Is Lagos good for digital nomads in 2026?

Electricity will shape your month in Lagos more than your wifi plan will. Before you pay any shortlet host in Lekki Phase 1, ask which tariff band the building's feeder is on and how many hours the inverter lasts. Band A feeders are supposed to supply at least 20 hours of grid power a day, but buildings on Band B or C depend on a diesel generator, and from about 7 pm you will hear it under your window and smell the exhaust on the balcony. A listing that promises 100 Mbps often turns out to be one Tizeti or FiberOne line shared across six flats, so ask for a speedtest screenshot taken around 9 pm, when the whole estate is streaming. Fibre tends to land between 20 and 50 Mbps. The serviced apartments in Ikoyi and Lekki with Starlink kits are the ones worth paying extra for. Keep an MTN data SIM as your fallback: MTN 5G covers most of Victoria Island and Lekki, and a phone hotspot will usually keep a Zoom call alive when the fibre drops at 3 pm.

Lekki Phase 1 is the best base for a month. Admiralty Way has pharmacies, banks and coffee, the Ebeano supermarket on Chevron Drive is a short Bolt ride away, and a one-bed shortlet currently costs roughly ₦1.6m to ₦2.4m a month, about $1,200 to $1,800 at ₦1,333 to the dollar. Victoria Island puts you closer to the offices, but its streets flood in a hard June downpour and the water comes up brown and warm around your ankles. Ikoyi is quieter, greener and more expensive. After dark, the pepper-and-yaji smoke from Glover Court suya drifts across Glover Road. Yaba is the cheap tech choice, close to Co-Creation Hub on Herbert Macaulay Way, though the constant keke horns and patchier power make it better for a week than for a quarter. Self-service laundromats barely exist anywhere in Lagos: most buildings arrange a dry-cleaner pickup or a cleaner who hand-washes for around ₦5,000 a load. Don't try to live on Lagos Island. Balogun Market makes a good Saturday, but it is not somewhere to come home to.

Pay for coworking by the month. Workstation, with branches in Victoria Island, Lekki and Ikeja, and Venia Business Hub in Lekki Phase 1 both run their own generators and two internet providers each, and that backup is what you are paying for. At our last check a hot desk cost somewhere between ₦120,000 and ₦200,000 a month, with a day pass running about a tenth of that. Past eight visits, the monthly plan wins. Leadspace in Yaba and Lekki is cheaper and louder. Regus in Victoria Island and Ikoyi is the corporate option and quotes in dollars. Cafés are a weak fallback: Café Neo staff tend to put up with a laptop for two or three hours, but sockets are scarce and the air conditioning is cold enough that you'll want a sweater, even though the street outside sits near 29°C at 79% humidity. Foreign cards still fail at many POS terminals in Lagos, so carry naira notes for markets, okada stands and suya spots.

Plan your week around traffic, not meetings. The 15-kilometre drive from Lekki to Ikeja can take two hours at 5 pm, so choose a flat within a 10-minute Bolt ride of your desk, and use Bolt or Uber rather than street taxis. Outside the gated estates of Lekki and Ikoyi, keep walks after dark short and leave your laptop at home. Weekends are where Lagos makes up for the workweek: boats from the Tarzan jetty in Ikoyi run to Tarkwa Bay, where grilled fish with pepper sauce and a cold Star lager cost a few thousand naira, and on Saturday nights Freedom Park on Broad Street holds concerts on the grounds of the old colonial-era Broad Street Prison.