You rent a house in Lahore. The landlord hands you a rent agreement on plain paper and says, sign here. You sign. Later, the two of you fall out. You take the agreement to court, and the judge says it cannot be used as evidence because it has no stamp. That is how many tenancy disputes end in Pakistan.
Stamp duty is a tax on documents. The law behind it is the Stamp Act 1899. A rent agreement is a chargeable document under this Act, and it needs a stamp before it can be used in court.
What does the Stamp Act say about rent agreements?
The Stamp Act 1899 treats a rent agreement as a lease. Article 35 of its first schedule covers a lease, including any agreement to let or sub-let. So the rules that apply to a lease apply to your rent agreement too.
How much is the stamp duty on a rent agreement?
The rate depends on your province and the term of the agreement. In Punjab, for a lease of less than twenty years, the duty is 3.25% of the average annual rent. That rate covers most rent agreements in the province. The full schedule is in the Stamp Act 1899 on the Punjab Laws website.
Here is an example. Your monthly rent is Rs 50,000. The average annual rent is Rs 600,000. At 3.25%, the stamp duty is Rs 19,500.
For a term of exactly twenty years, the rate rises to 5.25% in urban areas. For terms beyond twenty years, the duty is charged on the rent of the first ten years. In Islamabad, the rate for a rent agreement under one year is 2% of the whole amount payable under the agreement. Each province sets its own rate, so check the figure for your city before you pay.
Who pays the stamp duty, the landlord or the tenant?
Section 29 of the Stamp Act says the duty on a lease is paid by the lessee, meaning the tenant. Unless the agreement says otherwise, the tenant bears the cost. In practice many landlords and tenants split it, but the law puts it on the tenant.
Where do you get the stamp?
Provinces now issue e-stamps. In Punjab, you generate a challan on the official Punjab e-stamping portal, pay the amount at a bank, and the system issues an e-stamp. You can also get stamp paper at a Bank of Punjab counter or an e-Khidmat Markaz.
In Islamabad, e-stamping is mandatory. Manual stamp papers stopped being accepted in early 2026. The federal portal is estamping.gob.pk.
Do you need to register the rent agreement?
Not every rent agreement. Under section 17 of the Registration Act 1908, a lease for a term exceeding one year, or from year to year, must be registered. Section 107 of the Transfer of Property Act 1882 says the same thing in different words: a lease of more than one year can only be made by a registered instrument. A rent agreement for less than a year does not need registration, but it still needs a stamp.
What happens if you skip the stamp?
The Stamp Act does not leave this as a suggestion. Section 35 says an instrument that is not duly stamped cannot be admitted in evidence. A court will not act on it, and a public officer will not register or authenticate it. For practical purposes, an unstamped rent agreement is a piece of paper you cannot enforce.
It can be admitted later, but only after you pay the missing duty plus a penalty. The penalty is five rupees, or ten times the deficient duty where that is more. Stamping it on day one is cheaper than stamping it after a dispute.
What should you do before signing a rent agreement?
- Check the stamp duty for your province and your rent.
- Buy the e-stamp from the official portal before you sign.
- Write the agreement on the stamped paper, or print the e-stamp with the agreement text.
- Fill in the names, the property address, the monthly rent, the term, and the security deposit.
- Both parties sign in front of witnesses.
- If the term is more than one year, register it at the sub-registrar office.
Before you sign, it helps to know the property itself. Our guide on how to check a property before buying in Pakistan explains the records that prove who really owns the place. If the property is in Karachi, see our walkthrough on checking a property lease in Karachi. And when ownership changes hands later, the property mutation in Pakistan guide covers the transfer records.
For the full list of what a rent agreement must contain, see our guide on making a rent agreement in Pakistan.
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