The Active Taxpayer List: it now updates daily, and what being off it costs you

The Active Taxpayer List is the register FBR maintains under section 181A of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, and since SRO 1638(I)/2024 dated 18 October 2024 it updates daily rather than weekly from a single 1 March baseline. Your name goes on it when you file a return for the latest tax year by the due date in section 118, and being off it multiplies your withholding rates under Rule 1 of the Tenth Schedule.

This page sets out what the list is, how it now updates, how you get on and back on, and what being off it costs you transaction by transaction. Every claim is cited to the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, the Income Tax Rules 2002, or the SRO that amended them. If you want to be put on the list rather than read about it, that is our income tax filing service.

What the list actually is

Section 181A of the Ordinance is remarkably short. In full, it provides that the Board shall have the power to institute an active taxpayers' list, and that the list shall be regulated as may be prescribed. That is the entire section.

The consequence of that drafting matters more than it looks. Almost none of the substantive ATL law is in the Ordinance. It sits in the Income Tax Rules 2002, which means it can be changed by notification without a Finance Act, and which is exactly how the biggest recent change happened without most people noticing.

The definition in section 2 is worth knowing too, because it is broader than people assume: the active taxpayers' list means the list instituted by the Board under section 181A, and includes such a list issued by the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Central Board of Revenue or the Gilgit Baltistan Council Board of Revenue. A filer in AJK or Gilgit Baltistan is not outside the system.

The update cycle changed, and the official guidance has not caught up

This is the correction that matters most, because it changes what you should actually do.

The rule that governs the list is rule 81B of the Income Tax Rules 2002. As it stood before late 2024, it said three things that everybody learned and repeated: the Board publishes the list by the first day of March each financial year, the list is valid until the last day of February next following, and the list is updated every Sunday at 24:00 hours.

All three were changed by SRO 1638(I)/2024, dated 18 October 2024, made under section 237(1) of the Ordinance. The SRO substituted sub rule (2) with an inclusion test rather than a publication date, substituted the words "last day of February, next following" in sub rule (3) with wording tied to the due date instead, and substituted the words "every Sunday at 24:00 hours, hereinafter referred to as updation date" in sub rule (4) with the words "daily basis".

We want to be direct about the awkward part. FBR's own Active Taxpayer List information page still states that the list is published every financial year on 1 March and is valid to the last day of February following, and that the list is updated every Monday. Read on 22 August 2026, it had not been revised. It contradicts FBR's own SRO. Where an official web page and an official notification disagree, the notification is the law. If somebody quotes the 1 March position at you, ask them to reconcile it with SRO 1638(I)/2024.

How you get on the list

Sub rule (2) of rule 81B, as substituted, sets a single test. A person's name shall be included in the ATL if he files a return of income tax for the latest tax year, by the due date specified in section 118 of the Ordinance, or by the due date as extended under section 119 by the Commissioner, or by the due date as extended by the Board under section 214A.

Three things follow that are worth pulling out:

• It is the latest tax year that counts, not any year. Filing three years of old returns does not put you on the list if the most recent one is missing.
• A properly granted extension counts as the due date. An extension under section 119 protects your status. An informal intention to file late protects nothing. We cover the extension mechanics in the late filing penalty guide.
• Companies and associations of persons incorporated or formed after 30 June relevant to the latest tax year are included even though no return is yet due, under the substituted sub rule (5).

How you get back on after filing late

The same SRO inserted a new sub rule (2A) dealing with late filers: a person is included on the list on filing after the due date if he pays the surcharge specified in the proviso to clause (a) of sub section (1) of section 182A.

Those surcharge figures were increased sharply by the Finance Act 2026, and they are now one hundred thousand rupees for a company, fifty thousand rupees for an association of persons, and twenty five thousand rupees for an individual. For an individual the previous figure was one thousand rupees, so this is a twenty five fold increase in one year and is now the dominant cost of being late.

Section 182A(3), also new this year, offers an alternative for individuals only: the surcharge condition does not apply to an individual who furnishes an undertaking before the Commissioner declaring that he shall not purchase, acquire, or otherwise obtain ownership or beneficial interest in any property for six months from the date of the undertaking, in such form as may be prescribed. Note that the statute says any property rather than immovable property, and note that it depends on a prescribed form which we could not locate as at 22 August 2026.

What being off the list costs you, transaction by transaction

This is where the list stops being administrative and starts being expensive. The mechanism is Rule 1 of the Tenth Schedule to the Ordinance, and it is a rate multiplier rather than a fine.

The general rule is that where tax is required to be deducted or collected from a person not appearing on the list, the rate shall be increased by one hundred percent of the rate specified in the Ordinance. In plain terms, the withholding rate doubles across a very long list of everyday transactions.

Then the provisos carve out the transactions where the uplift is harsher still:

• Motor vehicle registration, section 231B: increased by two hundred percent, not one hundred.
• Purchase of immovable property, section 236K: a dedicated table for people not on the list, at 10.5 percent where fair market value is up to fifty million rupees, 14.5 percent between fifty and one hundred million, and 18.5 percent above one hundred million.
• Sale of immovable property, section 236C: 11.5 percent of the gross consideration.
• Sales to distributors, dealers and wholesalers, section 236G: 2 percent.
• Sales to retailers, section 236H: 2.5 percent.

Property is where this hurts most, and by a wide margin. On a hundred million rupee purchase the difference between filer and non filer treatment under section 236K is measured in millions of rupees, against a filing exercise that for most individuals costs a few thousand. That single comparison is the entire commercial case for filing.

There are also three consequences in section 182A(1) that are not rate uplifts at all. A person who has not filed by the due date shall not be allowed, for that tax year, to carry forward any loss under Part VIII of Chapter IV; shall not be issued a refund during the period they are not on the list; and shall not be entitled to additional payment for delayed refund under section 171, with the period off the list excluded from that computation. For a loss making business the first of those is frequently larger than every rate uplift combined.

The middle tier that no longer exists

Until this year there were effectively three categories, because Rule 1A of the Tenth Schedule set intermediate rates on property transactions for people who were on the list but had filed late. Rule 1A was omitted by the Finance Act 2026, at section 5 clause (47)(a) of the Act.

So there is no late filer rate any more. The question at a property transaction is now binary: on the list on the date of the transaction, or not. If a registrar or a housing society quotes you a late filer rate, ask which instrument produces it, because there is no longer a provision in the Tenth Schedule that does. We set this out in detail in filer and non filer in 2026.

There is more than one Active Taxpayer List

People say "the ATL" as though there is one. There are at least two federal ones, and the interaction between them catches businesses out.

Section 21A of the Sales Tax Act 1990 gives the Board power to maintain an active taxpayers list for sales tax purposes, separately, in the manner prescribed by rules. The definition of an active taxpayer in section 2(1A) of that Act requires a registered person not to be blacklisted or suspended under section 21, not to have failed to file returns under section 26 for two consecutive tax periods, and, critically, not to have failed to file an income tax return under section 114 of the Income Tax Ordinance by the due date, nor the withholding statements under section 165.

Read that last limb again if you run a registered business. An income tax filing default knocks you off the sales tax active taxpayer list as well. The two registers are separate but the dependency runs one way between them, which means a missed income tax return can disrupt your sales tax position and, downstream, your customers' input tax claims.

How to check, and what to do

Check your own status directly on FBR's portal rather than relying on a screenshot from a counterparty, and check it on the date of the transaction rather than the date of the agreement, since the list now moves daily. If you are transacting in property, check the other side's status too, because the rate applied to them is not your problem until the deal reprices.

If you are not on the list, the route on is registration and a return, in that order. The registration step is covered in the NTN registration guide and the sequence as a whole in how to become a filer in Pakistan. If you are late, work out the surcharge position before you pay anything.

Last verified: 22 August 2026. Primary sources read directly for this page: the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 as consolidated by the Federal Board of Revenue and stated to be amended up to 30 June 2026, specifically section 181A, the definition of active taxpayers' list in section 2, section 182A including the surcharge proviso to subsection (1)(a) and the consequences in subsection (1)(b), (c) and (d) and the undertaking in subsection (3), and Rule 1 of the Tenth Schedule together with the footnote recording the omission of Rule 1A by the Finance Act 2026; rule 81B of the Income Tax Rules 2002 as it stood in the consolidation to 24 November 2023; SRO 1638(I)/2024 dated 18 October 2024, which substituted sub rules (2), (3), (4) and (5) of rule 81B and inserted sub rule (2A); and sections 2(1A) and 21A of the Sales Tax Act 1990. FBR's own Active Taxpayer List web page was read on the same date and is identified above as carrying the superseded position. A further notification reported to have been issued in January 2026 concerning Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan filers could not be retrieved from FBR's servers and is deliberately not described here. General information, not tax advice. Confirm your own position with your tax consultant.