New Toshakhana rules: officials get 30 days to hand in gifts, auctions go public and on camera

The Cabinet Division notified the Toshakhana Management and Regulation Rules 2026 on Wednesday, rewriting how gifts received by Pakistani public office holders from foreign dignitaries are valued, deposited and sold.

Four changes matter.

1. Officials mostly cannot keep gifts

The rules discourage the retention of gifts by officials generally. The president and prime minister remain able to retain gifts. Employees in grades 1 to 4 may keep cash awards under specified conditions. For everyone else, the gift goes to the Toshakhana.

2. Thirty days to deposit

An official has 30 days to deposit a gift. Where a gift arrives separately from the visit, the window is 60 days. For gifts received on a foreign visit, the 30 days run from the date of return. Failure to deposit within the period opens the way to a complaint in court.

3. Valuation is taken out of the recipient's hands

Market value is assessed by the Federal Board of Revenue together with registered valuers. If two valuations differ by more than 25 percent, a third valuer's assessment is final. Artificial intelligence may be used as a reference tool in valuation, not as the decision. Weapons are valued by Pakistan Ordnance Factories, Wah.

4. Auctions are public, filmed, and closed to insiders

Auctions are to be held at least once and normally twice a year. Government officials and their family members are barred from bidding. Media are to be given access for live coverage. Items of cultural, historical or diplomatic sensitivity are exempt from sale. Proceeds are earmarked for girls' education in underdeveloped areas.

Why this exists

The Toshakhana, literally the treasure house, has been the subject of a decade of litigation in Pakistan, most visibly over gifts retained at assessed values that later sold for many times more. The two structural weaknesses in the old procedure were that the recipient influenced the valuation and that insiders could buy at auction. The 2026 rules address both directly: an independent valuation chain with a tie-breaker, and a bar on officials and their families bidding.

What the rules do not do is set a headline retention threshold in the notification, which is what most previous reform attempts turned on.

What it means for a reader

Nothing changes for a private citizen, but two things become visible that were not before. Auctions are to be filmed and open to the media, so the gap between an assessed value and a hammer price becomes a public number rather than a court document. And auction proceeds are now tagged to a named purpose, which makes the total checkable against spending.

For the tax treatment of a gift you receive yourself, which is a separate question entirely, our income tax calculator works off the current FBR slabs.