Customs / Import Duty Calculator

This duty calculator estimates the total customs duty, sales tax, and withholding tax on goods imported into Pakistan — enter the CIF value below to calculate.

Importing goods into Pakistan means stacking several separate charges on top of each other, not paying one flat "import tax" — customs duty, additional customs duty, regulatory duty, and sales tax on imports are calculated in sequence, each one sometimes applied on a base that already includes the previous charge.

The layered structure of import charges

Customs duty is the baseline charge under the Customs Act, 1969, set per HS (Harmonized System) code — different product categories carry very different rates, from near-zero on some raw materials to high rates on finished luxury goods. Additional customs duty (ACD) and regulatory duty (RD) are separate, often product-specific surcharges layered on top, used by the government to protect specific local industries or manage the trade balance for particular categories. Finally, sales tax on imports — generally the same 17% standard GST rate — is charged on the customs value plus duties already applied, meaning the sales tax component is calculated on an already-inflated base, not the original invoice value.

A worked example

A shipment invoiced at a given value doesn't land at that value plus one flat percentage — by the time customs duty, ACD, RD (where applicable), and sales tax are stacked, the total landed cost can run substantially above the invoice price, and the exact multiplier depends entirely on the HS code the goods are classified under.

How this connects to your other calculations

If you're importing a vehicle specifically, the token tax and registration side of vehicle ownership is a separate, later calculation — see the Token Tax Calculator for what happens after the vehicle clears customs and gets registered provincially. For general sales tax mechanics on the import-stage GST component, the Sales Tax Calculator explains how the federal GST rate itself works, independent of the customs layers stacked before it.

Common mistakes

Importers frequently budget only for customs duty and forget that ACD, RD, and sales tax are calculated cumulatively — each layer can be applied to a base that already includes the previous one, which compounds faster than most people expect from simply adding percentages together. Always get an HS code classification confirmed before committing to an import, since misclassification (even unintentional) can mean paying — or under-paying and later being assessed — a very different total than expected.