The CAC website outage has disrupted business registrations in Nigeria, leaving entrepreneurs frustrated over prolonged downtime

Business owners across Nigeria are expressing frustration over a prolonged outage affecting the website of the Corporate Affairs Commission, with users unable to access key online services for several days.

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The CAC website outage has left entrepreneurs struggling to register businesses, reserve company names and update corporate records as the agency’s portal continues to display a “502 Bad Gateway” error, a technical message that usually indicates server failure or poor server response.

Checks on Monday confirmed that the disruption had persisted for at least three days, although some users said the platform had been unstable since Friday.

Several business owners complained on social media that repeated failed attempts to access the portal had disrupted critical registration processes, particularly for startups and small enterprises seeking to formalise operations.

The latest disruption comes weeks after the commission temporarily shut down its portal in April 2026 for maintenance and system upgrades.

At the time, the Corporate Affairs Commission announced the introduction of an AI-powered registration system aimed at improving efficiency and accelerating business registration procedures.

Despite the promised upgrades, the platform has continued to experience technical difficulties.

In April, the commission also disclosed a security breach and advised users to change their passwords after concerns emerged over alleged unauthorised access to millions of documents hosted on the platform.

Although the agency addressed the incident at the time, the fresh CAC website outage has renewed concerns about the reliability and resilience of Nigeria’s digital business registration infrastructure.

Some affected users criticised the commission for what they described as poor communication, noting that no official explanation had been provided regarding the latest downtime.

Attempts to reach the agency through its support lines were unsuccessful as of Monday.

The recurring technical failures are creating fresh challenges for entrepreneurs and investors who rely on the CAC portal to complete regulatory processes essential for operating formally in Nigeria’s business environment.

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Industry observers warned that prolonged disruptions could undermine confidence in the country’s digital public services and slow efforts to improve ease of doing business.