Baggage Rules SRO 666 (2026): What Pakistan's Baggage Rules Allow, Plus the Official PDF

Ask five people at Lahore airport what the duty-free limit is, and you'll get five numbers. US$500. US$1,200. "It depends how long you stayed." "Two phones." "One phone."

They're not making it up. Each of those numbers has appeared in a real FBR notification at some point. The problem is that some of those notifications were drafts, published for comment rather than as final rules, while news coverage reported them as though they were already law. Then copies of those articles got passed around WhatsApp for years.

So this guide goes back to the source: what SRO 666 actually says, which changes became law, which didn't, and where to download the official text yourself.

SRO stands for Statutory Regulatory Order, the format FBR uses to issue rules under Pakistan's tax and customs laws. SRO 666(I)/2006 is the order that created the Baggage Rules, 2006. It was issued on 28 June 2006 under section 219 of the Customs Act, 1969, and took effect on 1 July 2006.

The rules apply to the baggage of every passenger arriving in or leaving Pakistan. They replaced the old baggage chapter of the Customs Rules, 2001, which is why that chapter now reads "omitted".

Four definitions in the rules decide most cases:

• Baggage: your clothes and other personal, professional and household effects.
• Commercial quantity: goods brought in prima facie for trading or pecuniary gain, rather than for personal use or as gifts.
• Transfer of residence: returning to Pakistan after living abroad for two years or more.
• Pakistani national: includes Pakistanis living abroad, dual nationals and foreign nationals holding a Pakistan Origin Card.

This summary follows the text of SRO 666 as published on FBR's website. Rule numbers are given so you can check each point yourself.

Pakistani nationals: items of personal use (rule 3A)

After more than seven days abroad, you can bring these duty-free:

• Your clothes and clothing accessories
• Personal adornments, toiletries and an electric shaver in use
• Medals, trophies and prizes awarded to you
• One electric iron, one hair dryer and one hair dresser
• 200 cigarettes, or 50 cigars, or half a kilogram of tobacco
• A pushcart, toys and personal items for a child traveling with you
• One wheelchair for personal use
• One mobile phone
• One wrist watch

A laptop and its accessories in your own use are allowed even if you were abroad for less than seven days.

First visit of the year: extra items (rule 3B)

On your first visit to Pakistan in a year, you can also bring:

• One radio or ordinary tape recorder
• One DVD player or similar device
• One still camera and one video camera
• Personal jewellery in reasonable quantity
• Professional tools worth up to US$500
• Tabarrakat
• One desktop or laptop computer in personal use
• Further items worth up to US$500

Seven appliances are excluded from that US$500: television, deep freezer, refrigerator, microwave, cooking range, washing machine and air conditioner. You can bring them, but you pay the fixed duty and taxes notified for baggage. That's the job of a separate notification, SRO 682(I)/2006, covered below.

Duty-free shops in Pakistan (rule 3C)

You can spend up to US$500 at a duty-free shop in Pakistan within 60 days of arriving, excluding those seven appliances.

Transfer of residence: moving back after two years or more (rule 4)

If you're returning after living abroad for at least two years, you get everything in rules 3A and 3B, plus:

• Used furniture, crockery, kitchenware, carpets, bedding and other household goods your family used abroad
• The seven appliances above, one of each, at 50% of the notified duty and taxes
• Professional tools and equipment worth up to US$5,000
• Used medical equipment, if you're a registered medical practitioner, with an inspection certificate
• Up to US$1,000 at a duty-free shop in Pakistan within 60 days of arriving

A husband and wife traveling together can combine or separate their household allowances, whichever suits them (rule 8).

Foreign Exchange Remittance Card holders (rule 5)

Pakistanis holding an FERC get an extra duty credit once a calendar year, based on how much they've remitted through banking channels. It ranges from Rs 10,000 for Silver (US$2,500 or more) to Rs 100,000 for Platinum (US$50,000 or more).

Foreign nationals and tourists (rule 6)

Foreign visitors get a shorter list. It covers personal clothing and toiletries, 200 cigarettes, one laptop, one mobile phone, one watch, cameras, professional tools worth up to US$500, child items, and an additional allowance of US$100. Personal equipment can also be released temporarily, on the condition that it leaves Pakistan with you (rule 10).

Rules everyone should know

• Unaccompanied baggage needs a declaration form (rule 7), and it must reach Pakistan within 60 days of your arrival (rule 15).
• Commercial quantities get no allowance (rule 15). They're released only on payment of duty, taxes and a redemption fine of 30% of their value (rule 17).
• Duty-free allowances apply on your first visit of the year (rule 18).
• Prohibited items include arms and ammunition, alcoholic drinks, obscene or subversive literature and goods that infringe intellectual property rights (rule 16).
• Leaving Pakistan: you can take your personal baggage and household goods, unless the law restricts them (rule 11). A 2022 amendment added cash limits for departing passengers, covered below.
• Goods taken out and brought back can return duty-free if Customs certified them when you left (rule 12).
• Courier parcels follow different rules. Online orders sent by courier, such as Shein parcels, are taxed under section 19C of the Customs Act, with a duty-free limit of Rs 1,000. See Shein delivery charges in Pakistan.

This is where most confusion comes from. FBR changes rules in two steps. It publishes a draft for public comment, then issues a final notification. News outlets often report the draft as if it were already in force.What the Baggage Rules 2006 allow:

• June 2006: SRO 666(I)/2006 (final). The Baggage Rules, 2006 are issued and take effect on 1 July 2006. FBR amended them twice more that year, in August and September 2006.
• June 2006: SRO 682(I)/2006 (final). A companion notification setting fixed duty and taxes on baggage items such as TVs, refrigerators and air conditioners.
• July 2022: SRO 985(I)/2022 (draft). It proposed replacing the first-visit allowance with value limits based on time abroad: US$400 for up to 30 days, US$800 for 30 to 60 days, and US$1,200 for more than 60 days. FBR published it for comment. We couldn't find a final notification adopting it, and FBR's own published text of the rules doesn't include it.
• December 2022: SRO 2201(I)/2022 (final). This one became law. It set cash limits for departing passengers: US$5,000 per trip and US$30,000 a year for adults, and half that for under-18s. Its earlier draft was SRO 2043(I)/2022.
• December 2024: SRO 2028(I)/2024 (draft, withdrawn). It proposed defining "commercial quantity" as goods worth more than US$1,200 and limiting passengers to one extra phone. After a public outcry, FBR clarified that the limit was never meant to cover personal items, then withdrew the draft.

FBR baggage rules 2025 and 2026

We found no final amendment to the duty-free allowances in 2025 or 2026 up to November 2026. If you see a "new 2025 baggage rule", check whether it's a draft and whether FBR's website lists it as final. If it doesn't appear there, treat it as unconfirmed.

We found no 2021 amendment to the allowances either. Searches for "SRO 666 2021" usually lead to older copies of the rules or to the Customs Rules compilation of that year.

SRO 682(I)/2006, dated 29 June 2006, is the companion to the Baggage Rules. SRO 666 says which items are duty-free and which are dutiable. SRO 682 sets the fixed amounts of duty and taxes payable on dutiable baggage items, such as the television, refrigerator and air conditioner excluded from the US$500 allowance.

It's issued under the Customs Act, the Sales Tax Act and the Income Tax Ordinance together, which is why one fixed amount covers all three. The amounts are revised from time to time, so check FBR's current copy before you budget for an appliance.

Skip the copies on file-sharing sites. Many are scans of old versions, or of drafts that never became law. These are the official files on FBR's own servers:

• Baggage Rules, 2006 (SRO 666(I)/2006), FBR copy. The full text of the rules, including the declaration form for unaccompanied baggage.
• SRO 682(I)/2006. Fixed duty and taxes on dutiable baggage items.
• SRO 2201(I)/2022. The final amendment setting cash limits for departing passengers.
• Customs Rules, 2001 compilation. FBR's large reference file, which reprints the Baggage Rules in its baggage section.

For a plain-language overview, Pakistan Customs also runs a baggage enquiry page.

One caution: FBR's published copies don't always show every amendment inline. If a rule matters for a big purchase, check FBR's SRO listings for anything newer, or ask Customs at the airport before you buy.

بیگیج رولز 2006 (ایس آر او 666) کا مختصر خلاصہ:

• یہ قواعد 28 جون 2006 کو جاری ہوئے اور یکم جولائی 2006 سے نافذ ہیں۔
• سات دن سے زیادہ بیرون ملک قیام کے بعد ذاتی استعمال کی اشیاء ڈیوٹی فری ہیں، جیسے کپڑے، ایک موبائل فون، ایک کلائی گھڑی، اور 200 سگریٹ یا 50 سگار۔
• سال کے پہلے دورے پر اضافی اشیاء کی اجازت ہے، جن میں ایک لیپ ٹاپ، کیمرہ، مناسب مقدار میں ذاتی زیورات، اور 500 امریکی ڈالر تک کا مزید سامان شامل ہے۔
• ٹی وی، فریج، اے سی اور واشنگ مشین جیسی اشیاء پر مقررہ ڈیوٹی اور ٹیکس ادا کرنا ہوتا ہے۔
• دو سال یا زیادہ بیرون ملک رہنے کے بعد مستقل واپسی (ٹرانسفر آف ریزیڈنس) پر گھریلو سامان سمیت مزید رعایتیں ملتی ہیں۔
• تجارتی مقدار میں لایا گیا سامان ڈیوٹی فری نہیں ہوتا، اور اس پر ڈیوٹی، ٹیکس اور 30 فیصد جرمانہ لگ سکتا ہے۔
• شراب، اسلحہ اور جعلی برانڈ کی اشیاء لانا ممنوع ہے۔
• پاکستان سے باہر جاتے وقت بالغ مسافر فی سفر 5,000 امریکی ڈالر تک غیر ملکی کرنسی لے جا سکتے ہیں۔

This is a summary, not an official translation. The official text is the English notification linked above.

1. Treating a draft as law. The US$400, US$800 and US$1,200 table from 2022 and the US$1,200 "cap" from 2024 were both drafts. What goes wrong: you plan a purchase around a limit that Customs doesn't apply.
2. Forgetting the first-visit rule. The extra allowances, including the US$500, apply on your first visit of the year. What goes wrong: a second trip in the same year gets charged for things the first trip brought in free.
3. Coming back too soon. Most allowances need more than seven days abroad. Only personal-use items are exempt on shorter trips.
4. Bringing several of one thing. Five identical boxes look like stock. Commercial quantities lose the allowance entirely and pay a 30% redemption fine on top of duty and taxes.
5. Confusing Customs with PTA. The Baggage Rules decide customs duty. A phone also needs PTA registration to work on Pakistani networks, and that's a separate tax. Our PTA tax guide covers it.
6. Losing receipts. Keep receipts for new items in your hand luggage. Values are much easier to agree when you can show what you paid.
7. Using the green channel when you're over. If you're above the allowance, declare it in the red channel. Paying duty costs less than being caught.

The Baggage Rules are written around one idea: personal baggage is fine, trade is not. That's also how BRNG is being designed. Travelers carry individual items in personal quantities, never boxes of stock, and they see what's in a request before they accept it. Anything above a traveler's allowance gets declared, with the store receipt in hand. The buyer's payment stays in escrow until they confirm delivery. See how BRNG works.

BRNG is still pre-launch. Join the waitlist to hear when it goes live in your city.

For the practical side of flying home, our baggage allowance guide covers airline kilos, and our Pakistan customs allowance guide covers what to declare at the airport.

SRO 666 is the law behind every customs conversation at a Pakistani airport. Personal items are duty-free after seven days abroad, extras come on your first visit of the year, and commercial quantities pay in full. When you hear a new number, check whether it's a draft before you believe it, and download the rules from FBR, not from a forwarded PDF.