Pakistan Investor Visa

There is no minimum investment level, and that absence is systematic rather than an oversight: the Council's visa portal publishes two visa families — the Investor Visa and the Business Visa — and both run on the same file of three documents, a passport, a photograph, and a letter or email of recommendation issued by the Council itself.

No item calls for bank statements, proof of capital or a project value. The gate to this route is therefore not a figure but a decision of the investment promotion body, and anyone planning must ask what earns a recommendation letter rather than what sum is required.

The same shape appears in Spain with the ENISA report and in Finland with the Business Finland statement.

One limit of scope deserves stating because the name of the route does not show it: the duration tables for both visa families are given for countries on the business visa list, so nationality is a filter standing ahead of the recommendation letter.

The outcome of this route is a multiple-entry visa, not a residence permit. The visa page of the Special Investment Facilitation Council publishes three classes for investors, each with its own processing time.

The short-term class gives three years of multiple entry, processed within 24 hours. The long-term class gives five years of multiple entry, processed within 10 days. The extension class adds two years of multiple entry, processed within two weeks.

That table of terms is stated for nationals of countries on the business visa list, and Vietnam is on that list according to the timing cell of this page.

Set beside the Council's own business visa, the difference in outcome is plain: the short-term business class gives only six months with a single entry, and the long-term class gives two years of multiple entry with a validity of five years.

The visa page does not mention a residence permit, permanent residence or citizenship anywhere. An investor visa holder wishing to stay beyond the term has only the route the page names, the two-year extension class.

On the business route, Pakistani missions are permitted to grant a five-year multiple business visa within 24 hours to businessmen of the 96 countries on the Business Visa List, on production of one of three prescribed documents. Vietnam sits at number 95 on that list.

Businessmen of those same 96 countries are also granted a 30-day visa on arrival on the same documents.

For businessmen of the remaining 107 countries, except Israel, missions may grant only a multiple-entry visa with one month of validity and stay, and that grant must be made by the Ambassador, High Commissioner or Head of Mission personally, subject to the applicant belonging to a company of international repute.

A business visa holder and their family may extend for up to six months with double re-entries, and that period is inclusive of the initial visa period

The visa category list published by the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports contains no category named for investors, and makes no mention of the Special Investment Facilitation Council.

After the merger of 18 categories down to 11, the official list runs: Tourist and Visit; Visa in Your Inbox, covering tourist and business; Family Visit; business; Work, covering work, domestic aide and journalist; Study, covering student and religious schools;

Religious Tourism; Official, covering official and diplomatic; NGO and INGO; Medical; and Other.

The closest published route for a foreign investor is therefore the business visa rather than any dedicated investment category. Checked on 17 September 2026: the category page contains neither the word "SIFC" nor the word "Investor" anywhere

Family may travel with the holder, but that appears only at the extension stage and not at grant, and it is the wording of the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports under the Ministry of Interior, in the version updated on 14 September 2026:

The business visa is extended for up to six months with double re-entries inclusive of the initial visa period, to business visa holders and their family.

Another item on the same page records extension up to one year with multiple entries, again to business visa holders and their family.

The one-year extension is granted by the Regional Passport Office with documents evidencing substantial investment or import and export activity during the year, while anything beyond one year must be decided by the Ministry of Interior.

The same page shows the absence is deliberate:

The list of visa categories marks a family variant for other categories, the work visa reading entry individual or family and extension individual or family, and the medical visa reading individual, family or attendant; the business visa entry carries no such marking.

Four things the page does not say: a definition of family, an age limit for children, a dependency test, and whether parents are admitted; nor is there any additional financial threshold.

The only datum touching age is the overstay surcharge scale, waived for children up to 12 and halved for children up to 18, and that is a penalty scale rather than an age limit for dependants.

One limit belongs in the record: the online application portal, where a form declaring accompanying persons might sit, has not been checked.

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the Pakistan passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Pakistan passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Pakistan passport reaches 24 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

The official page for this visa class contains not one word about tax: it does not mention tax, income, the national tax number or the name of the revenue authority.

The programme has no tax regime of its own. The tax position is settled by general law, and Pakistan does have two exemption doors for foreign-source income — but both exclude this category, each in its own way.

First the residence threshold, section 82 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001: an individual is a resident for a tax year where present in Pakistan for a period or periods amounting in aggregate to one hundred and eighty-three days or more in the tax year, or is a federal or provincial government employee posted abroad.

One historical change deserves noting: the 120-day plus 365-days-in-four-years test, inserted by the Finance Act 2019, was omitted by the Finance Act 2021.

The first door is section 50, headed foreign-source income of short-term resident individuals, and its own words are the exclusion:

The foreign-source income of an individual who is a resident individual solely by reason of the individual employment, and who is present in Pakistan for a period or periods not exceeding three years, shall be exempt from tax under the Ordinance.

Subsection (2) shuts it twice over: this section shall not apply to any income derived from a business of the person established in Pakistan, nor to any foreign-source income brought into or received in Pakistan.

The second door is section 51, foreign-source income of returning expatriates, and it is narrow by nationality: it exempts the foreign-source income of a citizen of Pakistan who was not a resident individual in any of the four tax years preceding the year of becoming resident, for that year and the following one.

Subsection (2) adds that a citizen of Pakistan who leaves during a tax year and remains abroad throughout it is exempt on salary earned outside Pakistan in that year.

Putting the three sections together gives the shape of this record, and this must be stated as a joining because no section says the conclusion itself.

A foreign national who comes to Pakistan to invest and stays beyond 183 days becomes a resident under section 82. That person does not fall within section 50, because they are not resident solely by reason of employment and because income from a business established in Pakistan is expressly carved out.

Nor do they fall within section 51, because they are not a citizen of Pakistan.

The visa parameters: it is open to foreign nationals intending to invest in Pakistan.

The file comprises only four items: passport, photograph, a recommendation letter or email from the Council, and proof of legal residence where filing from a third country. Renewals add a copy of the valid Pakistan visa and the entry stamp.

Three classes exist, three years multiple entry, five years multiple entry, and a two-year multiple-entry extension.

Processing times for countries on the business visa list: the three-year class in twenty-four hours, the five-year class in ten days, the extension in two weeks; for countries off that list and for Afghanistan, both classes take four weeks.

The page states that issuance of a visa is the prerogative of the Government of Pakistan, and that a file returned and not resubmitted within seven days is cancelled. The page states no minimum investment and no investment sector.

Read this cell within its scope: the statute read is the version amended up to 30 June 2024, and the Finance Acts of 2025 and 2026 have not been checked against it; and the tax law never mentions this programme or any class of visa

A business application requires one of three alternative documents:

A recommendation letter from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the applicant own country; an invitation letter from a business organisation duly recommended by the relevant trade organisation; or a recommendatory letter from the honorary investment counselor of the Board of Investment, or from a Commercial Attaché.

That third document is the closest the published procedure comes to an investment element, and it is a letter of recommendation rather than a capital threshold. On fees, the business and work categories are both charged at USD 100 for all countries, and a multiple-entry visa is charged at 200 per cent of the single-entry fee