Before you start

A National Tax Number obtained through the FBR's IRIS portal
A day count for the tax year
Salary certificates and any foreign income records
PRA registration, if you provide taxable services from Punjab

Step-by-step

1
Count your days against a July–June year
183 days or more of presence in the tax year makes you a resident individual taxed on worldwide income rather than only on Pakistan-source income. The year ends 30 June, so a spring arrival crosses the line differently from what a calendar-year assumption predicts. Count deliberately in your first and last years.
OnlineWho: YouOn arrival
2
Register for an NTN on IRIS
Pakistani individuals use the CNIC as their tax number; a foreign national registers separately on the FBR's IRIS portal. Do it early — banks want it and several transactions are cheaper with it.
OnlineWho: YouMonth 1
3
File on time, every year, even on withheld salary
Filing is the act that places you on the Active Taxpayers List. The list rebuilds weekly and late filers are admitted only on payment of a surcharge. Salary tax deducted at source does not remove the filing obligation.
OnlineWho: YouAnnually, by the FBR due date
4
Re-check whether your services are caught under the post-2025 Punjab schedules
Sales tax on services is provincial, and in Multan that is the Punjab Revenue Authority — not the FBR, not Sindh's SRB and not KP's KPRA. Since the Punjab Finance Act 2025 the schedules are reorganised so that services are taxable unless listed as tax-free, with separate parts for standard, fixed and reduced rates. A pre-2025 conclusion that your service was outside the net needs redoing.
OnlineWho: You
5
Check the professional tax position
Punjab levies a professions, trades and callings tax administered through the Excise, Taxation and Narcotics Control Department, assessed on businesses and professionals rather than on employees. It is small, easy to overlook, and entirely separate from anything the FBR does.
OnlineWho: You
6
Understand the agricultural income boundary if any of your income touches farming
Agricultural income is constitutionally a provincial subject in Pakistan and sits outside federal income tax, with the provinces levying their own agricultural income tax instead. In a district where a great deal of wealth is in land and horticulture, the boundary between agricultural and business income is a real and frequently litigated question rather than an academic one. Take advice before assuming which side of it you are on.
OnlineWho: You

Documents you’ll need

NTN and IRIS login
Salary certificate and withholding statements
Bank statements
Records of foreign income and foreign tax paid
PRA registration, for service businesses

Things most newcomers don’t know

Punjab flipped its services tax from a positive list to a negative one in 2025, which inverts the first question you ask.

The Punjab Sales Tax on Services Act 2012 historically taxed only services specified in its schedules. The Punjab Finance Bill presented on 16 June 2025 restructured them — a new First Schedule of tax-free services and a new Second Schedule of taxable ones split into standard, fixed and reduced rate parts — so that services are now taxable unless explicitly exempted. Retained exemptions include public healthcare and education, public transport, residential rents and services provided by registered charities and INGOs. For a consultant or service business in Multan, the question is no longer 'is my service listed' but 'is it exempt'.

Source: Punjab Finance Bill 2025 commentary

The South Punjab secretariat devolved administration, not taxation.

Punjab's 2020 secretariat gave the Multan, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan divisions their own departmental offices, an Additional Chief Secretary seated in Multan and a protected budget share, and departments still publish separate South Punjab order streams. It did not create a separate revenue authority: sales tax on services here is the Punjab Revenue Authority's, income tax is the FBR's, and neither has a south Punjab variant. People conflate administrative devolution with fiscal devolution and then look for offices that do not exist.

Source: Punjab Health and Population Department (South Punjab order stream); Punjab Revenue Authority

Filer status is a transactional discount, not a statement about honesty, and it lapses.

The Active Taxpayers List determines withholding on property purchases, vehicle registration, dividends and certain banking activity, and the gap between filer and non-filer rates is large. An NTN alone does not get you on the list — filing by the due date does, and late filers pay a surcharge to be admitted. Because the list rebuilds weekly, a missed year drops you off it. On any land or vehicle purchase in south Punjab this single mechanism outweighs most deductions.

Source: Federal Board of Revenue

Agricultural income is provincial and outside federal income tax, and in this district that boundary is live.

Under Pakistan's constitutional division, tax on agricultural income belongs to the provinces rather than to the federation, and the provinces levy their own. Around Multan a great deal of income is agricultural or adjacent to it — orchards, ginning, packing, trading — and where the line falls between exempt agricultural income and taxable business income has been argued repeatedly. If any part of your income touches land, this is the first question to put to an adviser rather than the last.

Source: Federal Board of Revenue; Punjab Revenue Authority

Common mistakes to avoid

Applying a calendar-year mental model to a July–June tax year.
Relying on a pre-2025 conclusion that your service was outside Punjab's tax net.
Assuming the South Punjab secretariat means a separate south Punjab tax authority.
Assuming an NTN makes you a filer.
Treating income adjacent to farming as automatically exempt agricultural income.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.