Import duty · Textile machinery
Textile machinery can enter at zero duty — but the concession has a condition, and the condition is the whole thing.
Shafiq Traders · Updated 13 September 2026
Spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing and finishing machinery for the textile sector can enter Pakistan at zero customs duty under a dedicated table in the Fifth Schedule to the Customs Act. That is a concession, not the general tariff rate, and it carries one condition that decides everything: the machine must not be manufactured locally, and the importer must be a textile industrial unit registered with the Ministry of Textile Industry. Sales tax is a separate question and is not waived by the same concession — it is charged in full even when the duty is nil.
A concession, not a default
Chapter 84 of the tariff already charges nil duty on a good deal of textile machinery regardless of any concession — most spinning, carding and combing equipment sits at zero in the general schedule. The Fifth Schedule concession earns its keep on the machinery that would otherwise pay real duty: power looms, for one, and several of the components that go into a spinning ring.
The concession is not automatic on any of it. It applies only to machinery that is not manufactured locally, imported by a textile industrial unit registered with the Ministry of Textile Industry. Both halves of that condition have to hold, and neither is something we can assert on your behalf — one is a fact about the machine, the other a fact about the buyer.
Where the concession changes the number
| Machine | PCT heading | General tariff rate | Rate under the concession |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power looms | 8446.2100 | 20% | 0%, if not manufactured locally |
| Spinning rings | 8448.3330 | 20% | 0%, if not manufactured locally |
| Tops and flats for spinning rings | 8448.3110 | 15% | 0%, if not manufactured locally |
| Weaving machines, width not exceeding 30cm | 8446.1000 | 15% | 0%, if not manufactured locally |
| Carding, combing and drawing machines | 8445.11 – 8445.13 | 0% generally | 0% either way |
The customs duty concession
The Fifth Schedule lists the qualifying PCT headings by number — spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing and finishing machinery among them — against a single rate and a single condition.
- Customs duty on qualifying textile machinery0%on assessed value · Fifth Schedule to the Customs Act, 1969, Part-IV — Imports of Machinery and Equipment for Textile Sector: "Machinery and equipment, not manufactured locally, if imported by Textile industrial units registered with Ministry of Textile Industry"
Checked 13 September 2026 against Federal Board of Revenue — Fifth Schedule to the Customs Act, 1969. Rates move at the budget and by SRO in between, so confirm the current figure with us before you price a consignment on it.
What the duty concession does not touch
Zero customs duty is not a zero landed cost. Sales tax is charged separately, at the standard rate, on machinery this Fifth Schedule table clears at nil.
- Sales tax on qualifying textile machinery18%on value inclusive of customs duty · Sales Tax Act, 1990, section 3(1) — the standard rate; the Fifth Schedule concession is a customs-duty concession only
- Value addition tax at importNot chargedon on machinery imported by a manufacturer for in-house installation or use · Sales Tax Act, 1990, Twelfth Schedule, exclusion (x)
Checked 13 September 2026 against Federal Board of Revenue — Sales Tax Act, 1990 (consolidated text). Rates move at the budget and by SRO in between, so confirm the current figure with us before you price a consignment on it.
What "not manufactured locally" actually means
The Fifth Schedule defines it directly: the expression means goods that are not included in a list of locally manufactured goods issued by the Federal Board of Revenue as a General Order, or, failing that, certified as not locally manufactured by the Engineering Development Board. Neither of those is a form we fill in after the fact. The certificate or the General Order has to exist, or line up with the specific machine on the invoice, before the declaration goes in.
Spinning and carding machinery already sits at nil in the general tariff, so getting the paperwork wrong there costs a delay rather than a demand. A power loom does not start at nil. Getting the registration or the EDB certificate wrong on a loom shipment is a different order of exposure, and it is not one that surfaces at the terminal — a condition that fails can be revisited long after the container has gone, with duty recovered on a shipment everybody had filed away.
Textile companies we have cleared machinery for
Machinery moves through this office for the same mills that import their yarn, fabric and dyes here — spinning and weaving equipment most of all.
Comfort Knitwears · H. Sheikh Noor-ud-Din & Sons · Z-KAP (Zulfiqar Knitting & Processing Mills) · Fairdeal Textiles · Green Hill Corporation · Stitches · Warisha Industries · Aadam Textile · Al Rehman Textile Industries · Al-Hamza Textile · Luminara Textiles · Unifab Exports · Vihaana Textiles · Bilal Qayyum Embroidery · Pak Thread Collection · Textile Sage
The zero rate is not our call to make. It holds only if the machine is not manufactured locally and the buyer is registered the way the condition requires, and both of those are facts we verify against a General Order or an EDB certificate before the declaration goes in. If a concession does not fit your machine, we say so at that point — not after a demand notice arrives on a shipment nobody has thought about in two years.
Questions
What textile machinery importers ask us
Contact
Tell us what is coming.
Give us the product, the port and roughly when the vessel is due, and we will tell you what the clearance involves and what it will cost.