Industries · Machinery
Clearing plant, machinery and engineering goods — what actually holds a machine at the terminal.
Shafiq Traders · Updated 13 September 2026
Heavy machinery is one of this firm's stated specialities, and it is also the import most likely to be cleared under a concession rather than the standard rate — the Fifth Schedule to the Customs Act lets qualifying plant and machinery in at a reduced rate if it is not manufactured locally and the declared end use holds up. That concession is the whole story on a machinery file: get the classification and the certification right, and it is a straightforward clearance; claim a concession the machine cannot support, and the exposure does not surface at the border, it surfaces later, when the duty is recovered against evidence the company itself signed.
Engineering imports are not one file
A machinery importer's container could hold a CNC machine tool, a packaging line, a generator, a crane, or a crate of spares for something already installed. Customs treats each of those as a different classification under Chapters 84 or 85, and several of them carry their own concession, their own condition, or neither.
Treating a machinery account as one recurring job is how files go wrong. A new capital machine going in under the Fifth Schedule concession needs a different file, built earlier, than a spare part replacing something that broke last week.
What comes in, and what decides it
| What is imported | What the assessment turns on | What usually holds it up |
|---|---|---|
| New capital machinery for a plant | Whether the Fifth Schedule concession applies, and whether the conditions on it hold | Certification that will not survive a later check on "not manufactured locally" or end use |
| Spare parts and components | Classification line by line, often across a long invoice | Parts bundled under one heading instead of listed by their own |
| Used or reconditioned machinery | A different set of import conditions from new machinery entirely | Age, condition and origin paperwork sorted out after the shipment, not before it |
| A machine shipped disassembled | Whether it clears as one unit or as several separately classified parts | An invoice written as if the crates hadn't been split |
| Machinery bought from China specifically | Whether a Certificate of Origin supports a lower rate on that heading under the FTA | A certificate that is missing, unsigned, or made out to the wrong consignee |
What the plant and machinery concession actually does
The Fifth Schedule concession does not set one rate for "machinery." It changes the rate relative to whatever the First Schedule already charges on that heading, and by how much depends on the specific entry.
- Item already at 0% or 3% under the First ScheduleUnchangedon assessed value · Fifth Schedule to the Customs Act, 1969, Part-I, Explanations I–IV
- Item on a higher First Schedule slab (11%, 16%, 20% or more)Capped at 5%, 10% or 15%, depending on the table entryon assessed value · Fifth Schedule to the Customs Act, 1969, Part-I, Explanations I–IV
- Sales tax on qualifying plant and machinery18%on value inclusive of customs duty · Sales Tax Act, 1990, section 3 — general machinery does not appear on the Sixth Schedule's exempt list
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.
Machinery and engineering companies we have cleared for
Heavy machinery is a named speciality on this register, from engineering and EPC contractors to HVAC and industrial trading houses bringing in plant a container at a time.
ATEE & Company · Khurshid Engineering · Cool Corporation · MEC Corporation · Mepcon Engineering
The condition, and what fails later
The concession rests on two certifications. First, that the machine is not on FBR's list of locally-manufactured goods, or is certified as such by the Engineering Development Board. Second, that the company's own chief executive, or whoever is next in the hierarchy with authority to sign, certifies the import as a genuine business requirement, filed online against the company's own user credentials.
A number of entries in the schedule carry a further condition on top: the machine cannot be sold or otherwise disposed of without FBR's approval for a set number of years, and if it is, the duty and tax that would have applied at the time of import become payable then. The exposure is not at the border. It sits with whatever the company signed, and it can be revisited long after the machine is running on the factory floor.
If a concession does not fit the machine in front of us, we say so before the declaration goes in, not after it has been filed and something has already gone wrong with it. A concession claimed on a condition that cannot be evidenced later is not a saving — it is duty with a delay attached, and the delay runs for years, not weeks.
Used, reconditioned, and shipped in pieces
A second-hand machine is not the same import as a new one, and that gets decided before the shipment leaves origin, not at the terminal. Age, condition, and the paperwork behind both belong to a different set of questions than a new machine's classification does, and starting that conversation early is what keeps it from becoming a problem after the machine has already sailed.
The other recurring issue has nothing to do with age. A machine that ships as an engine here, a control cabinet there, and a frame in a third crate does not clear as one line just because the purchase order was for one machine. Each part that travels separately is its own classification unless the invoice and the packing list account for the split before the declaration is written, not after a query raises it.
Questions
What 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.