Vehicle transfer of ownership in Pakistan: what Islamabad, Punjab and Sindh require in 2026

17 min read · Facts checked 2026-10-08

In Islamabad, the buyer must report a transfer of ownership within 30 days. Both buyer and seller give biometrics, and the vehicle is physically inspected. Punjab has required biometric verification through NADRA's PAK-ID app since early 2026. Excise Sindh publishes a transfer fee table, from Rs 500 for a motorcycle to Rs 7,000 for a car above 3000cc, and a per-day penalty for a late transfer. If an Islamabad record shows HPA, the bank must endorse the transfer before ownership can move. Punjab's fees are not settled: it publishes two conflicting tables. We could not establish the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa process.

A transfer is handled by the excise department that holds the registration, and each province runs its own. We verified what three of them publish. Islamabad publishes its rules, including what happens when the seller has died or is abroad. Punjab changed its process in 2026, so any transfer checklist written before then is out of date. Sindh publishes its transfer fee and a schedule of penalties for a late transfer, but not the steps.

Islamabad is the register our lookup answers, and the one we researched most closely. An Islamabad transfer comes down to five requirements. We list them as requirements, not as a verified order of counters.

• The buyer reports it within 30 days. The law puts the duty to report a transfer of ownership on the buyer, not the seller.
• Both parties give biometrics. Buyer and seller each have to be verified biometrically.
• The vehicle is inspected. A physical inspection is part of the transfer, so the vehicle has to be there as well as the papers.
• Any bank finance is dealt with. If the record shows HPA, the bank has to endorse the transfer form before ownership can move.
• Advance tax, where it applies. Non-filers pay three times the filer rate, and the vehicle's age can reduce it. Read the cost section below before you budget.

In Islamabad the law answers this plainly: the buyer. The 30-day duty to report a transfer of ownership sits with the transferee, not the seller.

The practical position is less comfortable for the seller. Until the transfer is done, the register still names the seller, whoever is driving the car. A seller who hands over the keys and the file and walks away is relying on the buyer to finish the job.

In Islamabad the seller cannot fully step away in any case, because the transfer needs the seller's biometrics as well as the buyer's. The sensible arrangement is to agree, before money changes hands, when both of you will go to the office.

Islamabad Excise publishes what it will take instead. If the seller has died, it takes the heirs' documents and biometrics. If the seller is abroad, it takes the seller's consent attested by the consulate.

Ask for these by name at the office. We have not verified an equivalent for Punjab, Sindh or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. That does not mean none exists.

We are not printing a rupee total, and the reason is the department's own pages. What we can tell you is what goes into the bill and where the official sources disagree.

Advance tax, filer or non-filer

Non-filers pay three times the filer rate of advance tax on an Islamabad transfer. The department's own transfer page still shows older, lower figures, and both of its tables are stamped 2019. Do not budget from those tables.

Capital value tax

Islamabad and Punjab both publish capital value tax at 1% of the vehicle's value, with 10% depreciation in that value for each year. In Islamabad it applies to cars above 1300cc, or at 1300cc and above, depending on which of its pages you read. Its fee schedule says it applies to new registrations and transfers, and stops after five financial years. As an illustration only: on a vehicle valued at Rs 5,000,000, 1% is Rs 50,000 before any depreciation.

The vehicle's age

Age can reduce the advance tax. The two official sources we found describe this differently, so it has its own section below.

Often, yes. But the two official sources we found do not say the same thing.

Punjab's rates page

Says the rate of advance tax collected on a transfer under section 231B(2) is reduced by 10% for each year from the date of first registration in Pakistan.

Islamabad's post-registration fee calculator

Charges no advance tax on a transfer once the vehicle is five years past its registration.

We have not found an official page that reconciles the two. For a car more than a few years old, ask at the counter whether any advance tax applies at all, and whether you are being charged as a filer or a non-filer, before you agree a price that assumes either.

Yes. Punjab now requires biometric verification through the NADRA PAK-ID app to register or transfer a vehicle. It came in early 2026, and any transfer checklist written before then is out of date.

That includes one on the department's own website. Its vehicle registration page still lists transfer requirements with no mention of biometric verification. A buyer and seller who prepared from that page alone would miss the step the process now needs.

We have not verified the rest of Punjab's current transfer paperwork against an official source published since the change, so we are not listing it. Ask your excise office what to bring before you go.

Punjab Excise publishes two different transfer fee tables on its own website, and they disagree.

This is not a rounding difference. The two tables differ by the same proportion in every band. We cannot tell you which figure your office will charge, so get the total at the counter. Any site quoting a single Punjab transfer fee has not resolved this conflict. The department has not resolved it either.

Punjab's rates page also says that a car up to 1000cc transferred within ten years of registration is charged Rs 20,000 in lifetime token tax, with a rebate equal to 10% for each financial year. Ask whether it applies to your car when you get the total.

Not without the bank. HPA on an Islamabad record means Hire Purchase Agreement: the vehicle is under bank finance. The bank has to endorse the transfer form before ownership can move, so a private sale cannot complete without involving the bank. The release is called HPT, and it costs nothing.

If you are buying, check for HPA before you pay, not after. On an Islamabad plate it shows in the excise record. We verified these rules for Islamabad. Sindh's transfer form points the same way: it carries an endorsement block in which the party to the hire-purchase agreement consents to the transfer. What HPA and HPT mean on a vehicle record.

A transfer moves the registration. It does not prove the vehicle is what the papers say. Do these before any money moves.

• Match the numbers. Read the chassis and engine numbers stamped on the vehicle against the registration book, character by character. They are two different numbers. If either does not match, stop there.
• Check the excise record for the register that issued the plate. For Islamabad you need only the plate. Punjab's MTMIS lookup needs the vehicle number, the registration date and a picture captcha, so ask the seller for the registration book and run it yourself.
• Look at the token tax date on an Islamabad record. In March 2026 Islamabad Excise announced it would suspend the registration of any vehicle whose motor vehicle tax was last paid on or before 30 June 2015, and cancel it after 15 days. It has since published a list of more than 65,000 cancelled registrations.
• Look for HPA. If it is there, the bank is part of the sale.
• Arrange a police check separately. An excise record is a tax and title record, not a theft check, and our lookup cannot tell you whether a vehicle is stolen. What actually works.

For the full pre-purchase list, see used car checks in Pakistan. Traffic challans are a separate record that our lookup does not check: how e-challan checks work.

Excise Sindh does not publish a step-by-step transfer procedure. It does publish three things we can stand behind: the transfer fee, the penalty for transferring late, and the form itself. We read all three on its website on 8 October 2026.

What is the vehicle transfer fee in Sindh?

That is the Motor Vehicle Transfer Fee table on Excise Sindh's Motor Vehicle Tax page. So a car up to 800cc, which covers a Mehran, pays Rs 1,600, and a 1300cc car pays Rs 2,000. The page adds its own caveat, that charges can depend on vehicle type, value, engine capacity, registration status and the date of the transaction, and asks you to review the calculated amount before paying. Its four-wheeler calculator also applies transfer charges to a new registration when the invoice or import documents are not in the applicant's name. The lookup result has a Transfer Fee Details block of its own, but for the car we checked on 8 October 2026 it read 'Fee information is not available', so do not count on it for a quote.

What is the penalty for a late transfer in Sindh?

Excise Sindh published this schedule as updated vehicle transfer penalty rates on 13 February 2025. For motorcycles, scooters and rickshaws the notice says the penalty applies once the default exceeds fifteen days. For cars it runs per day from the end of what the notice calls the required timeframe, which it does not state in days. At Rs 200 a day, a car up to 1000cc reaches its Rs 30,000 cap after 150 days. Ask the office what the deadline is rather than assuming Islamabad's 30 days applies.

What does the Sindh transfer form ask for?

The form is Form T.O., Information of Transfer of Ownership of a Motor Vehicle, which the department lists among its motor vehicle forms with a December 2017 date. It cites section 35 of the Motor Vehicles Ordinance 1965 and rule 47. Its office note lists the documents the examining officer expects:

• A sale deed on Rs 100 stamp paper, filled in by the seller and the purchaser and produced within what the form calls the prescribed period, which it does not state.
• A copy of the seller's CNIC, and the purchaser's original CNIC with a copy.
• The surrendered original registration certificate, and the original returned file.
• The filled T.O. form. For a vehicle on a hire purchase agreement, the form's endorsement block, in which the finance party consents to the transfer.
• For commercial vehicles only, an R.T.A. or P.H.A. no-objection certificate and a physical inspection report from the motor vehicle inspector.

We could not establish the transfer process for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from official sources, so this guide does not describe one. We would rather say that than repeat a checklist we cannot stand behind. We could not confirm that the province has a working online lookup at all: the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa page sets out what we could confirm.

It depends on the register, and in two of the three we checked the official page names the requirement without describing the counter.

Islamabad

The department's transfer checklist asks for a verified and valid biometric receipt titled Transfer of Ownership from the seller as well as the purchaser, so the biometrics are taken before the file is submitted and produce a receipt. Where heirs transfer a deceased seller's vehicle, each heir's receipt is titled Purchaser Biometric. The page does not say where the biometrics are taken; its Information Desk is the place to ask.

Punjab

Through the NADRA PAK-ID app, since early 2026. The department's own registration page still lists transfer requirements without it.

Sindh

The department's lookup result is built to show a pending transfer with its biometric date, so a biometric step exists and is dated per vehicle. Its website does not describe it.

If you are buying across a provincial line, note that a vehicle can move between registers. Punjab announced re-registration of vehicles registered outside Punjab in January 2026. The letters on the plate will not tell you which register it sits in: why plate letters do not identify a province.

• The current Punjab transfer fee. Two official tables, and no way for us to tell which one your office uses.
• Whether Islamabad's capital value tax applies to a car of exactly 1300cc. Three official sources give two different answers.
• How the two official rules on advance tax for older vehicles fit together.
• Whether Islamabad's owner-linked number plate policy, announced in July 2025, is in force.
• Sindh's transfer deadline in days, and how its biometric step works. Its site publishes the fee and the penalty, not the procedure.
• Where Islamabad takes the biometrics its checklist asks for. Its transfer page names the receipt, not the place.
• The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa process, and Punjab's full paperwork since biometric verification began.

VehicleCheckPK is independent and not affiliated with any government department. The excise departments and police forces named here hold the authoritative records; for any legal purpose, confirm with them directly.