Filing your return on IRIS, tab by tab
IRIS is FBR's filing portal at iris.fbr.gov.pk, and for a freelancer with export income it is a shorter job than its reputation suggests. Your figures go in five places. This is what those five places are, in the order you meet them, and what to check before you submit.
Have your numbers finished first
IRIS is a place to type numbers into, not a place to work them out. Doing the arithmetic while fighting the portal is what turns filing into a lost weekend. Before you open it:
- Total export receipts for the year in rupees: every payout from July 2025 to June 2026 converted at the State Bank rate for the date it was received, net of platform fees.
- The tax your bank already deducted under section 154A, added up from your Proceeds Realisation Certificates.
- Your asset list at 30 June 2026, with a value against each line.
- Your opening net wealth at 1 July 2025, being last year's closing figure if you filed.
- What you spent on yourself during the year.
- Your PSEB registration number, if you have one.
If any of that is still loose, the full how to file guide covers the working out. Come back here when the numbers are settled.
No IRIS login yet? Register on iris.fbr.gov.pk first. Registration is free, takes a few minutes, and gets you the NTN you file under. Use your name exactly as it appears on your CNIC. Registering and filing are separate jobs; you only register once.
Two halves, submitted together
A freelancer's return has a declaration half and a wealth statement half. The declaration carries your income and the tax on it. The wealth statement, required of individuals under section 116, carries what you own and a reconciliation of where the year's money went. Both are part of the same filing, and the wealth statement is not optional.
One honest warning about following any written guide, including this one: IRIS changes its wording and its layout between tax years. Section numbers do not. Where the label on your screen does not read exactly like the label below, match on the section instead, 154A for export receipts and the tax deducted on them, 116 for the wealth statement, and you will be in the right row.
Where your figures actually go
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01 · declaration > business
Total receipts for export of IT services under section 154A
On the Declaration tab, open Business and enter your total receipts for export of IT and IT-enabled services under section 154A. One annual figure, in rupees.
Three ways this line goes wrong: entering dollars instead of rupees, converting the whole year at one rate instead of each receipt at its own date's rate, and counting a payment twice because it appears in both a platform export and a bank statement.
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02 · declaration > tax chargeable
Check the number, do not just accept it
The tax chargeable line should agree with your own arithmetic: 1% of your receipts, or 0.25% of them if you are PSEB registered. If it does not agree, the receipts figure you entered in step 01 is the first thing to re-check, and your PSEB status is the second.
This is the line worth being slow about. Everything after it is bookkeeping.
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03 · adjustable tax
The tax your bank already took
Under Adjustable tax, enter the tax deducted on export proceeds under section 154A. That is the total from your PRCs, the withholding certificates your bank issues against each inward remittance.
If the total deducted exceeds the tax chargeable, the difference is refundable rather than payable. A month with no certificate cannot be claimed until you hold the paper, so ask the bank rather than estimating.
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04 · wealth statement > assets
Everything you owned at 30 June 2026
Open the wealth statement section and map each asset you listed into the matching Assets row: bank balances per account, cash in hand, vehicles, property, gold, listed shares, and loans you owe or are owed. Crypto goes in as an other asset at cost.
Values are as at 30 June 2026, not today. These rows less what you owe give your closing net wealth, the figure the next tab has to reconcile to.
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05 · wealth statement > reconciliation
Where the year's money went
In the reconciliation table, enter your personal expenses for the year. The statement then has to balance: opening net wealth, plus income received, less personal expenses, less tax for the year, equals the closing net wealth you declared.
Keep the unexplained gap inside about 5%. When it will not close, the cause is almost always an asset missing from step 04, or a personal expenses figure lower than what you really lived on. Rs 200,000 of annual spending against four million of income is the classic version.
Submit, then pay whatever is left
If the tax already deducted covers the charge, and for most freelancers on the final tax regime it does, submitting is the last act. If tax is still payable, IRIS produces a payment slip you settle through your bank or online banking, and the payment attaches to the return. The wording of that screen moves between years, so follow the portal's own prompt rather than a remembered menu path.
When the return goes through, IRIS gives you an acknowledgement number. Save it. It is the only proof you filed, and it is what you quote when anyone asks.
Two things follow. If your tax for the year is more than Rs 50,000, quarterly advance tax falls due on 25 September, 25 December, 25 March and 25 June. And your name reaches the Active Taxpayer List once the return is processed rather than when you submit, so give it time before you check your ATL status.
Seven checks worth two minutes
- Every month from July 2025 to June 2026 is represented, including the quiet ones.
- Each receipt was converted at the rate for its own date, not one rate for the year.
- No payment counted twice across a platform export and a bank statement.
- The adjustable tax figure equals the sum of the certificates you actually hold.
- Your PSEB registration number is on the return if you are registered.
- You were in Pakistan for 183 days or more during the tax year.
- The wealth statement gap is inside 5%.
The deadline for tax year 2026 is 30 September 2026. Filing at the end of September, on a portal everybody else is also using, is its own kind of risk.
The rest of the path
- How to file a freelancer tax return in Pakistan The whole path, of which this page is the last stretch.
- Section 154A final tax regime Why the figure in step 02 is 1% or 0.25%, and when slabs win instead.
- Wealth statement under section 116 Steps 04 and 05 in full, including a gap that will not close.
- PSEB registration guide How the rate in step 02 becomes 0.25% next year.
This page is generic. Your return is not.
Everything above is the walkthrough with the numbers taken out. It is the same five steps the FilerKaro filing pack gives you, and you are welcome to work through them tonight, for free, with your own spreadsheet open beside the portal.
What the paid pack changes is that every instruction arrives with your figure already written into it. Not "enter your total receipts" but "enter Rs 4,815,200". Not "the total from your PRCs" but the number, added up from the certificates you uploaded. Around those five instructions sit a computation statement citing the section behind every line, a six-year document checklist, and the PSEB and payment steps if they apply to you.
It does not file for you and it does not log into IRIS on your behalf. Nobody can, and a service claiming otherwise has a person doing it by hand. You press submit yourself. Rs 2,500, one time, for tax year 2026.