Suthra Punjab cleaning fee: Rs 300 to Rs 5,000 a year on your property tax bill

Punjab's Excise, Taxation and Narcotics Control Department will collect the Suthra Punjab cleaning fee along with your property tax bill for financial year 2026-27, under a service level agreement with the Suthra Punjab Authority. The department does the house to house survey, prints the bill and keeps 1 percent of what it collects as its service fee.

That means one bill instead of two, and it means the sanitation charge now sits on the same paper as a tax most households already pay.

What it costs, by house size

For residential properties the annual fee is set by covered area in marlas:

• Up to 5 marla: Rs 300
• 5 to 10 marla: Rs 500
• 10 to 20 marla: Rs 1,000
• 20 to 40 marla: Rs 2,000
• Above 40 marla: Rs 5,000

For commercial properties there are three slabs: Rs 500 for small premises, Rs 1,000 for medium and Rs 3,000 for large.

A 5 marla house in Lahore, Faisalabad or Multan therefore pays Rs 300 a year, which is Rs 25 a month. A 1 kanal house (20 marla) falls in the 20 to 40 marla band at Rs 2,000 a year. If you are not sure which band your plot falls in, our plot size converter turns square feet and square yards into marlas and kanals.

Where it applies

The scheme covers all cities in the province. It was approved in August 2025 and is being applied for 2026-27.

A new force to collect it

The province is also raising a uniformed recovery force for the charge. It is 305 posts, including 300 constables in Grade 5, spread across Punjab's 41 districts, which works out at roughly seven or eight constables per district. One director and four deputy directors supervise it, under the Excise, Taxation and Narcotics Control Department.

The constables will visit houses and shops to issue waste tax bills, collect dues and enforce payment, with the power to issue challans and to make arrests under the applicable procedure. The government has allocated Rs 113 million for the vehicles: 300 electric motorcycles, one 1,300cc vehicle and four Cultus cars.

Payment can be made online or through the Bank of Punjab.

What to do about it

Three practical points.

First, check the band on your bill against your actual covered area. The difference between the 10 to 20 marla band and the 20 to 40 marla band is Rs 1,000 a year, and a survey that records your plot one band too high costs you that every year until it is corrected.

Second, the cleaning fee is separate from property tax itself, so it should appear as its own line. Our property tax calculator gives you the property tax figure to compare against, so you can see what part of the total is the new charge.

Third, keep the payment receipt. With a recovery force empowered to issue challans, proof of payment is what settles a doorstep dispute.

The size of the charge in context

At Rs 300 a year for the smallest band, this is a small charge by itself. The thing to watch is the enforcement, not the rate: a dedicated force with arrest powers collecting a Rs 300 annual fee is an unusual ratio, and it signals that the province expects compliance to be the hard part.