Pakistan’s federal government has introduced new Toshakhana rules that close an earlier route allowing public office holders to keep gifts valued at up to $300, provided they paid the assessed market value, official sources said. Instead, a committee will decide which high-value and diplomatically sensitive presents can be excluded from public auction.
According to the sources, a comparison of the 2023 Toshakhana procedure with the Toshakhana (Management and Regulation) Rules, 2026, shows a clear change in approach. Under the earlier policy, gifts above $300 became state property. Under the new framework, gifts that cannot be declined on diplomatic or cultural grounds must be deposited in the Toshakhana, and items eligible for disposal will be sold at open auctions.
How the new framework treats gifts kept out of auction
The most significant change, the sources said, concerns gifts that will not be put up for sale. Antiques and items of cultural or historical significance are excluded from auction under the 2026 rules, while high-value gifts and those considered diplomatically or internationally sensitive may also be exempted. A committee headed by the cabinet secretary, with senior representatives from the Finance, Foreign Affairs, Law and Culture divisions, will make those decisions.
Officials noted that an exemption from auction does not, on its own, allow a recipient to keep a gift privately. Even so, the committee’s classifications will shape how valuable presents are handled, creating a distinction between items that are sold and those that remain outside the auction process.
The 2023 procedure had also barred private retention of gifts above the $300 threshold, making them state property, and excluded antiques and gifts of intrinsic historical value from the retention concession. Gifts unsuitable for retention, donation or display were to be sold through periodic public auctions.
Valuation rules, audits and online disclosure
The 2026 framework adds more detailed safeguards. The Federal Board of Revenue and a private-sector evaluator both assess a gift’s market value, and a third evaluator is brought in if the first two valuations differ by more than 25%. A valuation older than three months cannot be used to set the reserve price, which may not fall below the assessed market value.
The rules require open auctions, bar public office holders and their family members from taking part, and provide for live media coverage. Records of gifts, including assessed values, reserve prices and final sale prices, will be posted on an online portal updated monthly, although the names and countries of the dignitaries presenting the gifts will not be disclosed. Annual third-party audits of gifts received and disposed of are also required, and auction proceeds will go into a separate account for primary education for girls in the country’s most underdeveloped areas.
A source in the bureaucracy said the rules do not give public office holders a general right to keep expensive gifts. The real question, the source said, is “how consistently the government will apply the exemptions for valuable and sensitive items, and how transparently it will account for gifts kept outside the auction process.”
