How to Transfer Money to an International Bank Account From Pakistan

To transfer money to an international bank account from Pakistan, you route the payment through an Authorized Dealer bank (or, for smaller personal transfers, a licensed exchange company), submit Form M declaring an approved purpose with supporting documents, clear a compliance and tax check, and let the bank send the funds through the SWIFT network to your beneficiary. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) sets the categories, ceilings, and paperwork under its Foreign Exchange Manual, and every outward transfer has to fit inside them.

Documents to Gather Before You Start

Banks will not begin without a complete file. You need a valid Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC), or a National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP) or Pakistan Origin Card (POC) if you hold overseas status. Exchange companies must retain copies of these and perform biometric verification for any transaction involving a Pakistani national.¹

For the beneficiary side, collect their full legal name, physical address, bank account number with IBAN where applicable, and the SWIFT/BIC code of their bank. A single wrong digit can send the transfer back days later.

The core paper is the Application for Remittance, or Form M, which sits at Appendix V:10 of the Foreign Exchange Manual.² On it you declare the purpose of the transfer and attach evidence to match:

Education: a formal admission letter from the foreign institution and an invoice or breakdown of tuition and living costs.³
Medical treatment: hospital bills, clinical estimates, and a specialist’s certificate confirming the treatment cannot be obtained inside Pakistan.³
Family maintenance: proof of your relationship to the recipient and evidence of their financial dependency.

You also need an active National Tax Number (NTN) and a place on the Federal Board of Revenue’s Active Taxpayers List. Banks check this before they process anything. Non-filers see either a rejection or much heavier tax deductions.

What You Can Send Money For, and How Much

Not every purpose is allowed, and each approved category has its own ceiling. Chapter 17 of the Foreign Exchange Manual sets out the individual outward remittance categories.⁴

Education

Authorized Dealers can remit up to $70,000, or its equivalent, per student per calendar year to cover tuition, application fees, and living expenses at accredited foreign institutions. If a year’s costs exceed that ceiling, the bank has to forward the case with supporting documents to the SBP’s Foreign Exchange Operations Department for individual approval.⁵

Medical Treatment

For healthcare abroad, Authorized Dealers can remit up to $50,000 or the equivalent, once satisfied that the transaction is genuine.⁵ The medical appendix expects a specialist’s certificate that the treatment is necessary and unavailable in Pakistan, along with itemized cost estimates for the operation, medicines, consultation, and accommodation.

Family Maintenance and Other Personal Needs

Family maintenance transfers ask for proof of relationship and dependency. Travel remittances have their own quotas. Property purchases abroad and direct foreign investment by individuals are not permitted without case-by-case SBP approval, and those requests face heavy scrutiny. If your reason for sending money is one of these, assume the standard route is closed to you.

Who Can Actually Send the Money

Only two kinds of institutions are legally authorized to handle outward remittances: Authorized Dealers (commercial banks that hold SBP foreign exchange licenses) and licensed Exchange Companies.⁴

Commercial banks carry most high-value remittances. They connect directly to the global SWIFT network and can handle the full range of permissible categories, including education and medical. Their compliance departments review Form M and the supporting file before releasing funds.

Exchange companies operate under tighter limits. They can process outward remittances only on the personal accounts of individuals, not business payments.⁶ Student remittances are on their permitted list, but transaction caps are lower and trade or corporate transfers are off the table. For any outward transaction of $10,000 or more, exchange companies have to take payment by cheque or bank transfer from the customer’s personal account rather than in cash.¹

Many banks now let you start the transaction through their online banking portal. The documentation review still happens; you upload rather than hand papers over a counter.

Overseas Pakistanis: The Roshan Digital Account

If you are a non-resident Pakistani, the Roshan Digital Account (RDA) is a separate pathway. Funds held in both the Foreign Currency Value Account and the Naya Pakistan Rupee Value Account can be repatriated from Pakistan at any time without prior approval from the bank or the SBP. The account keeps its repatriable status even if you return to Pakistan permanently and continue to operate it.⁷

IT Freelancers

Freelancers earning foreign currency can retain 50% of their export proceeds, or $5,000 a month (whichever is higher), in Exporters’ Specialized Foreign Currency Accounts. Payments from these accounts go out without approval from the SBP or the bank.⁸ If foreign income is a regular part of your working life, setting up this account before you need to make an outward payment is worth doing.

The Transfer, Step by Step

Submit your application at your bank branch or through its online portal, with the completed Form M, your supporting documents, CNIC, and the recipient’s bank details. If the transfer needs SBP pre-approval because it exceeds a category limit or falls outside standard categories, your bank forwards the case; you cannot approach the central bank directly.⁹
Compliance review. The bank verifies your filer status, checks the invoices or admission letter, and confirms the purpose fits an approved category.
Tax deduction. Advance tax is withheld from the transaction before funds are released.
Telegraphic transfer. The bank executes the payment as a telegraphic transfer through SWIFT; the SBP’s guidance is that Authorized Dealers should prefer this over drafts for outward remittances.⁹
Delivery. Funds pass through one or more correspondent banks before landing in the beneficiary’s account, usually within two to five business days depending on currency, routing, and receiving bank.

What It Costs

The amount you send and the amount that arrives are not the same. Three separate costs are stacked on top of your principal.

Advance Tax

The Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 imposes advance tax on outward remittances. For payments made through credit, debit, or prepaid cards, Section 236Y applies at 5% for individual filers.¹⁰ Non-filers pay 10%. Other types of outward payments fall under different sections at higher rates. The tax is adjustable against your annual income tax liability, so you can claim it as a credit when you file your return, but the cash leaves your account at the moment of transfer.

The filer/non-filer gap is deliberate: non-filers carry a 100% surcharge on withholding tax rates across the board. Getting onto the Active Taxpayers List before you send a large sum is the single cheapest thing you can do.

Bank Fees and Correspondent Charges

Your bank charges its own processing fee. Each intermediary bank that handles the payment in transit also takes a cut, usually somewhere between $15 and $50 per transaction. You will not know the exact intermediary deductions in advance, and they come out automatically before the funds reach the beneficiary. If a full invoiced amount must land intact, add a cushion when you send.

Exchange Rate Spread

The rate the bank uses to convert rupees into your destination currency will be worse than the interbank rate you see quoted in the news. That gap is the bank’s margin on the conversion, and it varies between institutions and shifts with the market. On education transfers running into tens of thousands of dollars, comparing rates across Authorized Dealers before you commit is worth the phone calls.

Proving Where the Money Came From

For routine transactions, your bank statements and tax filings will normally satisfy the source-of-funds check. Larger or unusual transfers draw closer questions. SBP anti-money laundering regulations require banks to obtain information on both the source of funds and the source of wealth, take reasonable measures to confirm the money is not the proceeds of crime, and secure senior management approval before processing high-risk transactions.¹¹

Politically exposed persons, their family members, and close associates face enhanced due diligence, and the bank has to independently establish the source of both wealth and the specific funds. Having salary records, business income documents, or property sale deeds ready before you walk in speeds things up. Turning up without them on a large transfer is the fastest way to be delayed or flagged.

What Happens If You Go Around the System

Under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, a violation can be tried before a special tribunal and carries imprisonment of up to two years, a fine, or both. The tribunal can also order forfeiture of any currency or securities involved. The most common way people run into these penalties is by using informal hawala or hundi networks. Those channels sometimes offer better exchange rates, but they carry real criminal exposure and no legal recourse if the money vanishes on the other side.

Inside the formal system, sending money for a purpose that does not fit an approved category, or misrepresenting the purpose on Form M, will get the transaction blocked and reported to the SBP. Repeated problems put your account under enhanced monitoring, which makes every future transfer slower and heavier on paperwork.

1
State Bank of Pakistan. EPD Circular Letter No. 16 of 2021
2
State Bank of Pakistan. Appendix V:10 – Form M
3
State Bank of Pakistan. List of Appendices V – Foreign Exchange Manual
4
State Bank of Pakistan. Chapter 2 – Authorized Dealers
5
State Bank of Pakistan. FE Circular No. 08 of 2015
6
State Bank of Pakistan. Exchange Companies Manual
7
State Bank of Pakistan. Roshan Digital Account – FAQs
8
State Bank of Pakistan. SBP Introduces New Measures to Facilitate IT Exporters and Freelancers
9
State Bank of Pakistan. Chapter X – Inward and Outward Remittances
10
Federal Board of Revenue. Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 – Amended up to 31.07.2025
11
State Bank of Pakistan. AML/CFT/CPF Regulations for SBP Regulated Entities