ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has rolled out draft rules to bring income earned by Pakistani residents from YouTube, TikTok and other monetised social media platforms under a special taxation regime, in what appears to be a strong suggestion that social media and the digital creator economy have grown too big to ignore.
Pakistan now has tens of millions of active social media users, thousands of monetized channels (over 1,000 YouTubers with 1M+ subscribers), and a booming freelance/digital export sector bringing in hundreds of millions in dollars, something which isn’t pocket money anymore — rather a visible, growing part of the economy.
In a notification issued on April 1, 2026 (S.R.O. 546(I)/2026), the FBR has proposed inserting a new Chapter II-A titled “Special Procedure for Taxation of Persons Earning Income from Remunerative Social Media Content” into the Income Tax Rules, 2002. The draft has been published for public objections and suggestions, which must reach the Board within seven days of its publication in the official Gazette.
ایف بی آر نے پاکستان میں سوشل میڈیا مواد سے آمدنی حاصل کرنے والے رہائشی افراد کے لیے ایک نیا ٹیکس طریقہ کار متعارف کرا دیا ہے۔ یہ ان افراد پر لاگو ہوگا جو یوٹیوب اور دیگر مونیٹائزڈ سوشل میڈیا پلیٹ فارمز سے آمدنی حاصل کرتے ہیں۔
مسودہ قواعد کے تحت قابلِ ٹیکس آمدنی کا حساب اس طرح… pic.twitter.com/FDtNGlDKbI
— Razi Tahir (@RaziTahirPak) April 2, 2026
According to the proposed rules, the new chapter will apply to every resident person in Pakistan who earns income from interaction with users through social media platforms. The FBR has laid down a clear formula for calculating taxable income from such content.
How income will be computed?
Taxable income will be arrived at by deducting allowable expenses from the total compensation received. However, allowable expenses cannot exceed 30 per cent of the total compensation.The total compensation itself will be taken as the higher of:
– the actual amount received by the content creator, or
– the income worked out on the basis of Revenue Per Mille (RPM), average views and the total number of posts.
For this purpose, the FBR has fixed the RPM at Rs195 per 1,000 views.
Advance tax and return filing
Content creators will be required to pay advance tax on a quarterly basis under Section 147 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001. They will also have to disclose income from social media separately in their annual income tax return.If the income declared by a taxpayer is lower than the amount calculated under the prescribed formula, the tax authorities will be empowered to amend the return and recover the additional tax along with any penalty or surcharge.
The notification states that the new procedure is being introduced in exercise of powers under Section 237 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, to provide a simplified yet transparent mechanism for taxing the fast-growing digital income stream.
The draft is now open for stakeholder input. Once finalised after the seven-day period, the rules will become part of the Income Tax Rules and will apply to all resident individuals earning from remunerative social media content.This is the first time the FBR has introduced a dedicated RPM-based formula specifically for social media earnings, signalling the tax authority’s push to formalise and widen the tax net in the booming digital economy.
