Accountants, lawyers and business consultants

Accountants, tax advisers, lawyers, management consultants, engineers and other professionals provide services — and services are taxed by the provinces. Professional services are generally standard-rated, and because firms routinely act for clients across the country, the place-of-provision question looms large. This guide sets out the position for professional and consultancy practices, including our own kind of work.

Professional services are taxable

Accountancy, legal, tax, management and other professional and consultancy services are taxable services under provincial sales tax, administered by the authority for the province where the service is rendered — PRA, SRB, KPRA or BRA — with Islamabad under FBR. A professional firm charges provincial sales tax on its fees and files with the provincial authority, separate from the federal goods regime and from the income tax the firm and its clients pay. This is a well-established category: professional advice is squarely within the provincial services net, and a firm's fee notes carry provincial sales tax accordingly.

Standard-rated, with normal input tax

Professional and consultancy services are generally taxed at the province's standard rate, rather than a reduced rate. This has a helpful consequence: because the standard rate applies, input tax adjustment is generally available in the normal way — unlike the reduced-rate sectors, where input recovery is typically blocked. So a standard-rated professional firm can ordinarily reclaim input tax on its own taxable purchases against the output tax on its fees, subject to the usual conditions. The specific rate still varies by province and should be confirmed, but the sector's general character is standard-rated with ordinary input recovery, which is administratively simpler than the reduced-rate regimes some other services face.

Clients across provinces

The practical challenge for professional firms is that they act for clients across provinces. Because the tax depends on where the service is rendered or the client is located, a firm advising nationally can fall under multiple authorities and need multiple registrations — one per province where it has a taxable presence, plus FBR for Islamabad clients. A Lahore accountancy practice serving a Karachi client may face Sindh's regime on that engagement, not only Punjab's. This place-of-provision analysis is a core part of a professional firm's own compliance — the same discipline it advises clients on. Firms that grow their client base beyond their home province without revisiting their registrations are among the most common examples of the gap this creates.

Common mistakes

• Failing to charge provincial sales tax on professional fees at all.
• Registering only in the home province while serving clients elsewhere.
• Overlooking input tax recovery that a standard-rated firm is generally entitled to.
• Confusing the provincial sales tax on fees with income tax on the firm.

Where it fits

Professional fees connect to commission and agency arrangements and share the multi-province challenge of other services. For province detail, see the Punjab (PRA) and Sindh (SRB) overviews. Professional services are standard-rated provincial services, often spanning several provinces.

Where the rate actually comes from

Professional services are generally standard-rated with normal input tax recovery, which makes this one of the few categories where the headline rate usually is the applicable rate. The practical risk here is the second province, not the percentage.

The standard rate is 16 per cent in Punjab and 15 per cent in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, with telecommunication services higher at 19.5 per cent and Islamabad Capital Territory administered by FBR. Sindh has also moved from a positive list to a negative list, so a Sindh service is taxable unless it is specifically exempt — if you concluded some years ago that you were outside the net, that conclusion needs re-testing. The full picture is in the rates by province guide; the authoritative figure for your own category is in the current working tariff published by Sindh Revenue Board or the authority for your province.

Source check: 14 September 2026. Standard provincial rates and the Sindh negative-list reform are sourced in the rates-by-province guide. The category treatment described above is general orientation and has not been confirmed line by line against any authority's current schedule — read your own entry in the applicable working tariff before invoicing.

Sources

This guide is written against the official and clearly labelled professional references below. Rates, thresholds and portal procedures change between reviews, so open the primary source before relying on a figure.

• Punjab Revenue Authority sales tax guidance
• Sindh Revenue Board
• Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority
• Balochistan Revenue Authority
• Sales Tax Basics (FBR)

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