FAQs

A filer is someone whose name appears on the FBR’s Active Taxpayers List, which means they filed an income tax return for the relevant tax year. A non-filer is someone who does not appear on it.

It is about filing, not about paying. You can owe no tax at all and still be a filer by submitting a nil return; you can have had a great deal of tax deducted from your salary all year and still be a non-filer, because deduction is not the same as filing.

There is also a third status, late filer — someone who filed after the due date. It carries its own rate on immovable property transactions, between the filer and non-filer rates. Full detail: what is a filer?

Three ways, and the SMS one is quickest.

By SMS to 9966:

• Individual: type ATL, a space, then your 13-digit CNIC with no dashes.
• AOP or company: type ATL, a space, then the 7-digit NTN.
• AJ&K taxpayers: use AJKATL in place of ATL.

Online: use the FBR’s online verification service.

By downloading the list: the whole Active Taxpayers List is published on the FBR’s ATL download page.

If you have only just filed, allow for the weekly refresh before expecting to appear. Step-by-step: how to check your ATL status.

A new list is published on 1 March each year and stays in force until the end of the following February. It is built from the returns filed for the tax year that ended the previous June — so the return you file by 30 September 2026 feeds the list published on 1 March 2027.

Within that annual cycle the FBR refreshes the list weekly, which is how people who file during the year, or who pay the surcharge to be restored, get added. More: what the ATL is and when it updates.

Your income tax is the same either way. What changes is the rate at which tax is withheld from you on transactions — and on large ones the gap is substantial. On a Rs 20 million property purchase the withholding is Rs 300,000 as a filer and Rs 2,100,000 as a non-filer.

Work out your own figure with the filer status savings calculator, or read where it actually costs you.

Register with the FBR, then file an income tax return. Both are done online through the IRIS portal and both are free.

1. Check whether you are already registered — many people are, without knowing it.
2. Create an IRIS account at iris.fbr.gov.pk, using “Registration for Unregistered Person” if you have never registered, or “E-Enrolment for Registered Person” if you have an NTN but no login.
3. File your income tax return for the tax year, together with your wealth statement.
4. Check the Active Taxpayers List a week or so later.

The full walkthrough, with what to have ready before you start: how to become a filer.

The National Tax Number is the identifier the FBR holds you under. It is what links your returns, your payments and your withholding records to you.

For an individual, yes. Your CNIC number is your NTN, and there is no separate number to obtain or remember. This trips people up constantly — they go looking for an NTN they already have.

Companies and associations of persons are different: they are issued a separate 7-digit NTN.

If you are an individual, you already have it — it is your CNIC number.

What people usually mean by this question is whether they are registered with the FBR at all. Use the FBR’s online verification service, or log in to IRIS if you have an account. For a company, the NTN appears on the registration certificate. See how to register for an NTN.

You owe no tax, but you can still file a nil return — and only filing puts you on the Active Taxpayers List. For anyone who transacts in property, vehicles or significant banking, it is usually worth the hour. See filing a nil return.

Two separate charges, commonly confused. The section 182 penalty applies for filing late at all. The section 182A surcharge — Rs 25,000 for an individual — is optional, and buys restoration to the Active Taxpayers List before the next list is published.

The late filing penalty calculator works out both separately, so you can decide about the surcharge deliberately.

Tax deducted before money reaches you, by whoever is paying you or processing your transaction — your employer on your salary, your bank on the profit it credits, the registration authority on a vehicle transfer. It is collected at source rather than billed to you later.

For many of these deductions the law sets two rates: a lower one for people on the Active Taxpayers List and a higher one for those who are not.

It depends on which kind it is, and this is the distinction worth knowing before a large transaction.

• Adjustable deductions count towards your annual tax bill. You show them in your return and they reduce what you owe, or produce a refund. Being a non-filer here costs you cash flow rather than money — assuming you eventually file.
• Final deductions are the end of it. Nothing is credited and nothing can be reclaimed, so being off the list is a straight loss.

The FBR is Pakistan’s federal tax authority. It administers income tax, sales tax on goods, federal excise and customs; it collects the revenue, maintains the Active Taxpayers List, runs the IRIS filing portal, and enforces the Income Tax Ordinance 2001.

Note that sales tax on services is provincial, not federal — that belongs to the Sindh Revenue Board, the Punjab Revenue Authority and their counterparts, each setting its own rate. Our sales tax calculator covers both sides.

The number moves every year and rises sharply around each filing deadline, so any figure quoted here would be out of date within months. The FBR publishes return-filing statistics itself, and the Active Taxpayers List is the authoritative record — the published list is the count.

What is worth knowing is the shape of it: the filing population is far smaller than the number of people who have tax deducted from them during the year, which is precisely the gap the filer and non-filer withholding rates exist to close.