What salary do you need to live well in Lagos?

Living well in Lagos, in the sense most people asking mean, tracks CostLiving’s comfortable tier of $2,325 a month for a single person, with the luxury standard at $3,600. To clear the comfortable line after tax you want take-home income around that figure, which in practice means a professional or expat-package salary rather than a typical local wage. What that budget buys is the version of Lagos that insulates you from the city’s frictions: a secure, generator-backed apartment on Victoria Island or in Ikoyi, a car with a driver or steady ride-hailing to beat the traffic, private healthcare, and the freedom to shop imported when you want to. Households with children add international-school fees on top, which alone can rival the rest of the budget and push a family firmly into the luxury bracket. The reason the “live well” number sits so far above the $900 budget tier is not everyday goods, which are cheap locally, but the premium on reliability: power, security, water, and schooling are things you buy privately here. Budget for those and Lagos is comfortable; skip them and you are living the budget-tier life instead. Full tier breakdown on our Lagos cost of living page.