How Much Does Therapy Cost in Lagos? (2025)

What therapy costs in Lagos in 2026

The first thing to know about paying for therapy in Lagos is that the scheme most guides still cite no longer exists. The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was repealed in 2022; its replacement, the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), makes health insurance mandatory on paper for every Nigerian and legal resident. The working reality for mental health care in Lagos is that most people pay out of pocket, and no fee schedule exists at any level.

These are guiding estimates. Practitioners set their own fees.

NHIS is gone; NHIA is the law

The National Health Insurance Authority Act, 2022 is explicit. Its Section 58 "repeals the National Health Insurance Scheme Act, Cap. N42, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004", and Section 3 directs the new Authority to "ensure that health insurance is mandatory for every Nigerian and legal residents". Employer plans and state schemes do the practical covering, and what any plan pays toward therapy varies plan by plan; check yours before assuming either way. If a guide quotes you "NHIS coverage rules", it is describing a scheme that ceased to exist in 2022.

Lagos has its own scheme, and it is mandatory

Beyond the federal picture, Lagos runs its own state health insurance: Ilera Eko, administered by the Lagos State Health Management Agency (LASHMA). Its Permanent Secretary's own words, from a November 2025 statement: "Health insurance in Lagos State is mandatory by law." The same statement sets a one-month waiting period for new enrollees from 1 January 2026, with emergency services unaffected. What any Ilera Eko plan pays toward mental health care specifically is a question to put to LASHMA when you enrol; we could not verify the benefit detail at source, so we are not claiming it.

Where the affordable care actually is

Lagos holds one of the country's main public mental health doors: the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba, alongside the psychiatric services of the state's teaching hospitals. Public institutions set their own fees; they are not published nationally, but as subsidised public institutions they are generally the lower-cost route. Call first and ask what registration and consultation cost before you go.

Private practice in Lagos, from psychiatrists to counselling services, sets fees practice by practice. No Nigerian professional body publishes a fee schedule, and pages quoting exact naira rates for Lagos therapy are quoting themselves. The reliable figure is the one the practice gives you; asking about reduced rates costs nothing.

If you need someone now

Go to the emergency department of the nearest teaching hospital, or to the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba. Our page on suicide hotlines and crisis lines in Nigeria lists the services we have verified.

Sources

• National Health Insurance Authority Act, 2022, full text: Section 58 (repeal of the NHIS Act), Section 3 (mandatory insurance). Read 28 July 2026.
• National Health Insurance Authority, nhia.gov.ng: the Authority's own site.
• Lagos State Ministry of Health, LASHMA statement on the Ilera Eko scheme, 7 November 2025: the mandatory-by-law statement and the one-month waiting period from 1 January 2026. Read 28 July 2026.

Reviewed July 2026. The statutory facts were read from the Act's text on 28 July 2026. This page quotes no naira figures: neither public hospital fees nor private rates have a published source, and we do not print numbers we cannot verify.