Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar has announced that under the personal baggage rules, travellers to Pakistan will be allowed to carry only one cellphone per year free of customs duty.
The new rules limit the number of mobile phones that can be imported into the country in a year to five. Customs duty must be paid on the additional four handsets that require service in Pakistan for more than 30 days.
“The cabinet has determined that mobile phones sold after 1st December 2018 that are not custom duty paid (i.e. smuggled) will be deactivated by PTA after a lapse of 30 days,” the federal minister wrote on the microblogging website Twitter on Saturday.
However, mobile phones that were activated or in use prior to December 1 will not be affected and will not require registration, he added.
