About the Data

Source and statistical scope

Trade figures are compiled by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) from official trade declarations supplied by Pakistan Single Window (PSW), the current trade-data source. Published aggregates are organised by period, product, partner and customs station.

Historical data partners: Pakistan Customs, Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) supported the customs records and systems used for earlier trade statistics. Their contribution remains part of the provenance of the historical series.

The Trade Section, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Karachi compiles, rectifies, validates and harmonizes the trade data used for official statistical reporting.

PBS is part of the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives. These statistics cover merchandise (goods) trade across Pakistan's customs territory under the general trade system, following United Nations International Merchandise Trade Statistics (IMTS) recommendations. Services trade is outside this dataset. Re-exports and re-imports are identified separately from ordinary exports and imports.

How the statistics are compiled

Traders file Goods Declarations with Pakistan Customs. The supplied metadata describes declarations processed through WeBOC, received from PSW and verified by FBR's Directorate of Research & Statistics. A declaration records the commodity code, description, quantity, value, partner country, customs station and transport information.

1. Capture and transfer: customs declarations are shared electronically for statistical compilation.
2. Validation: PBS checks commodity and country codes, quantity units, unit values and duplicate records, and edits or queries discrepancies.
3. Classification and aggregation: records are organised by commodity, partner, station and period; statistical classifications support further analysis.
4. Dissemination: PBS publishes summary releases, detailed tables, bulletins and annual reports for government, international agencies, academia and researchers.

The portal presents aggregates and derived analysis. Validation reduces recording errors but does not eliminate them; the data notes describe known limitations and repairs.

Sections and product classifications

The Harmonized System (HS), maintained by the World Customs Organization, provides a hierarchy from broad groups of goods to detailed products. An HS Section sits above a chapter and uses a Roman numeral; it is not a digit prefix of an HS code.

The international HS has 21 Sections (I–XXI). For example, Section II covers vegetable products (chapters 06–14), Section XI textiles and textile articles (50–63), and Section XVI machinery and electrical equipment (84–85). Chapter 77 is reserved. National special provisions and unallocated records must be distinguished from the 21 international Sections.

Sections, commodity groups and end use serve different purposes. HS Sections group related chapters. PBS publication groups such as food, petroleum and textiles can follow their own commodity lists. The Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) provides another statistical grouping, while Broad Economic Categories (BEC) group goods by economic use. A publication group or BEC category is not interchangeable with an HS Section. This portal's BEC method is described under Analysis methods; the metadata's mention of SITC does not imply that the portal currently offers SITC reporting.

Tariff reference: FBR's Pakistan Customs Tariff FY 2026–27 lists headings, national tariff lines, descriptions and customs-duty rates. It provides edition-specific classification evidence; earlier trade requires the relevant historical edition and amendments. Reviewing this publication does not mean that all of its codes and descriptions have already been loaded into the portal.

Publication frequency and revisions

PBS disseminates monthly releases, quarterly reviews and annual publications, including cumulative figures for the July–June fiscal year. Provisional headline figures precede detailed tables. The supplied metadata describes routine editing and coding during the month following the reporting period; release dates and the revision status of individual series should be checked against the relevant PBS publication.

Later corrections can revise earlier periods. Use a consistent release vintage, fiscal-year definition, currency and classification level when comparing results. The portal's available periods and documented source revisions are shown in Coverage and Data notes. Original releases and statistical publications are available from PBS External Trade Statistics.

Two kinds of data on this site

1. Pakistan's customs records (PBS). Every chart, table and figure computed on this site, including shares, growth rates, indices, projections and anomaly screens, comes from Pakistan's merchandise trade records unless a page says otherwise.

2. External reference and context data. Some analysis pages add facts that customs records cannot provide: agreement dates and terms, European Union reports on GSP+, Afghan transit values, port cargo tonnes, power-plant capacity, policy decisions and product classifications. These are listed under External datasets and cited where they are used. Each is labelled by type:

• Official: published by a government, central bank, international organisation or the European Union.
• Official figure as reported: an official decision or figure known from a press report because no official publication was found; shown with the press source and, on charts, in a lighter shade.
• Company: a company's own publication, used only for facts about its facilities.

External figures are never mixed into Pakistan's trade totals. Where they are shown next to customs data (for example Afghan transit beside Pakistan–Afghanistan trade), the two are kept as separate series.

Analysis and institutional review

Officially sourced statistics and analytical interpretation have different publication status. The CPEC, Afghan transit, neighbours, government-period comparisons and related country and trade-policy pages contain narratives, external figures or policy assessments. These pages require sign-in and carry an Analysis for institutional review notice. A source citation does not establish institutional clearance or an official PBS policy position.

Institutional clearance is required before this content is made public. Political-party colours and comparisons describe selected periods; they do not establish that a party or government caused a change in trade. External debt figures, border-event timelines and trade-policy narratives require the same review.

Definitions

Exports and imports

Merchandise exports (trade type 3) and imports (trade type 1). Re-exports (type 4) and re-imports (type 2) are reported on their own pages and are not included in headline figures.

Valuation: FOB and CIF

Exports are valued free on board (FOB), at the port of loading. Imports are valued cost, insurance and freight (CIF), including transport to Pakistan. A comparison of export and import prices for the same product therefore includes shipping costs.

Fiscal year (FY)

July to June. "FY 2025-26" runs from July 2025 to June 2026. "Fiscal year to date" means July to the latest month available. An asterisk (*) on a chart marks an incomplete fiscal year.

Comparisons

Growth is measured against the same months of the previous year (year on year), unless stated as month on month (MoM).

Trade balance and coverage

Balance = exports minus imports; a negative balance is a deficit. Coverage = exports ÷ imports × 100: the share of the import bill paid for by exports.

HS / PCT codes

The Harmonized System groups goods into sections, chapters (2-digit), headings (4-digit) and international subheadings (6-digit). Pakistan extends the subheading to an 8-digit tariff line in the Pakistan Customs Tariff (PCT). Codes are stored as text to preserve leading zeros. Revisions can split, merge or change the scope of codes; earlier records may use broader or different codes. The site's HS 2022 names and PCT reference labels do not reconstruct the tariff edition applicable to every historical month. See the HS / PCT review for completed corrections and remaining reference gaps.

Partner country

Country of destination for exports and country of origin for imports, as declared to customs. The European Union is shown as its 27 current members in every year. Trade that PBS records against the European Union as a whole (partner code 300, not allocated to a member state) is included in EU and Europe totals as “European Union (unallocated)”.

Customs station and gateway

The customs route code (RT) records where goods were cleared: sea port, oil terminal, dry port, air freight unit, export processing zone, post office or land border crossing. Codes have been renumbered over time (April 2020, June 2021, March 2022), so the site groups them into gateways, stable physical places such as Karachi Port (codes 13 and 14), and attributes each month to what its code meant at the time. A station's area can be wider than its name suggests; for example, the Gwadar collectorate also covers Lasbela, including the offshore oil mooring at Hub.

Frontier mode

How goods crossed Pakistan's border: by sea, air, land or post. Goods cleared at inland dry ports, export processing zones and pipeline oil terminals arrived or left by sea and are counted as sea trade.

Unit value

Value divided by quantity for a tariff line, in the line's unit (kg, tonne, dozen or number). It is a proxy for price; changes can also reflect a shift in product mix or grade.

Quantities

Quantities are declared in the unit of each tariff line: tonnes for grains and sugar, kilograms for oils, tea and pulses, numbers or dozens for many manufactures. Analysis of volumes and prices starts in FY 2014-15 because earlier customs quantities contain recording errors (see Data notes). Where a recorded quantity implies an impossible price, the tonnage is re-estimated at the typical dollar price of nearby periods and the chart says so.

Price and volume effects

Change in value split across tariff lines: volume effect = change in quantity × last year's unit value; price effect = change in unit value × this year's quantity. Lines traded in only one period are shown separately.

Concentration (HHI)

Herfindahl–Hirschman index: the sum of squared percentage shares (0–10,000). Below 1,500 is commonly read as diversified, above 2,500 as highly concentrated.

Currencies

Values are recorded in Pakistani rupees, US dollars and SDR at the time of each transaction. US-dollar values are available from July 2003 and SDR values from January 2014; earlier SDR values are not recorded. Long-run shares use rupee values, which are available for every year and are not affected by the exchange rate.

Analysis methods

The following methods describe calculations made by this portal. They should be distinguished from the methodology of separately published PBS statistical series, including official trade indices.

Prices, volumes and terms of trade

Chained Fisher unit-value indices for exports and imports. Matching first uses the same 8-digit tariff code and recorded quantity unit. Remaining lines are summed and matched within the same 6-digit subheading and unit. This can accommodate national tariff-line changes within an unchanged subheading; it does not connect different HS6 codes or verify changes in a code's scope across editions. Price relatives outside 0.2–5×, or more than four robust standard deviations (and at least ±50%) from the typical change, are excluded as probable changes in quantity recording. Volume = value index ÷ price index. Terms of trade = export price index ÷ import price index × 100; income terms of trade = terms of trade × export volume index ÷ 100. Rupee and US-dollar indices start in FY 2003-04, SDR indices in FY 2014-15. The indices and coverage indicators use the repaired source records; matching unit labels alone does not establish a consistent quantity basis.

Imports by end use

The site combines World Bank WITS concordances for HS 2022, 2017 and 2012 to assign UN Broad Economic Categories (BEC Rev.4) at 6 digits, then groups them into capital goods (BEC 41, 521), intermediate goods (111, 121, 21, 22, 42, 53), fuels (3) and consumer goods (112, 122, 51, 522, 6). For this portal, passenger cars (51) are counted as consumer goods and mobile phones (8517.12–.14) as consumer durables. Unmapped codes take the most common BEC among mapped codes in their heading, then their chapter; otherwise they receive BEC 7, goods not elsewhere specified. These are analytical fallbacks. The combined mapping applies across the series without selecting an HS edition for each month; a corrected PCT description does not independently verify a shipment's economic use.

Fiscal year outlook

Projection: the year-to-date total × the median ratio of full-year to same-months totals in the previous five fiscal years; the range uses the lowest and highest ratios. Seasonal adjustment: classical ratio to a centred 12-month moving average, with each calendar month's factor the median of its ratios. Momentum: the last three months of adjusted trade against the three before, at an annual rate. Targets are entered by administrators from official announcements.

Valuation anomalies (restricted)

For each 8-digit line and unit, the benchmark is the median unit value of all country × station × month records over 24 months, with the median absolute deviation (MAD) as spread. A record is flagged when |log unit value − log benchmark| ÷ (1.4826 × MAD) reaches the threshold. Valuation gap = declared value − quantity × benchmark unit value. Flags are statistical leads, not findings.

Monthly bulletin

Generated automatically from the month's records: headline values, comparisons with the previous month, the same month last year and the fiscal year to date, the largest movements by HS chapter and partner, and the price, volume and end-use lines from the methods above.

Trade agreements

Each partner's share of Pakistan's total exports and imports is averaged over the three fiscal years before an agreement took effect and the latest three complete fiscal years. A share is expressed as a multiple of its earlier level; exports "gained more" when the export multiple is at least 20% above the import multiple, and the reverse. Coverage (exports ÷ imports) shows whether the gap widened. Products exported "at scale" are HS headings each worth at least 0.001% of Pakistan's total exports that year.

GSP+ and EU preferences

The EU's share of Pakistan's exports is compared with the US share, a market that gave no comparable preference, before (FY 2010-11 to 2012-13) and after GSP+, overall and for clothing and home textiles (HS 61–63). The product scoreboard divides the growth of exports to the EU by the growth to the rest of the world, using rupee values. The duty estimate applies typical EU tariffs (WTO, TARIC) to exports in each chapter, as a cross-check of the European Commission's own figure.

CPEC, corridors and ports

Trade with China is grouped by type of gateway from the route reference (seaports including Gwadar, air, dry ports and EPZs, Khunjerab and other inland stations), with customs codes renumbered over time combined and each month attributed to what its code meant then. Port comparisons use two measures: share of trade value from customs records, and cargo tonnes from the port authorities via the Pakistan Economic Survey. Coal imports (HS 2701) are shown in tonnes against the completion dates of CPEC coal plants.

Afghanistan: trade and transit

Bilateral trade is Pakistan's own exports to and imports from Afghanistan, from customs records. Transit is Afghanistan's trade with the world passing through Pakistan; it is not part of Pakistan's trade totals and comes from Pakistan Customs (published series to FY 2020-21; official figures as reported thereafter). Shutdown losses compare recorded exports from November 2025 with the same months a year earlier.

Commodity and sector pages

Products are grouped on HS codes listed on each page. Partner charts use shares of rupee values; volume and price charts start in FY 2014-15. On the wheat and sugar pages a reversal episode is an export phase followed by imports within 24 months, or imports followed by exports within 18 months; the buy-back price gap = tonnes matched × (import price − export price), an indicator that includes freight and leaves out subsidies and storage.

External datasets and reference sources

Used for classification, context and facts that customs records do not contain. Each is cited on the page where it appears.

Glossary

APTTA

Afghanistan–Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (2010), governing Afghan goods moving through Pakistan.

BEC and end use

UN Broad Economic Categories, grouping goods by use: capital goods, intermediate goods, fuels and consumer goods.

Buy-back price gap

Extra paid to import back a tonnage previously exported: tonnes matched × (import price − export price).

CPEC

China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, launched in 2015: power plants, roads, Gwadar port and special economic zones.

Coverage ratio

Exports ÷ imports × 100.

Counterfactual / comparison market

A market without the policy (for GSP+, the US) used to judge what would have happened anyway.

EBA

Everything But Arms: the EU's duty-free scheme for least-developed countries such as Bangladesh.

Fisher index

Geometric mean of the Laspeyres index (base-period weights) and the Paasche index (current-period weights).

FTA and PTA

A free trade agreement cuts duties on most trade; a preferential trade agreement covers a list of selected products.

GSP, GSP+

Generalised Scheme of Preferences: EU tariff cuts for developing countries. GSP+ removes most duties for countries that implement 27 international conventions.

Income terms of trade

Terms of trade × export volume: the quantity of imports that export earnings can buy.

MAD and robust z-score

Median absolute deviation and a z-score built on it; less affected by extreme values than the standard deviation.

MFN duty

The normal (most-favoured-nation) duty a country charges members of the WTO without a preference.

Monetary gold

Gold held as reserves by the central bank; excluded from merchandise trade by international convention.

Negative list

Goods barred from a trade channel, such as the list of goods excluded from Afghan transit in October 2023.

Preference utilisation rate

Share of goods eligible for a preference that actually claimed it.

Re-exports

Goods exported in the same state as they were imported.

SEZ

Special economic zone: an industrial area with tax and customs incentives.

Seasonal adjustment

Removing the regular calendar pattern so that month-to-month movements show the underlying trend.

SPM

Single point mooring: an offshore buoy where tankers discharge crude oil.

Terms of trade

Export prices ÷ import prices: how many imports a unit of exports buys.

Trade diversion

A shift of purchases from one supplier to another because of a tariff preference, as with palm oil from Malaysia to Indonesia.

Transit trade

Goods passing through Pakistan between other countries; recorded separately from Pakistan's own trade.

Volume index

Value index ÷ price index: the change in quantities traded at constant prices.

Data notes

Recent revisions

• Earlier years revised by PBS (October 2026). Figures for July 2003 to June 2014 now come from the revised PBS series. They are available in US dollars as well as rupees, and agree closely with PBS’s published annual totals. Two recording errors were corrected: import values for January–August 2012, which had been counted about twice, and a repeated block of exports in September 2009.
• Product names checked (October 2026). Product descriptions were checked against the official Pakistan Customs Tariff and corrected where they were missing or wrong. Trade values and quantities were not changed.
• Product codes change over time. The customs tariff is revised every few years, so the code for some products changes between years (mobile phones and solar panels, for example). Following a single code over many years can therefore show a break; totals for product groups are not affected.
• Some recent codes are not yet named. A small number of recent product codes are not yet in the reference list of product names. Their values are included in all totals, but they may show a broader product name and may not appear in name searches.
• United Arab Emirates. Trade recorded separately for individual emirates, such as Dubai, is shown under the United Arab Emirates.

Detailed records of each revision are kept by PBS.

• The latest month's figures are provisional and may be revised.
• Totals may differ slightly from published releases because of rounding and later revisions.
• Customs records follow shipments; the State Bank's balance-of-payments figures follow payments, so the two can differ, especially for partners such as Afghanistan.
• Customs quantities before FY 2014-15 contain recording errors (for example sugar recorded at a tenth of its price); volume analysis starts in FY 2014-15.
• Garment quantities appear to have been recorded on a different basis from late 2019 to early 2022, which affects export price indices for those years.
• Customs route codes come from a route reference (October 2026) that merges the WeBOC station tables with the 2017 and 2020 station tables and checks each code against the products and partners it carries. It named code 14 (MCC Appraisement East, Karachi, about a third of imports) and corrected code 39, which was Lahore Appraisement until March 2020, not Zhob.
• Most imports recorded under the Gwadar Collectorate codes since July 2021 are crude oil discharged at the Lasbela oil mooring and LPG from Iran, not Gwadar port cargo. Several inland dry-port codes (Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Lahore, Multan) carry large amounts of pipeline petroleum.
• A few codes remain unresolved (22, 31): their names in the source tables contradict what they carry, so their value is kept apart rather than attributed to a place.
• Partner groupings such as GCC, EU, SAARC, ECO, ASEAN and FTA partners are defined for analysis on this site and may overlap.
• Map boundaries are indicative and do not imply official endorsement of any boundary.

Download and reuse

Download and Explorer options are available according to the access assigned to each account. External datasets remain the property of their publishers; cite them from the original source.

Please cite as

Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan Trade Statistics (accessed ).