All-in transfer cost on a property deal.
Total transfer cost
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Stamp + registration
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CVT + town tax
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Advance tax
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The five separate charges hiding inside one deal
When property changes hands in Pakistan, the price on the agreement is rarely the whole story. The transfer triggers a stack of charges that land on top, and they go to different authorities. Provincial stamp duty and a registration fee are paid to the provincial revenue and registration machinery to make the deed legal and recorded. Capital value tax is a federal charge on the transaction value. A town or local-body fee is collected by the municipal authority. And then there is the advance income tax, withheld at the moment of registration, which the buyer pays under section 236K and the seller pays under section 236C. This calculator bundles all of these into one all-in figure so you can see the true cost of crossing the finish line on a deal.
Buyer or seller, filer or not: why your side changes everything
The two dropdowns in this tool do real work. The transaction charges, stamp duty, registration, CVT, and the town fee, apply to the deal itself, but the advance income tax is side-specific. Pick buyer and the tool applies the 236K rate; pick seller and it applies 236C instead. The bigger swing comes from filer status. Pakistan runs a filer versus non-filer system, and on property it is punishing for non-filers. The buyer rates this calculator applies rise from a low single-digit percentage for a person on the Active Taxpayer List to a sharply higher band for a non-filer. Getting onto the ATL before you transact can save more than the cost of filing several years of returns. These specific percentages move with each Finance Act, so confirm the current 236K and 236C rates with the FBR, and the stamp duty and registration figures with your provincial board of revenue, before you commit.
A filer buying a PKR 30 million property
Take the default case: a filer buying a property valued at PKR 30 million. The transaction charges each apply as a flat percentage of the value, and the buyer's advance tax is the 236K rate for a filer in the lowest value band. The table sums them into the all-in cost.
| Charge | Amount |
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The chart above shows how the all-in cost splits across deed charges, CVT plus town fee, and advance income tax for your current inputs.
The figure that is not really a cost
Here is the practical judgement that catches people out. The advance income tax, the 236K or 236C amount, is not a final tax in most cases. It is collected up front but it is adjustable, meaning you claim it back against your overall income tax liability when you file your annual return. So for a filer, that PKR 450,000 in the example is more of a prepayment than a sunk cost, and a good chunk of it can come back if your final tax bill is lower than the advance collected. The stamp duty, registration, CVT, and town fee, by contrast, are genuinely gone. This is exactly why a non-filer is in a worse position twice over: they pay a far higher advance rate, and as a non-filer they often cannot reclaim it efficiently. Treat the non-filer premium as the real, avoidable waste.
Is the tax based on my actual price or an official value?
These charges are generally levied on the higher of your declared transaction value or the FBR notified value for the area, and provincial valuation tables also feed into stamp duty. This calculator works off the single property value you enter, so for an accurate estimate you should plug in whichever value the authorities will actually use, which is often the FBR or provincial valuation rather than a below-market figure on paper.
Who normally pays the stamp duty and CVT, the buyer or the seller?
By long-standing practice in most of Pakistan the buyer bears the stamp duty, registration fee, CVT, and town fee, while each side pays its own advance income tax, 236K for the buyer and 236C for the seller. That convention can be renegotiated in the sale agreement, so confirm in writing who is carrying which charge before money moves, and select your side in the tool to see the advance tax that falls on you.