More than 66,000 Nigerian Starlink subscribers risk having their internet access restricted after December 31, 2025, if they fail to complete a mandatory biometric update. The requirement extends the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) subscriber verification framework beyond mobile networks to satellite internet providers.
The Nigerian Communications Commission first issued the directive via a letter dated August 19, 2025, setting a deadline of three months from the date of the directive, which would have been November 19, 2025. An extension was granted on November 17, 2025, pushing the final deadline to December 31, 2025.
Starlink confirmed the requirement in an email sent to customers on Monday, December 29, 2025, noting that the verification process takes less than two minutes. The company warned that subscribers who fail to submit their details by the December 31 deadline will have their service suspended.
According to a Starlink employee speaking anonymously, subscribers must upload a headshot photograph, provide their National Identification Number (NIN), and give consent for the information to be linked to their Starlink account.
Reactivation after suspension could prove challenging for affected users due to capacity constraints. In Lagos, neighbourhoods such as Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lagos Island, Ikeja, Surulere, Lekki, and surrounding estates frequently appear as sold out or at capacity on Starlink’s availability checker, prompting prospective users to join a waitlist that requires a deposit. A similar situation exists in Abuja, where several districts have reached capacity and now accept only waitlist deposits rather than new residential activations.
Starlink did not respond to a request for comments.
The policy closely mirrors the Nigerian Communications Commission’s December 15, 2023, directive to mobile network operators under the NIN-SIM linkage programme, which required subscribers’ NINs to be matched with existing SIM registration records, including facial images and fingerprints, in collaboration with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). The move aimed to improve national security, curb identity related fraud, and create a more reliable national subscriber database.
The mobile sector rollout followed a phased timeline, with September 14, 2024, set as the final compliance deadline. Operators were instructed to fully bar any unverified lines after that date. By the end of the exercise, the Nigerian Communications Commission reported a 96% compliance rate, with over 153 million SIMs successfully linked to verified NINs.
In August 2025, the Commission announced that all improperly registered SIMs had been removed from Nigeria’s networks, setting a regulatory precedent now being applied to satellite internet providers like Starlink.
The biometric verification requirement comes as Starlink experiences rapid growth in Nigeria. The satellite internet provider has become the country’s second largest internet service provider by customer numbers, with over 65,500 users as of September 2024, up nearly threefold from approximately 23,900 users at the end of 2023.
