Beer prices may soon rise across Nigeria in Africa as the country’s brewers need to meet rising tax bills in the first half of the year along with a surge in energy costs.
Beer prices may soon rise across Nigeria in Africa as the country’s brewers need to meet a tax bill in the first half of the year along with a rise in energy costs.
The surge in costs, which are putting extreme pressure on Nigeria’s major breweries have been felt by beer businesses across the country.
Breaking down the charges, the Sun recently reported that together Nigerian Breweries, Guinness Nigeria and International Breweries have all recorded a combined NGN112.87 billion (£61.47 million) in tax expenses in the first half of 2026, a figure that is up from NGN71.39bn (£38.69m) in the same period of 2025 and represents an increase of about 58%.
Can all costs continue to be absorbed?
According to reports, the increase came as the companies continued to battle high electricity, gas, diesel, transportation and other operating costs and, because of this, are now making it harder for brewers to continue to absorb the hikes, raising the possibility that the costs could soon be passed on to consumers via raised beer prices.
The knock on effect of the charges has also meant that the amount of profit left after tax for the beer businesses has reduced and financial results filed with the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) have revealed that this is the case despite the three companies recording stronger profit before tax during the period.
The tax rate hikes exposed
Nigerian Breweries, for instance, has recorded the highest tax expense at NGN63.37bn (£34.22m) , compared with NGN43.83bn (£23.83m) in H1 2025. Added to this, NGX has shown that its profit before tax increased by 18.2% year-on-year to NGN156.33 billion (£84.42m), while profit after tax rose by only 5.1% to NGN92.95bn (£50.47m). Plus, the data revealed that the company’s effective tax rate also increased to 40.5% from 33.1% a year earlier.
NGX highlighted that Guinness Nigeria recorded a tax expense of NGN13.03bn (£7.07m), up from NGN7.32bn (£3.97m) in H1 2025. Its profit before tax rose to NGN38.34bn (£20.88m) from NGN23.83bn (£12.94m), while profit after tax increased to NGN25.30bn (£13.73m) from NGN 16.51bn (£8.98m) which means its tax rate rose from 30.7% to 34%.
Additionally, NGX outlined that International Breweries recorded a tax expense of NGN36.47bn (£19.84m), compared with NGN20.24bn (£10.97m) in the previous year. The company’s profit before tax increased to NGN74.79bn (£40.39m) up from NGN61.53bn (£33.39m). However, it did reportedly still record a loss after tax of NGN38.31bn (£20.80m), against a profit of NGN41.29bn (£22.46m) in H1 2025, meaning Its tax rate also climbed from 32.9% up to 48.8%.
Something has to adapt
The figures have effectively shown that, while each of the Nigerian breweries’ businesses performed better before tax, the higher tax charges and other costs are now significantly affecting each of their final earnings, giving rise to suspicions that the costs will be passed onto the consumer in due course if things do not change.
Credit: The Drink Business
