On most parts purchases into Nigeria, Egypt and Ethiopia, the critical path is not supplier lead time. It is foreign exchange approval. All three markets loosened their currency controls sharply between 2024 and 2026, but each one now stalls in a different place — and a seller who quotes without knowing which place is quoting blind.

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What actually changed since 2024

Nigeria cleared its foreign exchange backlog in March 2024, an amount the Central Bank of Nigeria put at roughly seven billion dollars. Ethiopia floated the birr on 29 July 2024 under Foreign Exchange Directive FXD/01/2024. Egypt moved to a market rate the same spring. By the June 2025 IATA annual general meeting, the association’s regional vice-president for Africa and the Middle East said that significant improvements had been made in Nigeria, Egypt and Ethiopia over the previous year, and that Nigeria was no longer on the list of countries blocking airline funds — a list on which it had once held around 850 million dollars.

That is a real change. It is not the same as saying money moves freely.

Blocked airline funds: the cleanest public proxy for FX risk

Airline ticket revenue waiting for repatriation is not the same queue as a trade payment for goods. But it is the same central bank rationing the same dollars, and IATA publishes the numbers, which makes it the best open indicator a supplier has.

As of end–March 2026, IATA put total blocked airline funds at 774 million dollars, with African countries accounting for the largest share. The concentrations were Algeria at 258 million, the XAF zone at 105 million, Mozambique at 82 million, Eritrea at 78 million and Angola at 73 million. Nigeria, Egypt and Ethiopia do not appear in that group.

The direction of travel matters as much as the level. In the report IATA released in December 2025, covering data to end–October 2025, Ethiopia still sat eighth of ten countries with 54 million dollars held. Five months later it had dropped out of the published concentrations. Algeria, by contrast, moved the other way in relative terms and drew an unusually direct public statement from IATA about the lack of response from its central bank.

Read that as a risk map. A buyer in Lagos, Cairo or Addis Ababa in 2026 is working inside a system that is functioning. A buyer in Algiers or the XAF zone is not, whatever the purchase order says.

Nigeria: the Form M is the schedule

Nigerian imports run on the Form M, opened before shipment and carrying a designation of either Valid for Forex or Not Valid for Forex. Everything downstream — the Pre-Arrival Assessment Report, destination inspection, release — hangs off that file, and the file is only as fast as the slowest agency attached to it.

A recent example shows the failure mode precisely. On 28 January 2026 the Central Bank of Nigeria granted a two-month grace period, running to 28 February, allowing importers to keep using NAFDAC licences that had expired on 31 December 2025. The reason was not currency at all: NAFDAC was migrating from its NICIS II platform to a new system called B’Odogwu, and importers could not renew on the new one. Aircraft parts sit outside NAFDAC’s scope, so this particular grace period does not touch an engine shipment. The pattern does. Form M processing depends on third-party systems, and those systems break on their own schedule.

Practical consequence for a seller: the pro forma invoice is not a formality. It is the document the Form M is keyed to. A part number correction, a changed quantity or a revised Incoterm after the Form M is opened means amending or reopening the file, and that cost lands on the delivery date, not on the invoice.

Egypt: the ACID number gates the cargo, the bank gates the money

Egypt runs imports through the Nafeza single window, established by Ministry of Finance Decree 38/2021. The importer or their broker files in advance to obtain an Advanced Cargo Information identification number, and consignment documentation must be submitted through the window 48 hours before the shipment arrives. No ACID, no clean clearance — regardless of how the goods were paid for.

The payment side moved separately and is worth confirming case by case. The Central Bank of Egypt halted documentary collections in February 2022 and required letters of credit for imports in order to slow hard-currency outflows. In October 2022 it reversed course, moving to cancel the letter-of-credit mandate and allowing collection documents again. Both regimes are recent enough that buyers and their banks do not always describe the current position the same way, so the useful question to a Cairo buyer is not “can you pay” but “which instrument is your bank running on this file, and is it already opened.”

One further time cost that surprises first-time exporters: Egyptian customs expects the commercial invoice and certificate of origin in original plus copies, legalised by the Egyptian consulate. That is calendar time in the origin country, before anything flies. Our guide to import documentation for aircraft parts into African markets covers the release-document side of the same shipment.

Ethiopia: the waiting list is gone, the documents are not

FXD/01/2024, effective 29 July 2024, was the largest single change of the three. It moved the birr to a competitive, market-based rate with banks free to negotiate with clients and among themselves. It ended the mandatory surrender of foreign exchange to the National Bank of Ethiopia. It required exporters to convert 50 percent of proceeds to birr while retaining 50 percent in a foreign exchange retention account. And it repealed the old waiting-list system that ranked imports by priority category: authorised banks are now mandated to allow import of goods for any value on submission of the required documents.

Two features of that directive matter directly to parts procurement. The first is franco valuta — goods imported without drawing on banking-system foreign exchange, needing neither a letter of credit nor an advance payment, are permitted entry subject to normal customs, tax and regulatory compliance. For an AOG event where a lessor, parent company or partner abroad can pay and ship, this is the fastest legal route into the country. The second is the retention account: an Ethiopian operator or MRO with its own export earnings may already hold the dollars, which changes the conversation from approval to authorisation.

The National Bank continued to relax the regime. On 11 February 2026 it announced that service exporters may retain 100 percent of export proceeds in foreign exchange, that banks may execute forward contracts without NBE pre-approval, and that investors may remit profits on documentation without a separate NBE approval. Forward cover without pre-approval is the quiet one on that list: it lets an Ethiopian buyer fix a price on a long-lead engine or rotable order instead of carrying the currency risk to delivery. For fleet context in the same region, see our note on ATR and Dash 8 parts sourcing in East Africa.

A working sequence for an FX-constrained purchase

1. Ask who holds the currency before you quote. Retention account, franco valuta arrangement, third-country payer or a bank allocation still to be approved — these are four different delivery dates for the same part.
2. Get the pro forma invoice final on the first pass. Part number, condition, quantity, Incoterm, currency. In Nigeria and Egypt the import file is built on this document; revising it later restarts a clock that is not yours.
3. Name the instrument. Letter of credit, documentary collection or advance payment. Ask whether it is opened, not whether it is possible.
4. Price the calendar, not just the part. Consular legalisation, 48-hour pre-arrival filing, Form M and PAAR processing are sequential and each has its own failure mode.
5. Keep the AOG path separate from the routine path. A grounded aircraft cannot wait behind a standard approval cycle. Decide in advance which mechanism you will use when it happens, and see our guide to AOG parts sourcing in Africa.

Where escrow changes the conversation

Currency control and counterparty trust are separate problems that arrive together. A buyer who has waited weeks for an allocation is not going to wire the full amount to an unfamiliar seller, and a seller who has heard about the AOG Technics case — roughly 180 engines fitted with parts backed by falsified EASA Form 1 and FAA 8130-3 documents — is not going to release goods on a promise either. Escrow removes the standoff: funds are held and released on completion, so neither side is financing the other’s risk while the paperwork clears. That is how RFQs on Aviatrading are structured, with every transaction protected by escrow and no listing or subscription fees. Our earlier piece on escrow in cross-border aircraft parts payment goes through the mechanics.

If you are sourcing into Nigeria, Egypt or Ethiopia and want the currency question answered before you commit to a delivery date, browse verified inventory, register as a buyer or supplier, or follow live requirements on our Telegram channel.

Sources

IATA, IATA Calls on African Governments to Prioritize Aviation for Long Term Economic Growth, 29 April 2026 (blocked funds to end–March 2026). The Reporter Ethiopia on IATA’s December 2025 blocked-funds report (data to end–October 2025). The Cable, June 2025, on IATA removing Nigeria from the blocked-funds list. EY Global Tax Alert on Ethiopia’s Foreign Exchange Directive FXD/01/2024. National Bank of Ethiopia public notice on relaxation of foreign exchange directives, 11 February 2026. U.S. International Trade Administration Country Commercial Guide, Egypt — Import Requirements and Documentation. AllAfrica, 28 January 2026, on the Central Bank of Nigeria grace period for NAFDAC licences in Form M processing.