Vehicle is an important element of transport; and its financing especially in road transport comes in 3 ways; outright purchase, hire purchase and lease. Of all these three methods of road transport financing, leasing has attracted little attention in Nigeria transport research. This study was carried out to examine the development, types and form, operating characteristics and problems of vehicle lease in Lagos State, Nigeria. Aggregate number of vehicle leasing companies in Nigeria from inception to 2018 was obtained from corporate affairs commission (CAC). Four prominent vehicle leasing companies: Cashlink Leasing Plc (CLP), NIKKY Taurus Ltd (NTL), C & I Leasing (CIL) and SAMTL Leasing Ltd (SLL) were purposively selected for the operating characteristics and challenges of the leasing companies. 298 structured questionnaires were administered to the staffs of the selected companies seeking the types and forms of lease and challenges encountered in the course of operation using stratified and simple random samplings techniques. Vehicle leasing started in Nigeria from 1986 with the likes of pine hill leasing, Cashlink leasing, VT leasing in Lagos. Within 1986 and 2018, it has spread to 23 different urban cities and the number has increased to 297 companies in 2018. Operating and finance leases exist in the industry with majority of 91.6% of the companies practice operating lease. The staff strength and fleet size level of the leasing companies varies overtime but positively significant to their operations. However, poor pricing of lease service, inadequate finance of vehicle, default in payment of rental charges and high cost of maintenance minimize leasing service efficiency and effectiveness. It is recommended that government should provide subvention for vehicles acquisition, face-off of racketing vehicles from cites and legislate policy to regulate operational activities (entry and exit) of the companies.
