Best Government Grants and Loans for Young Entrepreneurs in Nigeria in 2025

Government Grants and Loans are mainly for Entrepreneurs who mostly have existing businesses.

Entrepreneurship is one of the ways or strategies which the government of a country for instance Nigeria, can use to take youths off the street as jobless Nigerians are often times referred to.

However, many of these youths believe that they can only be successful by having a white collar job or preferably occupying an elective or public office which is the dream of many.

When I was growing up I had the same dreams too, to be one day elected into any of the public offices especially as a governor or president.

But I also realized that Nigeria has over two hundred million Population and my State of Benue has about five million or more out of that figure, and only one person can be elected to serve as governor out of over five million population of Benue, and only one person likewise will be elected to serve as president out of the over two hundred million population of Nigeria.

Looking at these facts, it is therefore very impossible for every Nigerian to become either the governor of a state or the president of Nigeria but a selected few.

So even dreams can be diversified as not all Nigerians can get a white collar job too, and the earlier many of the youths realize this fact the better it shall be for them.

By white collar jobs I mean jobs that are not done using physical labour but require professional knowledge and are done in offices for example an Accountant in an establishment or a Lawyer in a law firm and so on.

Adopting entrepreneurship skills can help young Nigerians to empower themselves and not depend on government.

Entrepreneurship skills can lead many young Nigerians out of poverty and to a financial freedom.

Before we proceed, I would like us to know what entrepreneurship skills mean especially in this context and how young Nigerians can harness it to achieve financial freedom.

What is Entrepreneurship Skills?

Entrepreneurship skills can be defined as the abilities which may include formal knowledge such as business management and establishment to start and manage a business profitably by using his acquired knowledge or experience (in case of those coming through apprenticeship), this just doesn’t entails establishing a business alone but knowing where to establish such business, when to start, availability of what to sell and so on, is actually what entrepreneurs consider before venturing in such business.

So, government often times provides funding either in form of grants or loans to her citizens to help finance their business ideas and in the cases of loans may be required to pay back after the stability of the businesses.

Unemployment gives room to insecurity, so no government want to see a huge rise in the rate of unemployment, the government is constantly making policies and initiatives to help citizens achieve financial freedom even though it can never be erased completely but can be reduced to a minimal level.

Government loans has a very long moratorium to help those who collect them stabilize in their businesses before they can start paying back, and the repayment can be spread across many years to also make it easy for them.

What is a Government Grant?

A Government grant is any form of empowerment given to citizens which they (citizens) are not required to pay back. These can be money, business tools and machineries and in the agricultural sector seedlings and even farm lands can also be given free to citizens to start their farming businesses.

For instance, in my State of Benue often times the government provides free fertilizers and farming implements including seedlings from improved crop varieties to farmers on annual basis.

What is a Government Loan?

Unlike a grant, a government loan in term of funding is the capital provided by the government to her citizens but in this case the citizens are required to payback though most times without interest or very little interests (single digit interest).

Just like I said earlier, the main objective of the loan is to help citizens start and profitably manage their businesses and achieve financial freedom which may help reduce the rate of unemployment and not necessarily for profit making the way commercial banks do.

Government Grants and Loans are all provided to Entrepreneurs who have existing businesses or young people who have profitable business ideas looking for sponsorship.

Why Government support matters for SMEs?

There are so many reasons why government support is often needed for SMEs. SMEs are the backbone of every economy and without them the economy cannot thrive as it should, so the government must find ways to help them grow.

These are only in two ways and are referred to as government grants and loans. Some of the reasons why government supports SMEs include:

1. Access funding: Small and Medium Enterprises find it difficult to access loans from commercial banks in Nigeria, most times due to lack of collateral which must be valued above the amount of money being applied for. For instance, someone who wants to borrow two million naira (2,000,000.00) is often asked to present a collateral that is worth around five to seven million Naira such as a strategically located real estate property.
2. Create more job opportunities: It is the duty of government to reduce the rate of unemployment amongst her citizens. Therefore supporting SMEs could actually help create jobs opportunities especially when the business is stable and not having financial crises. For example, if government provides support to a bakery, the bakery owner must definitely employ chefs, drivers, messengers, security men and bakers who will be doing the supply to retail shop owners and so on, and this will help to reduce unemployment rate.
3. Increase revenue for the government: If SMEs are thriving well, they will definitely not be defaulting tax, except if they wickedly choose to do so. So therefore, government provides support to help SMEs grow and be able to pay taxes regularly and promptly too. Many businesses have closed down because they are not making good profits but must pay tax and this could be as a result of poor management, so government often provides funds and also help train those business owners on how to manage his or her business well and generate more profits.

Current Government Grants and Loans available for Nigerians

The current government grants and loans for young entrepreneurs in Nigeria are as follows; although presently there no government grants available but there are two government loans that are ongoing which young Nigerians entrepreneurs can apply and become beneficiaries. Some of these grants are:

From Bank of Industry (BOI) Loan

According to the information available on their website, the Bank of Industry is currently issuing loans to business owners who have registered their business with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

The loans are a Federal Government intervention facility to help business owners expand their existing businesses.

Eligibility Criteria

The said Bank Of Industry (BOI) Loan is not just given to random people, it is being given to business owners who have met certain legitimate conditions called criteria. These criteria are:

• The business must be owned by a Nigerian.
• The business owner must have a functional email address.
• The business must have a CAC business registration number.
• The business must have a physical location within Nigeria
• Must have a valid and active phone number.
• The business owner must be 18 years of age an above

If you are a Nigerian and even a retired, you can still collect the loan as no special people are named in the conditions given.

Therefore retirees who are into businesses are very much eligible to apply for the loan.

Step-by-step Application guide

After meeting all the eligibility criteria above, the business owners can apply through the link provided by the BOI for the loan. To apply, simply follow the step-by-step guide below;

1. Visit the link 👉👉 https://fgnboimsmeinterventionloan.boi.ng/signup

2. Provide your email address (preferably Gmail or yahoo mail) in the space provided as can be seen in the picture below.

3. Provide your business Registration number. The business registration number is the seven digits of numeric characters written on your CAC certificate.

The number is demanded to be written in combination with the prefix to show the category of the registration. For example, BN123… for a business name registration and RE 134… for a company registration.

The number should be entered in the space provided as can be seen in the picture below.

4. Next is the company or business name. for example, WATCH NGERIA LTD should be entered and not your personal name. Check out the picture below to see example.

When you are done inputing the business name, the next thing to do is to select your business type which could be either any of the following;

• Limited Liability Company
• Public Liability Company
• Sole proprietorship
• Partnership
• Cooperative
• Financial Institution

You can only select one from the above listed options just as shown in the screenshot below;

5. The next thing is to select your business location. At this stage you are allowed to provide your exact address yet, though that can be provided after creating your account.

Locations are listed as States so all you have to do is select the State where your business is located. For example, select Benue if your business is located in Benue as seen in the picture below.

6. You are not yet done with the application as this is the account creation phase we have just covered. The next thing to do is provide your phone number in the space provided and your phone number should not contain the country code. See example in the picture below.

7. Create a password and confirm it. For a stronger password make sure to include an uppercase, a lowercase, numeric and a special character or symbol. For example, News12345? is considered more stronger than news1234.

8. The application process still continues when you login into your account. You still have some questions to answer such as “how many employees do your business have?” and “how do you intend to use the loan facility” and so on.

Common Reasons the Application may Fail Approval

Not all who applied for the facility will have their applications approved successfully due to some common reasons.

The following are some of the reasons why many applications may not be approved by the Bank of Industry (BOI);

• Bad Credit Score: There are people who may have taken loans in the past especially from loan Apps and either fail to repay or did not repay when the loans were due for repayment. Credit Score checks are conducted to see your past attitude on loans and may negatively affect some applications.
• Not supplying honest answers: If you are not honest in supplying answers during the application process it may affect your chances of being approved especially when Bank Verification Number (BVN) is used to confirm answers provided by applicants.
• Applicant is less than the required age: If an applicant is not up to 18 years of age and above, their applications may be rejected as well. 18 years of age is the benchmark given as criteria for the loan, which means your application may not be considered if you are not up to 18 years.
• Providing incorrect answers: This is different from dishonest answers, supplying incorrect answers means to make errors on your answers like “Devid” when you intended to write David. This error may result in your application being rejected for mismatch and so on.
• If you are not a Nigerian or your Business is not operated in Nigeria: The Federal Government Grants and loans intervention facilities are only for Nigerians and cannot be approved for Non-Nigerians even if they are residing in the country.

At the moment, the Federal government of Nigeria is yet to open windows for grants yet but this post may be updated as soon as that becomes available.

At the moment only the intervention facility by the Bank of Industry (BOI) is available. The BOI loan if utilized properly may help Nigerians achieve financial independence and help reduce unemployment rate significantly in the country.

Always remember that even if they are called government loans they must be repaid contrary to the claims and ignorance by others that government loans are equally grants.