Quick answer
The Central Bank of Nigeria sets the Monetary Policy Rate at Monetary Policy Committee meetings and backs it with a high cash reserve ratio and its external reserves. It raised the rate from 11.50% in early 2022 to a peak of 27.50% in November 2024, and has cut it three times since September 2025, to 23.00% on 22 September 2026. Gross external reserves were about USD 54.9 billion at the end of September 2026.
Who this guide is for
Use this guide for USD/NGN research, frontier-market rate comparisons, or to follow a central bank in the middle of a move from exchange-rate management toward inflation targeting.
CBN snapshot
The figures below are official statistics as stored on the Nigeria data page. Each carries its own date, because measures taken from different points in the cycle give a misleading picture.
| Measure | Latest | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Monetary Policy Rate | 23.00% | Since 22 September 2026 |
| Cycle peak | 27.50% | November 2024 to September 2025 |
| Gross external reserves | USD 54.9 bn | 30 September 2026 |
| USD/NGN | 1329.60 | 2 October 2026 |
Mandate and instruments
The Central Bank of Nigeria Act 2007 gives the Bank the objective of ensuring monetary and price stability, alongside issuing the currency, maintaining external reserves and promoting a sound financial system. The Bank has said it is moving toward an inflation-targeting framework, which makes the Monetary Policy Rate and the communication around it more important than they were when the exchange rate was the main anchor.
The Monetary Policy Rate is the benchmark, with an asymmetric corridor around it that sets the rates on the standing lending and deposit facilities. The cash reserve ratio, the share of deposits banks must hold at the central bank, is unusually high by international standards and is used actively to absorb liquidity. Open market operations bills are a third channel.
Because the corridor and the cash reserve ratio can change at the same meeting as the rate, a decision has to be read as a package. A hold on the rate with a higher reserve ratio is a tightening.
One of the largest tightening cycles of the decade
The Monetary Policy Rate was 11.50% from September 2020 until May 2022. It then rose at almost every meeting, reaching 18.75% by July 2023. After the exchange-rate reforms of 2023 the Committee delivered its largest moves: 400 basis points in February 2024 and 200 in March 2024, and further increases to 27.25% by September 2024 and 27.50% in November 2024. In total the rate rose by sixteen percentage points in under three years.
Easing began on 23 September 2025 with a cut to 27.00%, followed by 26.50% in February 2026. The series then records a much larger reduction, to 23.00%, at the meeting of 22 September 2026.
Monetary Policy Rate
Central Bank of Nigeria Monetary Policy Rate, percent, by decision date.
Takeaway: The rate more than doubled between 2022 and 2024, from 11.50% to 27.50%, and stood at 23.00% after the September 2026 decision.
External reserves: the other half of the stance
For a central bank managing a currency under pressure, reserves are as important as the rate. Gross external reserves fell to about USD 32.1 billion in April 2024, their low for the period, and have since rebuilt to about USD 54.9 billion at the end of September 2026.
Rising reserves alongside a falling policy rate is the combination that suggests easing is being done from a position of greater external strength rather than under pressure.
Gross external reserves
Central Bank of Nigeria gross external reserves, USD billion, monthly average.
Takeaway: Reserves bottomed near USD 32 billion in April 2024 and were about USD 55 billion in September 2026, the highest of the period.
How CBN policy reaches the naira
The naira's exchange-rate regime changed fundamentally in June 2023, when the Bank unified its multiple exchange-rate windows and moved to a market-determined rate. The currency depreciated sharply afterwards, and much of the subsequent tightening was aimed at restoring confidence and attracting foreign portfolio inflows into high-yielding naira assets.
Oil export receipts are the main source of foreign exchange, so the oil price and production volumes feed directly into reserves and the currency. USD/NGN was about 1,658 at the start of October 2024 and about 1,330 two years later, an appreciation of the naira over a period in which reserves rose and the policy rate stayed at or above 23%.
The USD/NGN dashboard puts the exchange rate beside the rate differential and the release calendar for both economies.
A decision-day workflow
- Note the Monetary Policy Rate decision together with any change to the corridor.
- Check whether the cash reserve ratio moved; it can tighten or ease independently of the rate.
- Compare gross external reserves with the level at the previous meeting.
- Watch USD/NGN in the days after the decision for the market's verdict.
- Track the oil price, the main driver of Nigeria's foreign exchange earnings.
The underlying series, with the timestamp of each release, is available from the API for backtests and dashboards:
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
"https://api.fxmacrodata.com/v1/announcements/ngn/policy_rate?start_date=2019-01-01"Official sources and related research
- Central Bank of Nigeria: policy decisions and statements.
- National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria: official statistics.
- Nigeria macro data: every tracked indicator and the release calendar.
- Policy rates by country and government bond yields by country: the same measures across covered markets.
- Policy rate cycles across currencies: how tightening and easing phases compare.
