How to Start an E-Commerce Business in Pakistan: Registration, Payments, and Logistics

Most guides to starting an online business in Pakistan jump straight to “build a Shopify store.” That skips the parts that actually determine whether the business survives: how you register it, how you get paid, and how you get the product to the customer. This is a walk-through of all three, with sources.

Step 1: Decide how to structure the business

You don’t need a private limited company to start selling online — a huge share of Pakistani e-commerce runs as unregistered or sole-proprietor operations, especially on Instagram and Facebook. But once you want a business bank account, a payment gateway merchant account, or you’re planning to scale past a side hustle, formal registration becomes worth it.

If you incorporate, it’s handled through the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan’s eZfile portal, governed by the Companies Act, 2017. The process in 2026:

• Reserve a company name on SECP’s STARR portal (starr.secp.gov.pk)
• Prepare your Memorandum and Articles of Association — SECP provides standard templates you can adapt
• Submit the incorporation application with director/shareholder CNIC copies
• Receive your digital Certificate of Incorporation — typically within 1–10 working days once the application clears review, though some providers report faster 3–7 day turnarounds for straightforward filings

Government fees start from as low as PKR 1,000 for companies with a small authorized capital and scale up from there, according to multiple 2026 registration guides. A sole proprietorship skips SECP entirely and only needs FBR registration (below).

Step 2: Register for tax

Whether you incorporate or run as a sole proprietor, you need a National Tax Number (NTN) from the Federal Board of Revenue, processed through FBR’s IRIS portal — this is free and typically same-day to a few working days.

You only need to register for sales tax (STRN) once your annual taxable supplies exceed PKR 10 million. Below that threshold, most small online sellers operate on income tax alone. Once registered for sales tax, standard goods are taxed at 17%, with reduced rates for some categories.

Step 3: Build the actual store

This is the part most guides start with — and it’s genuinely important, but it’s not the hard part. We’ve written a separate deep-dive on what a working Pakistani e-commerce site actually needs: platform vs. custom build, mobile checkout, and the payment integration decisions. The short version: pick a platform or custom build based on your catalog size and order volume, and make sure checkout works flawlessly on a mid-range phone on 4G — that’s how most of your traffic will arrive.

Step 4: Set up payment gateways — and plan for cash on delivery

Pakistan’s online payment landscape has matured a lot in the last few years, but cash still rules. According to a 2026 courier and logistics market report, cash on delivery still accounts for roughly 65–70% of e-commerce transactions in Pakistan, driven by low card penetration (around 5% of the population) and limited trust in online-only merchants. Average COD collection runs PKR 2,500–3,500 per parcel.

That means your payment stack needs COD as a first-class option, not an afterthought, alongside digital rails:

• JazzCash & Easypaisa — the two dominant mobile wallets, operating as State Bank of Pakistan-licensed Payment System Operators. Best coverage for wallet-heavy audiences, especially outside major cities.
• PayFast & Safepay — SBP-licensed Payment Service Providers built for card and aggregated checkout. PayFast was commercially licensed by the State Bank in 2021 and was the first Pakistani gateway to go live with Raast P2M in 2024, the State Bank’s instant payment rail.
• Bank-issued gateways (HBL, UBL, Meezan) — direct integrations, slower to set up, useful once order values justify the trust signal.

Typical merchant discount rates across these gateways run 2–3.5% per transaction. For a new store, one aggregator (PayFast or Safepay) plus COD covers the large majority of how Pakistani customers actually want to pay.

Step 5: Choose a courier partner

Logistics is where a lot of new Pakistani online sellers lose margin without realizing it — both to shipping costs and to how long it takes to actually get your COD cash back.

By estimated market share, TCS leads traditional courier volume at roughly 25–30%, with Leopards Courier at 15–20% and M&P at 10–12% — that same report notes Pakistan’s courier market lacks comprehensive official statistics, so treat these as informed approximations rather than precise figures. Alongside the traditional players, a newer generation of e-commerce-focused logistics companies — PostEx, Trax, Rider — has grown by directly attacking the COD settlement lag: traditional couriers often settle COD cash back to sellers on a 7–15 working day cycle, which ties up capital for anyone running paid ads or restocking inventory. The newer players pay a large portion of the COD amount upfront instead.

A reasonable starting point, based on how sellers commonly compare these options:

• TCS if you need reliable next-day delivery, sell higher-value goods where delivery experience matters, or want occasional international shipping through one partner
• Leopards if you’re shipping 100+ parcels a month of lighter goods (clothing, accessories) on tighter margins and customers accept 2–3 day delivery
• PostEx or Trax if COD cash flow is your actual constraint and faster settlement is worth more to you than the lowest per-parcel rate

Most serious sellers eventually run two couriers in parallel once volume justifies it, since delivery performance varies by region.

Step 6: Plan for how customers will actually find you

Registration, payments, and logistics get the business legally and operationally ready — but none of it generates a single sale on its own. Once the operational side is sorted, the traffic question is a separate project: we’ve covered Facebook and Meta ads for Pakistani businesses, Google Ads costs and setup, and what actually works for SEO in Pakistan in separate guides.

Realistic timeline and cost

Putting the legal and operational pieces together, a realistic timeline for a sole-proprietor setup is 1–2 weeks (NTN registration plus payment gateway onboarding), and 3–5 weeks if you’re incorporating a private limited company first (name reservation, SECP review, then NTN and gateway setup on top). Budget for SECP incorporation fees if you go that route, payment gateway MDR of 2–3.5% per transaction ongoing, and courier costs that vary by weight, zone, and account type — get retail rates from two or three couriers before committing to one.

None of this replaces getting proper legal and tax advice for your specific situation — a lawyer or accountant familiar with SECP and FBR requirements is worth the cost before you incorporate. But this is the real shape of what “starting an e-commerce business in Pakistan” involves, beyond just picking a store platform.

If you’ve got the business side sorted and need the store itself built — one that actually handles COD, mobile checkout, and courier integration properly — that’s what we do.