Upwork and Fiverr income tax in Pakistan
Earnings from Upwork and Fiverr are taxable income in Pakistan, and for IT or IT-enabled work they are normally taxed under section 154A at 1%, or 0.25% with PSEB. Neither platform withholds anything for FBR, so the tax, the paperwork and the deadline are yours to handle.
Section 154A, at 1% or 0.25%
Export proceeds for IT and IT-enabled services fall under section 154A of the Income Tax Ordinance. The bank deducts the tax when your remittance is credited, and that deduction is final: nothing further is due on that income. The rate is 1%, or 0.25% with a live PSEB registration. A return is still required either way, and for tax year 2026, which runs 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026, it is due by 30 September 2026.
On Rs 5,000,000 of platform earnings received in the year:
| treatment | tax for the year |
|---|---|
| s.154A final tax at 1% | Rs 50,000 |
| s.154A final tax at 0.25%, PSEB registered | Rs 12,500 |
| normal slabs, before business expenses | Rs 1,370,000 |
The last row is a ceiling, not a quote: normal slabs charge nothing on the first Rs 600,000 and do allow business expenses. Section 154A covers the work, not the platform, so software development, web and mobile development, design, QA, DevOps, data work, technical writing, IT support, call-centre and back-office gigs all sit inside it. It also assumes you are resident in Pakistan, which usually means 183 days or more.
The bank deducts, not the platform
Nothing on an Upwork or Fiverr statement will ever show Pakistani tax withheld. The platform's cut is a fee, not tax. Your 154A deduction happens later, when a Pakistani bank credits the withdrawal, whether that arrives directly or through Payoneer first. The proof is the Proceeds Realisation Certificate and tax deduction certificate that bank issues, and that certificate is what you credit against your liability on the return.
FilerKaro flags any month with income but no certificate attached, because that credit cannot be claimed without it and the amount becomes payable. The tax itself is charged on what actually landed, after the platform fee, so the Upwork fee and the Fiverr revenue share reduce the figure the rate is applied to.
How to export your Upwork earnings
Open your Upwork earnings report for the tax year and export it as CSV. FilerKaro identifies the file by its header row, not its name, so these are the columns that matter:
| column in the report | what FilerKaro does with it |
|---|---|
| Date | the receipt date, which picks the exchange rate |
| Amount | the net you were paid |
| Upwork Fee | added back to reconstruct the gross |
| Currency | anything but USD is held back for you to confirm |
An Upwork report usually gives you the net and the fee rather than a gross column, so the gross is rebuilt as the two added together unless the file carries a gross or client amount column of its own.
How to export your Fiverr earnings
Open your Fiverr earnings page for the tax year and export it as CSV. The columns FilerKaro reads:
| column in the export | what FilerKaro does with it |
|---|---|
| Order date | the row date, which picks the exchange rate |
| Order value | gross for the row |
| Fiverr revenue share | the fee, subtracted from gross |
| Net earnings | the net, used directly when present |
Watch the dates on this one. A Fiverr export is ordered by order, and an order can complete weeks before the money leaves your Fiverr balance and reaches your bank. Section 154A attaches to the remittance, so if your withdrawals lag your orders, check the row dates against your bank credits before you file rather than after.
The rate on the day it landed
Every receipt converts at the State Bank rate for its own date, the nearest published rate on or before it. A payment received in August 2025 converts at the August 2025 rate even though you file in September 2026, so a year of earnings carries a different rate on almost every line. One convenient annual rate is how a return stops matching the bank record.
If your platform payouts route through Payoneer, upload both files. FilerKaro compares sources and treats a Payoneer line and an Upwork or Fiverr line in the same month within 1% of each other as the same money, counting it once instead of taxing you twice on it.
Two things platform freelancers ask first
- Is Upwork income taxable in Pakistan?
- Yes. Upwork earnings for work you export are taxable income in Pakistan. For IT or IT-enabled services they are normally taxed under section 154A at 1% of the receipts, or 0.25% if you are PSEB registered, and a return is still required.
- Do I pay tax on Fiverr earnings in Pakistan?
- Yes, on the same basis as Upwork. Fiverr does not deduct Pakistani tax. The section 154A deduction is made by the Pakistani bank that credits your withdrawal, and the certificate from that bank is what you credit against your liability on the return.
Upload that same export to FilerKaro
The earnings CSV you just exported is the file FilerKaro reads. It detects the format, converts every line at the State Bank rate for its date, flags duplicates across platforms, compares 154A against normal slabs, and names the tab, the field and the figure to type into IRIS. The estimate is free. The filing pack is Rs 2,500.