Pakistan's visa exemption list: 16 countries, and the passport type decides

Pakistan has visa exemption agreements in force with a list of countries that now runs to 16 named states, and the Federal Investigation Agency and its zones have been told to work from the latest list. Before you plan anything, read the next paragraph.

The agreements mainly cover diplomatic and official passports

This is the part that gets lost when the list is shared on WhatsApp. The arrangements mainly cover holders of diplomatic and official passports. If you hold an ordinary Pakistani passport, the green one issued to almost everybody, these particular agreements do not give you visa-free entry. Your entry rules are whatever the destination country publishes for ordinary Pakistani passport holders, and those are set unilaterally by that country, not by a bilateral exemption agreement.

The 16 countries named

Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Turkiye, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Qatar and Nepal.

Visa-free stays under these agreements run from one month to three months, depending on the destination.

Why the FIA instruction matters

The FIA mans immigration counters at Pakistani airports. When the list changes, counter staff need the current version, or a traveller with a valid exemption gets stopped on departure and a traveller without one gets waved through. The instruction to the zones is housekeeping, but it is the housekeeping that decides whether your document is accepted at the counter in Karachi or Islamabad.

What ordinary passport holders should actually do

Check the destination country's own embassy or e-visa portal, not a list of bilateral agreements. Several of the countries above operate visa-on-arrival or e-visa schemes for ordinary Pakistani passport holders on terms that have nothing to do with these exemptions, and those terms change without notice.

Before you travel, two things are worth getting straight in advance. Your passport fee and renewal timeline, which you can work out with our passport fee calculator. And your currency, because the spread you get at an exchange counter at the airport is rarely the rate you see quoted. Today the riyal is Rs 73.93 and the dirham Rs 75.49; our currency converter runs off the daily readings.

One rule that has not changed

A visa exemption is not an entry guarantee. Immigration officers at the destination can still refuse entry, and every one of these countries requires a passport valid for at least six months beyond the date of arrival. Check the expiry on yours before you book.