More than two months after announcing an instalment facility for PTA taxes, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has now officially allowed individuals to pay sales tax on imported mobile phones in instalments.
The new facility will work through the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s (PTA) Device Identification, Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS).
The FBR introduced the facility through a new provision in the Ninth Schedule of the Sales Tax Act, 1990. The board explained the change in Circular No. 1 of 2026, issued on September 11.
Under the new rules, people importing mobile phones can divide their sales tax payment into multiple instalments instead of paying the full amount upfront. However, they must clear the entire tax liability before the end of the financial year in which they import the phone.
The PTA will now have to develop and implement a system to process these instalment payments through DIRBS.
The government introduced the facility through amendments made under the Finance Act, 2026, giving mobile phone importers more flexibility while keeping the requirement to pay the full tax within the specified financial year.
Pakistan launched DIRBS in December 2018 to identify unregistered mobile phones and block devices that failed to meet tax and registration requirements.
The government later ended the duty-free facility for mobile phones brought into Pakistan by travellers from abroad in July 2019.
Since then, people bringing imported phones into Pakistan have generally had to pay the applicable duties and taxes before registering their devices for use on local mobile networks.
