Can Shafiq Traders handle the whole journey to Iran or Central Asia?

No. We file the transit declaration and handle the consignment at Karachi or Port Qasim, where it lands. Once it crosses the border at Gabd or Taftan, it is on Iranian customs territory, and we have no office or standing there.

Does this route replace sea freight to Central Asia?

It is an alternative for cargo that suits an overland run, not a replacement for every shipment. Whether it is faster or cheaper than the existing sea and land combinations depends on the specific origin, destination and cargo, and the corridor is new enough that this is still being worked out route by route.

Do we pay Pakistani customs duty on goods only transiting to Iran?

No. Chapter XIII of the Customs Act allows goods entered for transit across Pakistan to a foreign destination to move without payment of the duty that would otherwise apply. The transit declaration has to say so from the outset.

Is this the same as the Afghan transit trade route?

No, and we do not handle that route. This is a separate corridor to Iran, opened in 2026, running through Balochistan to Gabd and Taftan rather than through Torkham or Chaman.

Which of the six routes should we use?

That depends on which Pakistani port the cargo already lands at and which of the two Iranian crossings, Gabd or Taftan, is closer to the destination. We can tell you which port and route combination fits a specific shipment once we know where it is going.

What happens if the seal on the conveyance is broken before it reaches the border?

It stops being a transit movement and becomes a matter for the customs officer who finds it that way. That is exactly why the seal, not a re-examination of the cargo, is what the border crossing checks.

Is the corridor actually running, or is it still on paper?

Both are true at once. The order and the named routes are in force, and at least one dispatch has already crossed at Gabd-Rimdan and continued to Tashkent. It is new enough that we would rather say plainly it is early days than promise a volume of traffic that has not built up yet.

Guides · Transit

The first leg into Iran and on to Central Asia starts at a Karachi berth. The border crossing is not ours to run.

Shafiq Traders · Updated 14 September 2026

Since 25 April 2026, a Ministry of Commerce order has formalised overland routes for goods entered for transit across Pakistan to Iran, landing at Karachi, Port Qasim or Gwadar and crossing the border at Gabd or Taftan. The legal basis for letting goods cross Pakistani territory without paying Pakistani duty is older than the new order: Chapter XIII of the Customs Act, 1969 has allowed transit trade for decades. What is new is that this particular corridor now has named routes, and that cargo bound past Iran into Central Asia is already moving on it, a frozen-beef shipment from Karachi having crossed at Gabd-Rimdan and continued on to Tashkent. Shafiq Traders can file the transit declaration and handle the goods at the Karachi end, where they land. We have no office and no standing at Taftan or Gabd-Rimdan, and the leg across the border runs on Iranian paperwork, not Pakistani.

What actually changed, and what did not

Transit trade through Pakistan is not a new idea. Chapter XIII of the Customs Act, 1969 has allowed goods entered for transit across Pakistan to a foreign territory to move without paying the duty that would otherwise apply, and the Directorate General of Transit Trade exists specifically to run that chapter. What changed in 2026 is narrower and more useful than it sounds: a named set of overland routes to Iran, with the two border crossings a shipper can actually plan a truck against.

The buyers this affects are specific. An exporter with a genuine order in Central Asia who used to route everything by sea through the UAE and back overland. A trading house moving third-country cargo that happens to land at a Pakistani port on its way to Iran. Nobody importing for use in Pakistan needs any of this — it only matters when the goods are not staying.

The corridor the order actually named

The order in force from 25 April 2026 covers goods consigned from a third country and destined for a place in Iran, moving through Pakistani territory. It sets out six routes linking Karachi, Port Qasim and Gwadar to two Iranian border crossings, Gabd and Taftan, running inland through Balochistan by way of Turbat, Panjgur, Khuzdar, Quetta and Dalbandin. It sits on the same legal footing as the rest of Chapter XIII: goods move under bond and under customs seal, without Pakistani duty being charged on cargo that is only passing through.

Its own wording stops at the Iranian border. It does not name Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan or any other Central Asian republic, and we are not going to pretend it does. What we can say, because it has already happened, is that Pakistan's Directorate General of Transit Trade sent the corridor's first dispatch, a shipment of frozen beef, from Karachi across the Gabd-Rimdan crossing and on to Tashkent. Iran's own road network is what carries a shipment on from there into Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the republics beyond. That leg runs on Iranian and Central Asian paperwork. Ours stops at the border.

The six routes, as reported

As reported by Dawn and other national coverage of the Ministry of Commerce order in force from 25 April 2026. We could not independently open the gazetted order itself, so no clause beyond what is listed here should be taken as confirmed. Checked September 2026.
Pakistani ports	Inland waypoints	Iran border crossing
Gwadar	Direct	Gabd
Karachi / Port Qasim	Lyari, Ormara, Pasni	Gabd
Karachi / Port Qasim	Khuzdar, Dalbandin	Taftan
Gwadar	Turbat, Panjgur, Khuzdar, Quetta, Dalbandin, Nokundi	Taftan
Gwadar	Lyari, Khuzdar, Quetta, Dalbandin, Nokundi	Taftan
Karachi / Port Qasim	Gwadar	Gabd

Where the file changes hands

A transit consignment has two owners over its journey, not one. We are only ever the first.

The goods land as transit cargo, not as an import

The declaration at Karachi or Port Qasim states transit across Pakistan to a destination outside the country from the start. It is not an import entry converted later.

The conveyance moves under seal

The truck or container is sealed for the inland run, and the seal is what customs checks at the border, not a fresh examination of the cargo.

Our file closes at the border

Once the consignment crosses at Gabd or Taftan, it is on Iranian customs territory. We have no office, no agent and no standing there to answer for it.

Anything past Iran is Iranian and Central Asian paperwork

A shipment continuing on to Tashkent or beyond is cleared and carried under whatever arrangement Iran and the destination country have with each other, not under anything filed in Pakistan.

We are a Karachi agent. We can file the transit declaration, get the seal put on and the truck moving, because that is the part that happens at a port we actually work. We cannot promise anything about Taftan or Gabd-Rimdan, because we are not there and we do not control what happens at a border crossing several hundred kilometres inland, still less what happens once the goods are inside Iran. Anybody offering to handle the whole route door to door from a Karachi office is promising more than a Karachi office can deliver.

Questions

What shippers ask us about the Iran and Central Asia transit route

Contact

Tell us what is coming.

Give us the product, the port and roughly when the vessel is due, and we will tell you what the clearance involves and what it will cost.

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