why most diaspora callers still use a paid service for at least some of their calls home — particularly calls to older relatives and landlines.

Nigerian network coverage: MTN, Glo, Airtel, 9mobile

Nigeria has four major mobile networks — MTN Nigeria, Glo, Airtel Nigeria, and 9mobile — plus landline numbers served by various operators. Most reputable UK-to-Nigeria calling services price all four networks identically. Watch out for providers that advertise a headline rate but charge extra for specific networks: this is a real tactic, and it usually catches MTN callers because MTN has the largest subscriber base in Nigeria.

Call2Naija (TISA Home) charges 5.5p/min across MTN, Glo, Airtel, 9mobile and landlines — no network surcharges, no peak/off-peak pricing, no weekend premium.

How to dial a Nigerian number from the UK

Nigeria's country code is +234. To dial from the UK, replace the leading zero of the local Nigerian number with +234. For example, if the number you've been given is 0803 123 4567, dial +234 803 123 4567. Most apps, including TISA Home, format this automatically — you paste the number in and tap call.

Time zones and when to call

Nigeria is on West Africa Time (WAT), which is 1 hour ahead of the UK during British winter (GMT) and the same time as the UK during British Summer Time (BST). So a 7pm call from London in July is a 7pm call in Lagos; the same call in January becomes 8pm local. Nigeria doesn't observe daylight saving, so the gap only shifts when the UK clocks change.

Our honest recommendation

If both parties have good internet, use WhatsApp — it's free and hard to beat. For everything else (calls to older relatives, landlines, people with poor data, anywhere you need a reliable connection), use a dedicated service. TISA Home is the cheapest paid option we've found for Nigeria at 5.5p/min inclusive of VAT. You get £1 free credit on signup — around 18 minutes — so you can test the call quality before topping up. If you find a consistently cheaper legitimate rate elsewhere, email us at [email protected] and we'll look at matching it.