FBR lets buyers of imported phones pay sales tax in monthly instalments
Customs General Order 06 of 2026 spreads the tax over the months left in the financial year. Miss one payment and the phone is blocked.
People who bring a phone into Pakistan no longer have to find the whole sales tax at once. Customs General Order 06 of 2026, issued by the Federal Board of Revenue on Friday 23 October, lets them pay it in equal monthly instalments.
The instalments apply to the tax payment that completes registration through the Device Identification, Registration and Blocking System, known as DIRBS. The order amends Customs General Order 01 of 2019 and covers international travellers, local applicants and devices that arrive by post or courier. Applicants choose the instalment option when they apply through DIRBS.
How the instalments work
The number of payments equals the months left in the financial year, which ends on 30 June, counting the month of application. An applicant in October pays in nine instalments, from October to June. On a tax bill of Rs60,000, for example, that is nine payments of about Rs6,667.
The first instalment is paid against a Payment Slip ID generated when the application is submitted. Each later instalment gets a new slip, generated on the same date of every following month, or on the last day of a month that lacks that date. Buyers may prepay some or all of the balance.
Phones imported in June get no such room. The full sales tax must be paid before that month ends, because every instalment has to be cleared by 30 June.
What a missed payment costs
Missing a due date makes the applicant a defaulter. The phone is then treated as unregistered and blocked through DIRBS, the whole outstanding tax falls due at once, and the applicant loses the right to pay the rest in instalments.
The order does not change what is owed. The facility was written into the Ninth Schedule of the Sales Tax Act, 1990 through the Finance Act 2026 and was reported to apply from 1 July 2026, with FBR Sales Tax Circular 1 of 2026 explaining it. The tax rate is unchanged, so the plan lowers the upfront cost of registering a handset without lowering the bill.
DIRBS is the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority's system for registering devices, with the FBR governing the tax. That is why the schedule matters to anyone who travels with, orders or is sent a phone from abroad: the payment plan now sits inside the same application that decides whether the handset keeps working on a local network. For an October applicant, the last instalment falls due on 30 June 2027.
