NOTAP — Nigeria's Mandatory Technology-Transfer Registrar

Nigeria's National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) is a statutory federal agency, in continuous operation since 1979 and re-established under the NOTAP Act 2004, that must review every foreign technology-licensing, franchise, trademark, technical-know-how or software agreement before Nigerian banks may remit the associated royalty or fee payments abroad.

Agreements are evaluated on legal, economic and technical grounds and must be registered within 30 days of signature. NOTAP has automated its registration process, required banks to confirm certification before processing outbound technology payments in partnership with the Central Bank of Nigeria, and reports establishing 64 intellectual-property transfer offices to widen its reach.

NOTAP's director-general has stated that the agency's reviews blocked roughly N265 billion in avoidable capital outflows between 2012 and 2019, and separately that about 70% of multinational firms now comply with registration requirements.

These monetary savings figures should be read with caution: NOTAP's own communications have cited different totals for overlapping or adjacent periods — N191 billion for 1983–2008, N240 billion for 'the last 10 years' on its own website, and N265 billion for 2012–2019 as reported by The Guardian Nigeria — with no independently audited reconciliation found. The practice is best understood as a durable regulatory-compliance mechanism with self-reported, directional impact claims rather than an externally verified cost-benefit result.