Code to Borrow Data From MTN: *303#, the 15% Fee and What You Owe

We checked the AidaPay app on the morning of 4 October 2026. MTN's weekly one-gigabyte transfer bundle was listed at ₦400, with ₦4 cashback. Keep that price in your head. Since July, the code to borrow data from MTN has been *303#. Every loan carries a fee. MTN keeps it before a single megabyte lands. And *606#? Dead.

So a loan is never free money. Still, on the right night, when the account is empty and there's nobody awake to send you anything, it beats sitting offline until the bank app has money in it again.

Two choices behind *303#

MTN's July restoration notice lists two options on the menu. Borrow Credit lends airtime. Borrow Data lends data, the advance plenty of people still call XtraByte, and both sit under the one service MTN has always named XtraTime.

Dial from the line that needs the data:

1. Dial *303#.
2. Choose Borrow Data.
3. Pick one of the offers on your screen.
4. Confirm.

Dual-SIM phones trip people up all the time. Check which SIM the call goes out on before you press dial, and make sure you tapped Borrow Data and not Borrow Credit, or you'll end up holding airtime you didn't want. If you'd rather tap than dial, the MyMTN app carries the same service, with the same rules and the same fee.

Don't copy a friend's numbers, either.

Offers are sized per person. MTN works them out from your recharge history and the way you use the line, so two people sitting side by side on the same bench can open the same menu and see different amounts. The ceiling dropped, too. When the service came back, MTN set the maximum loan at ₦5,000. Before the shutdown it allowed double that.

Borrowing ₦100 leaves you with ₦85

MTN takes its 15% the moment you accept. Borrow ₦100 and only eighty-five naira of value reaches your line, yet the debt stays at the full amount. Airtime loans work the same way, with the same cut.

Flip that round and it looks worse than 15%. You're paying a hundred for eighty-five, which means each naira of data you actually receive costs about 17.6% more than it would if you'd just bought it outright with your own money. One small loan won't hurt. Borrow twice a week, though, and it adds up. None of the fee comes back.

Repayment is automatic. No button. Your next recharge goes to MTN first, and only what's left is yours. Say you borrow ₦100 on Tuesday night. On Friday you recharge ₦500, planning to buy that weekly gigabyte. MTN quietly takes its hundred before you touch anything, so what's left covers the bundle exactly. Top up only the bundle price, though, and you're short of the plan you had in mind, standing at the bus stop wondering where the money went. Before that recharge, add the full amount you borrowed (not what reached your line) to the price of what you want to buy, and top up at least the total.

With money in your bank app, skip the loan entirely. The same morning's prices had two other small MTN bundles worth knowing. Half a gigabyte for the week was ₦350. Stretch the gigabyte to a full month and it cost ₦520. Each came with 1% cashback. Nobody keeps a slice of what you pay, and you can buy for your own line or for someone else's, which matters more than it sounds when the person stranded is your younger sister at school.

Before you open the borrow menu at all, run three quick checks. They take under a minute, and they'll often save you the fee completely.

1. Check your data balance. There may be enough left for tonight.
2. Open your bank app. If you can cover a small bundle, buy it.
3. Only if both come up empty, dial *303# and take the smallest offer.

A loan earns its fee on one kind of night only. The account is empty, nobody can send you data, and the bank app shows nothing you can spend until payday. Any other night, buy the bundle. If WhatsApp and a few voice notes will carry you to payday, the half-gig is usually enough. Borrowing anyway? Go small. The fee grows with the loan.

What you owe, and why the menu sometimes says no

MTN runs the whole lending service from *303#, so that's where an outstanding loan lives. Easier test, though. If you've recharged at least the full amount you borrowed since taking the loan, MTN has already collected it and you owe nothing.

Loans don't stack.

MTN won't lend again until the old one is cleared. One recharge that covers it opens the door. Remember that. On the second bad night of a week you dial *303# expecting help, and the menu has nothing, because Tuesday's loan is still sitting there waiting for a top-up you haven't made.

Data left on the line is a separate question. It has its own code: *323*4# is the balance check listed with MTN's transfer bundles, and it shows what's left of the data rather than anything about the loan you took. If it shows nothing, try the other data balance codes for every network, or the full list of MTN USSD codes for the rest of the menus. Check first. A few hundred megabytes might already be sitting there.

Sometimes *303# opens and offers nothing at all. Offers go only to eligible prepaid customers, judged on recharge history and usage, so a brand-new SIM can come up empty. So can a line that rarely sees a top-up, or one still carrying an unpaid loan. Dialling every five minutes won't change the answer, because the history MTN reads only grows when you recharge, and regular top-ups are what build it over the weeks.

For tonight, the quickest fix is another person. Anyone with money on their phone can buy MTN data for another number on AidaPay at the prices above, and the bundle reaches you with no fee taken out.

Why the old code to borrow data from MTN stopped working

Plenty of guides still say *606#. Stale, not lying.

In mid-April 2026 MTN switched XtraTime off. The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) had brought in rules called DEON, short for Digital, Electronic, Online or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending. Under DEON, an airtime or data advance counts as a loan, and anyone offering one must register with the commission before lending a single naira to a customer. Rather than risk penalties, MTN stopped lending and pointed customers to its other digital channels for buying airtime and data, which left roughly 40 million subscribers with no borrow option at all.

The FCCPC paused enforcement on 22 May. Lending restarted on 8 July, with one code replacing the old ones: *303#. Nobody revived *606#, and search results haven't all caught up, which is why people still dial it and wait for a menu that never appears. If your borrow menu went silent between April and July, nothing was wrong with your SIM, your phone or your recharge history; the whole service was switched off for everyone on the network.

Next time you do borrow, write the amount in your notes app straight away. Friday's recharge will make a lot more sense.

Frequently asked questions

Published 4 October 2026. Prices and codes change - if you spot one that has moved, tell us and we will fix it.