self employed
Self employed means you work for yourself, find your own customers, and carry both the profit and the risk on your own shoulders.
In plain English
There is a woman who sells rice, beans and stockfish at the corner of a market in Ibadan, and every morning she opens her own shop, sets her own prices, and closes whenever she decides the day is done.
Nobody pays her a salary at the end of the month. Nobody signs her leave form when she wants to travel to see her mother in Osun. If she sells well, she eats well. If the market is slow, she still has to pay her shop rent, and there is no manager to complain to.
That is what being self employed really means. You are the owner, the worker, and sometimes the cleaner too, all in one person. There is no employer above you deciding your fate, which sounds like freedom until you remember it also means there is no employer covering you when things go wrong.
A graphic designer in Lagos who left her job to freelance from home is self employed, even though she works from a laptop and never touches a market stall. A plumber in Manchester who takes jobs directly from homeowners instead of working for a construction firm is self employed too. Same idea, different tools.
For Nigerians abroad, this matters at tax time. In the United Kingdom, HMRC wants self employed people to register and file a Self Assessment return every year, because nobody is deducting tax from your pay automatically the way PAYE does for employees.
Back home, many self employed Nigerians never register anything, which feels easier in the short run but makes it harder later to get a loan, rent a good apartment, or prove income to an embassy. Freedom without paperwork is still freedom, but it is freedom that struggles to prove itself.
Chidinma quits her office job and starts baking cakes from home. In her first month she makes ₦180,000 from orders but spends ₦60,000 on flour, sugar, and gas. She keeps ₦120,000, and unlike her old salary, nobody deducts tax from it automatically. She now has to set that money aside herself.
Questions people ask
Is self employed the same as owning a business?
They overlap but are not identical. Someone selling akara by the roadside is self employed and also owns a tiny business. But a company with staff and a registered structure, like a limited company, is a business that may have an owner who technically pays themselves a salary from it. Self employed usually describes a person working directly for their own account, often alone.
Do self employed people pay tax in Nigeria?
Yes, in principle. Self employed Nigerians are expected to register with the tax authority and pay personal income tax on their profits, though enforcement outside formal channels is patchy. It is worth doing properly, because tax records help later when you want a loan, a visa, or proof of steady income.
What is the biggest disadvantage of being self employed?
No automatic safety net. There is no employer paying your pension, covering your health insurance, or paying you when you are ill or on leave. Every one of those things becomes something you must arrange and fund yourself, which is why saving and insurance matter even more for self employed people.
Last reviewed