Step-by-Step Guide to Registering a Startup in Pakistan (SECP Online) — 2025
Gone are the agent-and-chai-khana days. In 2025 a Pakistani startup goes from idea to legal entity through SECP's eServices portal in three to five working days, if you dodge the paperwork potholes. Here is the whole road.
Step 1: Pick the structure
A sole proprietorship skips SECP entirely — you deal with the local licensing and get an NTN from FBR. A Single Member Company suits a solo founder who wants limited liability; a Private Limited Company is the default once co-founders or investors appear. LLPs work for consultancies, but investors rarely write cheques to them, so convert before any raise.
Step 2: Reserve the name
On eservices.secp.gov.pk, use the name search tool, then submit three options in order of preference. Generic names like "Pakistan Solutions" get rejected — add distinctive keywords. Avoid restricted words such as "Bank" and "Federal". The fee is Rs 1,000 online, and the reservation holds for 90 days, extendable once by 30.
Step 3: Prepare the file
You will need the Memorandum and Articles of Association (SECP publishes editable templates — use them), scanned CNICs of all directors, proof of the registered office such as a utility bill or lease, and digital signatures from NIFT at roughly Rs 1,500 per director. If the CNIC address and the utility bill disagree, attach a bill in a director's name or expect a rejection — mismatched addresses are the most common one.
Step 4: Submit and pay
Upload everything through the portal; Forms 1, 21 and 29 generate themselves from your data. Incorporation fees scale with authorised capital: roughly Rs 2,000 to 20,000 for an SMC and Rs 3,000 to 30,000 for a Pvt Ltd, paid by JazzCash, Easypaisa or card. The certificate lands in your portal inbox in three to five working days — or about four hours if you pay the Rs 5,000 Fast Track fee.
Step 5: The 30-day aftermath
This is where founders slack and penalties bite.
- NTN via the FBR IRIS portal — usually issued within 48 hours of uploading the incorporation certificate.
- A bank account for the company, with the certificate, NTN, a board resolution and signatory CNICs. Meezan, Faysal and Bank Alfalah all run dedicated startup desks.
- If you export IT, PSEB membership — it opens the 1% presumptive tax on export receipts under Section 154A.
- Diarise the annual rhythm: financial statements by September 30 and Form A after the AGM.
A Pakistani registered office in 2025 is honestly an afternoon of clicking. What impresses me more is paperwork's other face: in Gaza, families keep the keys and title deeds of homes that no longer stand, because papers are what people cling to when everything else is taken. May their registries be honoured and their doors restored.
Your startup's paperwork and a traveller's paperwork are cousins, and we spend our days with the second kind: passport renewals, visa files, document checklists, the fiddly stuff people postpone. That is the desk at HTG Travels in Sialkot — bring the folder, leave with a plan.
