This study empirically examines the impact of exchange rate volatility on Nigeria’s foreign trade performance using monthly time series data from January 2004 to December 2024. Motivated by persistent Naira instability and the country’s structural dependence on oil exports, the research addresses critical gaps in existing literature by disaggregating export sectors and incorporating trade openness as a performance metric. Exchange rate volatility was generated using the GARCH (1,1) model. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach was employed to estimate both short-run and long-run relationships among the variables for three models: trade balance, trade openness, and sectoral exports (agriculture, manufacturing, and oil). The sectoral analysis shows differential vulnerability from the findings: manufacturing exports are the most adversely affected by exchange rate volatility in both the short and long run, agricultural exports exhibit weak responsiveness due to structural constraints, and oil exports are resilient, showing a positive association with volatility due to their dollar-denominated pricing. The study concludes that exchange rate volatility remains a major constraint to export diversification and trade expansion in Nigeria. The study recommends prioritization of exchange rate stabilization, strengthening external reserve buffers, implementing targeted support for manufacturing export competitiveness, and accelerating structural reforms in the agricultural sector to reduce overall economic vulnerability to currency shocks.