Sanitation rarely makes headlines, yet where people go to the toilet shapes their health, safety and dignity every day. The Nigeria MIS offers a detailed snapshot of this, based on 20,312 surveyed households and 104,538 people.

The table of data sorts every household into one of three broad groups, which add up to 100%:

• Improved sanitation: a facility designed to separate human waste from human contact. Examples are flush toilets connected to a sewer or septic tank, ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrines, pit latrines with a slab, and composting toilets.
• Unimproved sanitation: facilities that do not reliably keep waste away from people, such as pit latrines without a slab, open pits, buckets and hanging latrines.
• Open defecation: no facility at all, so people use the bush or open fields.

The figures are shown twice: once for households and once for the population living in them. Each is split into urban, rural and total. The lower part of the table looks only at homes that have a toilet and asks where it is located.

The headline: seven in ten households have improved sanitation

Nationally, 69.6% of households use an improved facility. The population figure is slightly lower at 66.8%. That small difference suggests that larger households are somewhat less likely to have an improved toilet, since each household counts once but bigger ones contribute more people.

The remaining households split into two groups. About 13.7% use an unimproved facility, and 16.7% have no facility at all and practise open defecation. These three numbers (69.6, 13.7 and 16.7) sum to 100%.

A tale of two Nigerias

The most striking feature of the table is the gap between city and countryside.

	Urban households	Rural households
Improved sanitation	89.0%	48.1%
Unimproved facility	6.6%	21.6%
Open defecation	4.4%	30.3%

In urban areas, nearly nine in ten households have an improved toilet and open defecation is rare. In rural areas, fewer than half do, and almost one in three households has no toilet at all. Rural households are roughly seven times as likely to practise open defecation as urban ones. The population figures tell the same story: 28.3% of rural residents live in households with no facility, against 4.5% of urban residents.

What kinds of toilets do people actually use?

Behind the “improved” label are very different technologies, and the mix changes sharply between urban and rural areas.

Septic tanks dominate in cities. Flush toilets connected to a septic tank are the single most common type nationally (29.2% of households) and account for 46.4% of urban households. Only 10.1% of rural households use them.

Sewer connections are rare. Flush toilets connected to a piped sewer system serve just 7.1% of households nationally, 11.1% in urban areas and 2.7% in rural areas. Most flush toilets in Nigeria therefore rely on on-site tanks or pits rather than a public sewer network.

Slab latrines carry rural sanitation. The pit latrine with a slab is the most common improved option in rural areas, used by 24.4% of rural households. A concrete slab can be cleaned and keeps waste covered, which is why it counts as improved. It is also an affordable step up from a basic pit.

Basic pits are the main unimproved option. Pit latrines without a slab or open pits are used by 12.2% of households nationally, and by 20.1% of rural households. This single category makes up most of the unimproved total. Buckets, hanging latrines and other types are each at or below about 1%.

Where is the toilet?

The final section looks only at the 16,912 households that have a facility. Nationally, 55.1% have it in their own yard or plot, 42.0% have it inside the dwelling, and 2.9% use one elsewhere.

The pattern differs by residence. In urban areas, 52.4% of households have the toilet inside the home, reflecting the prevalence of indoor flush toilets. In rural areas, 69.2% have it in the yard or plot and only 26.3% indoors, which is typical of outdoor latrines. A toilet “elsewhere” means outside the household’s own property, so the user depends on someone else’s facility. This is more common in rural areas (4.5%) than urban ones (1.8%).

Why these numbers matter

Sanitation is closely tied to disease. Poor sanitation allows faecal contamination to reach water, food and hands, contributing to diarrhoeal diseases, cholera and parasitic infections, especially among young children. Open defecation carries the highest risk. For women and girls, lacking a safe, private toilet also raises concerns about safety and dignity.

The table also shows where progress is most needed. A household that moves from open defecation to even a basic slab latrine makes a real difference, and rural areas have by far the most households in that situation.

Caveats when using this data

• This is a sample survey. The counts of 10,659 urban and 9,653 rural households are the numbers surveyed, not the national totals. Percentages are estimates and come with a margin of error.
• “Improved” is a classification, not a guarantee. The table does not show whether facilities are shared between households, clean, or safely emptied, all of which affect health outcomes.
• The survey’s main purpose is malaria. Household characteristics such as sanitation are collected as background information, which is useful but not a full sanitation audit.

The takeaway

Nigeria’s 2025 data shows a country where most households have an improved toilet, but where where you live largely determines whether you do. Closing the rural gap, particularly the 30.3% of rural households with no toilet, is the clearest path to improving national sanitation.

Source: Nigeria MIS 2025, Table 2.3, Household sanitation facilities.

Percent distribution of households and de jure population by type of toilet/latrine facilities, and percent distribution of households and de jure population with a toilet/latrine facility by location of the facility, according to residence, Nigeria MIS 2025

 Household sanitation facilities

	Households			Population
Type and location of toilet/latrine facility	Urban	Rural	Total	Urban	Rural	Total
Improved sanitation	89.0	48.1	69.6	87.1	48.4	66.8
Flush/pour flush to piped sewer system	11.1	2.7	7.1	10.9	2.5	6.5
Flush/pour flush to septic tank	46.4	10.1	29.2	39.9	7.9	23.1
Flush/pour flush to pit latrine	14.0	9.3	11.8	14.6	9.6	12.0
Flush/pour flush, don’t know where	0.0	0.1	0.1	0.0	0.1	0.0
Ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrine	1.7	1.2	1.4	1.8	1.3	1.5
Pit latrine with slab	15.5	24.4	19.7	19.6	26.7	23.4
Composting toilet	0.2	0.4	0.3	0.2	0.4	0.3
Unimproved sanitation facility
Unimproved facility	6.6	21.6	13.7	8.4	23.3	16.2
Flush/pour flush not to sewer/septic tank/pit latrine	0.8	0.2	0.5	0.7	0.3	0.5
Pit latrine without slab/open pit	5.1	20.1	12.2	7.0	22.1	14.9
Bucket	0.3	0.3	0.3	0.2	0.2	0.2
Hanging toilet/hanging latrine	0.4	0.9	0.6	0.4	0.8	0.6
Other	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Open defecation (No facility/bush/field)	4.4	30.3	16.7	4.5	28.3	17.0
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
Number of households/population	10,659	9,653	20,312	49,613	54,925	104,538
Location of toilet facility
In own dwelling	52.4	26.3	42.0	47.8	24.0	37.0
In own yard/plot	45.7	69.2	55.1	50.6	72.3	60.4
Elsewhere	1.8	4.5	2.9	1.6	3.8	2.6
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
Number of households/population with a toilet/latrine facility	10,188	6,724	16,912	47,394	39,404	86,798

Source: Nigeria MIS 2025