Plane tickets to foreign destinations to get more expensive in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan government has imposed new taxes on foreign travel with travellers to pay additional excise duty on purchasing tickets, ARY News reported on Friday.

According to the Finance Bill 2024-25 passed by the National Assembly (NA) today, an excise duty of Rs12,500 will be imposed on economy and economy plus class tickets, while business and club class tickets will be taxed at a higher rate.

For travel to the United States and Canada, the foreign travellers with business and club class tickets will pay excise duty of Rs350,000, while for Europe, the excise duty on business and club class tickets will increase by Rs60,000 to Rs210,000 rupees.

Similarly, for travel to New Zealand and Australia, business and club class tickets will be taxed at Rs210,000, while for China, Malaysia, and Indonesia, the tax will be the same.

The Pakistan government has also increased excise duty from Rs30,000 to Rs105,000 on business and club class tickets to the Middle East and Africa, including Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and other countries.

The taxes will be applicable to all international travel from July 1, and travelers will have to pay the tax at the time of booking their tickets.

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Earlier in the day, the National Assembly (NA) approved the Federal Budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 with a total outlay of Rs18,870 billion.

Minister for Finance and Revenue Muhammad Aurangzeb moved the motion for consideration of the Finance Bill, 2024 to give effect to the financial proposals of the federal government for the year, commencing on July 1, 2024.

The motion was passed with majority vote which led to the passage of Finance Bill-2024 after clause-by-clause reading and adopting amendments after due process of voting. All the amendments, presented by the opposition members, were rejected.