By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue has lifted the official customs valuations on 62 models of older and used mobile phones, a step that will raise duty and tax liabilities for importers even as senior officials assured lawmakers just last week that phone prices would fall in the next budget.
The Directorate General of Customs Valuation issued the new benchmarks through Valuation Ruling No. 2070 of 2026 on Thursday, superseding Ruling No. 2035 from January. The update, which followed a stakeholder meeting on April 13, applies exclusively to commercial shipments of second-hand handsets imported without original packaging or accessories. Its stated purpose is to bring assessed values into line with prevailing market rates.
The timing is awkward for the FBR. Only days earlier, its top brass had told the National Assembly’s parliamentary committee on finance that the government planned to ease the tax burden on mobile phones in the forthcoming budget. The revision preserves the existing rules on six-month device activation, mandatory higher declared values and freight adjustments. What has changed is the benchmark C&F (cost and freight) values themselves. The increases are uneven across brands and models, with the steepest jumps recorded in Google Pixel and Samsung devices that were apparently undervalued in the earlier ruling. Apple Inc. handsets saw more moderate rises, particularly among newer flagships.
Data embedded in the two rulings show the pattern clearly. Among Apple models, the iPhone 15 Pro Max rose 9.78%, while some older and lower-priced variants such as the iPhone SE 2 and the original SE recorded far sharper increases. Only two Apple devices — the iPhone XS Max and iPhone SE 3 — carried over unchanged. Samsung Electronics Co. posted some of the largest percentage gains, concentrated in older but still popular premium and upper mid-range models including the Galaxy S22+ 5G, S21+ 5G, S21 5G and the S10 series. The Galaxy S23 Ultra, by contrast, rose a relatively modest 19.61%, suggesting its January valuation had already been closer to current market levels.
Google’s Pixel lineup registered the biggest average increase of any major brand. The Pixel 5, 5A, 6 and 6A families saw valuations jump between 161% and 194% — a scale that signals a wholesale reassessment of resale-market pricing for those devices. Newer models such as the Pixel 8 Pro and 8A recorded only modest changes. Other brands followed the same direction but with smaller average moves. OnePlus devices illustrated the pattern: the OnePlus 12 rose 14.67%, while the 12R and 10 Pro climbed more substantially, again pointing to tighter scrutiny of older or secondary-flagship variants.
The changes matter because Pakistan has seen a surge in handset imports. Shipments climbed 27.84% to $1.444 billion in the first nine months of the current fiscal year from $1.129 billion a year earlier. Higher official valuations translate directly into higher duty and tax incidence per device. The impact will fall hardest on importers of second-hand, mid-range and older flagship models — precisely the segments where percentage increases are largest — while traders handling new Apple flagships will face comparatively milder cost pressure.
Revenue officials stand to gain. An across-the-board increase in assessed values is expected to boost collections from the mobile-phone category without any change in statutory duty or tax rates. Valuation rulings of this kind are issued under Section 25A of the Customs Act, 1969. They function as administrative tools when routine declared values are deemed unreliable for uniform assessment. In practice, they supply fixed benchmark C&F figures that collectorates use at the clearance stage, reducing disputes and standardizing treatment for goods imported in commercial quantities.
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