Pakistan driving rules every rental driver should get at handover

The driving rules Pakistan actually enforces on a rental driver come down to a short list: drive on the left, wear the seat belt, keep your hands off the phone, respect the posted limit (120 km/h for cars on motorways, 100 km/h on national highways since the June 2026 restoration), keep left unless overtaking on the right, stop when a uniformed officer signals, and carry four things at all times — your licence (plus an International Driving Permit if you hold a foreign licence), the vehicle’s registration certificate, its insurance certificate and photo ID. Everything else in this briefing explains how those rules play out at a motorway toll plaza, a city checkpoint or the side of the M-2 with a flat tyre.

This page is written as the briefing an authorised driver should receive at the moment the keys change hands. It condenses the National Highways Safety Ordinance 2000, the rulebook the National Highways and Motorway Police (NHMP) enforce, plus 2026 speed notifications and UK and US travel advice. It is not legal advice.

The handover briefing in one table

If the supplier’s representative has five minutes and you have one question, this is the table to read together before the car leaves the lot.

Speed limits: motorways, national highways and cities

Speed is where visitors lose money fastest, because Pakistan’s limits have moved twice in 2026. In March the federal government cut limits as a fuel-saving measure: according to Dawn’s report of the cut, cars went from 120 to 100 km/h on motorways and from 100 to 80 km/h on national highways. On 22 June 2026 the reductions were withdrawn, restoring 120 km/h for cars and light transport vehicles on motorways, 110 km/h for buses and heavy vehicles, and the earlier highway limits.

So the working numbers for a hired saloon or SUV today are:

• Motorways (M-1, M-2, M-3, M-4, M-5 and so on): 120 km/h, with a posted minimum as well. The ordinance tells drivers not to go slower than the posted minimum unless traffic forces it.
• National highways (the N-5 Grand Trunk Road, N-55 Indus Highway and similar): 100 km/h for cars where no lower limit is signed. Expect frequent lower limits through towns, at bazaars and near schools.
• Cities: follow the signs. The ordinance’s Fifth Schedule sets ceilings by road type and area (for example 70 km/h on a two-lane urban road and 55 km/h on a single-lane one), but city traffic police post their own limits on arterial roads, and those are what cameras check.

Two practical points for the handover. First, enforcement is not light: NHMP’s performance report published in January 2026 counted more than 13.2 million challans and FIRs against over 11,000 drivers in campaigns against serious violations and overspeeding. Second, the ordinance allows arrest without a warrant for driving 30 per cent or more above the limit. On a 120 km/h motorway that line sits at 156 km/h — a speed a modern rental car reaches without drama on a quiet morning.

Fines themselves are volatile. NHMP raised motorway fines by roughly 200 per cent in October 2023, taking a car’s speeding fine from Rs 750 to Rs 2,500, as Dawn reported at the time. Treat any figure you read, including that one, as a snapshot rather than a price list.

Seat belts, phones and children in the car

Pakistan’s written law on occupant safety is thinner than a UK or Gulf driver expects. The rule you are held to is not the whole standard you should apply.

Seat belts

The ordinance’s Eighth Schedule tells every driver “not drive a vehicle without seat belts and properly functioning lights and indicators”. The Pakistan Safety Council summarises the position bluntly: the legal duty falls on the driver, the fine it cites is Rs 300, and rear-seat passengers are not clearly covered. The World Health Organization’s road safety profile for Pakistan likewise records a seat-belt law that does not cover all occupants.

The briefing line: the driver belts up because the law says so, everyone else because physics does not read the ordinance. Check at handover that every rear belt latches, centre-rear included.

Phones

The motorway section of the ordinance tells drivers not to “use any kind of phone inside a vehicle in any manner, which is likely to adversely affect driving concentration”, and a general rule bars any action that distracts the driver. The WHO country profile records Pakistan’s mobile-phone law as targeting hand-held use; the motorway rule is wider and catches any phone use that affects concentration. In practice: mount the phone for navigation before you move, set the route while parked, and let a passenger handle WhatsApp calls from the family waiting at arrivals.

Children

There is no national child-restraint law, according to the same WHO profile. That does not make a child on a lap safe at 120 km/h. If you are travelling with small children, ask for a child seat in writing when you enquire, check it is suitable for the child’s age and weight, and fit it yourself before leaving the lot. Keep children out of the front seat, and never put a rear-facing seat in front of an active airbag.

Motorway lane discipline and what NHMP watches for

Pakistan’s motorways are policed by the National Highways and Motorway Police, and they feel different from the Grand Trunk Road within minutes: no tractors or animal carts (the ordinance bans both from any part of a motorway), marked lanes, uniformed patrols and toll plazas. The rules that catch visiting drivers are written in Part VII of the Eighth Schedule, and they are worth reading in the original. The key ones, in plain terms:

1. Join from the left slip road, match speed and merge only into a safe gap.
2. Stay in your lane except to overtake. Do not weave, and do not change more than one lane at a time.
3. Overtake on the right. Do not overtake using the extreme left lane or the shoulder, and do not drop left to pass someone.
4. Heavy vehicles keep left. Trucks, buses and anything towing a trailer are restricted to the extreme left lane except when overtaking, so expect them there and plan your exits around them.
5. Never reverse or drive against the traffic, including on the shoulder or slip road. Missed your exit? Carry on to the next interchange.
6. No U-turns across the central reserve, and no stopping on the shoulder or slip road to pick up or drop off anyone.
7. Park only in service areas or designated spots, never on the shoulder or median.

The ordinance also sets a following distance of one metre for every two km/h of speed — thirty metres at 60 km/h, so about sixty metres at 120 km/h. In winter fog NHMP temporarily closes motorway sections when visibility collapses, and its press releases in January 2026 stressed that closures are meant to prevent accidents rather than inconvenience travellers. Lights must be on from sunset to sunrise and whenever mist, fog, rain or dust reduces visibility.

Before any motorway run, NHMP’s toll-free helpline 130 gives road and closure updates; the same January 2026 report said more than 5.4 million people had been guided through it. Tolls are collected electronically through M-Tag; our guide to motorway tolls and drive times on the M-1, M-2 and M-4 covers the detail. Ask whether the car carries a tag: a 50 per cent surcharge on untagged vehicles was suspended by the Islamabad High Court on 3 July 2026 pending further hearings, so check the current position before relying on it.

Documents to carry in a rental car in Pakistan

Section 58 of the ordinance is short and decisive: on demand by a uniformed officer, the driver must produce the driving licence, the certificate of insurance and the vehicle’s certificate of registration. Commercial transport vehicles also need a fitness certificate and route permit, which does not apply to an ordinary self-drive car. Section 41 separately requires every vehicle used on a national highway to be insured.

That gives a clear list of the documents to carry in a rental car in Pakistan, split between what the supplier hands over and what the driver brings:

The IDP line deserves emphasis. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office says British visitors must carry the 1968 IDP with their UK licence, that it cannot be bought outside the UK, and that drivers without the correct documents “could be detained and a police report could be registered”. The same page tells travellers to carry photo ID at all times. Our explainer on driving in Pakistan on a UK licence covers the IDP route for UK, US and Canadian licence holders in detail.

Section 58 does let a private driver show missing originals at the patrol post within fifteen days. That is a legal remedy, not a plan: keep the papers in the glovebox and photographs of each on your phone.

What to do at a police check

Checkpoints are routine, from NHMP patrols to city traffic police. The US State Department’s Pakistan page advises keeping copies of passport, visa and entry stamp to hand. A repeatable routine keeps the stop short:

1. Stop when signalled. Section 59 requires you to stop and stay stationary as long as reasonably necessary when a uniformed officer requires it. Failing to stop is one of the offences for which the ordinance allows arrest without a warrant.
2. Pull over safely, hazards on, window down, interior light on at night, hands visible.
3. Hand over what is asked for: licence and IDP first, then registration and insurance. Keep the passport in hand until it is requested.
4. Explain the hire if the car is registered to a company: show the rental agreement with your name on it.
5. If you are fined, ask for the written ticket and keep it. Fines should be paid through the official channel the ticket names, not in cash at the roadside.
6. Call the supplier if anything is disputed. The contact number should be written inside the document envelope before you leave the lot.

City camera fines follow the car, not the driver. Punjab’s Safe City authority sends e-challans for camera-detected violations and says on its e-challan portal that fines should be paid within ten days, warning that vehicles can be impounded otherwise. The Islamabad Capital Territory Police run an online e-challan check and payment service and a traffic helpline on 1915. Because a challan can arrive after you have returned the car, read how the agreement handles late fines; for platform bookings, start with iDrive’s terms of hire.

Breakdowns and accidents: the first fifteen minutes

The ordinance is specific about both, which makes them easy to brief.

On a motorway breakdown

• Move the car onto the shoulder at once and turn on the hazard warning lights.
• Place the red warning triangle 50 to 100 metres behind the car. The Eighth Schedule tells drivers not to be without one, so confirm at handover that it is actually in the boot, along with the spare wheel and jack.
• Get passengers away from live lanes. Walking on the shoulder is allowed only to reach help or in an emergency.
• Call NHMP on 130 and then the supplier’s roadside number.

After a collision

Section 61 lists the driver’s duties: secure medical attention for anyone injured, park the vehicle safely with warning signs, and give information to the police or report to the nearest patrol post within 24 hours. Failing to report an accident involving death, injury or damage within that window is itself an offence under section 76. The emergency numbers the US State Department lists are 1122 for rescue services and 15 for police.

For the rental side, photograph the scene, both vehicles and the other driver’s documents, and tell the supplier before any repair is discussed. Section 41 requires compulsory “no fault” accident compensation cover for vehicles on national highways; what the car’s commercial insurance adds beyond that depends on the policy, which is one more reason to read the insurance line in the documents table above.

Traffic signs in Pakistan in English, and the official rulebook

Road signs are the part of the rulebook a visitor meets first and studies least. NHMP publishes a reference set of traffic signs on its website, which is the quickest way to see the traffic signs in Pakistan in English before you drive. Its traffic rules page links the underlying law.

Anyone searching for a driving rules in Pakistan PDF should start with the law itself. For national highways and motorways, the official text is the National Highways Safety Ordinance 2000 as published by NHMP, a scanned Gazette copy of about 80 pages. The parts worth printing for a rental driver are:

• Fifth Schedule: maximum and minimum speed limits by road type (the ceilings; notified limits are lower).
• Eighth Schedule, Part I: the general rules of driving in Pakistan, from lane position and lights to following distance and reversing.
• Eighth Schedule, Part VII: the motorway rules summarised above.
• Section 58, 59 and 61: documents, stopping for police, and accident duties.

Provincial city rules sit under separate provincial motor vehicle law, so treat the ordinance as the national baseline rather than the last word inside Lahore or Karachi.

What a supplier should confirm at handover

A briefing only works if the car matches it. Before the authorised driver signs, the supplier’s representative and the driver should walk through these together:

1. Every driver who will drive is named on the agreement, with licence and IDP details recorded.
2. Registration and insurance documents are in the car, in date, and match the plates.
3. Safety kit is present: warning triangle, spare wheel, jack, working seat belts in every seat, and any child seat that was requested.
4. Toll arrangements are clear: whether an M-Tag is fitted and how its balance and any toll charges are settled.
5. Fines and e-challans: how camera fines that arrive after return are handled.
6. Two phone numbers are written down: the supplier’s 24-hour line and NHMP 130.
7. Route restrictions, if any, are stated. The FCDO advises using experienced local drivers on mountain routes and travelling only in clear weather, and a self-drive agreement may limit where the car can go.

That last point is where many trips change shape. If the plan includes the Karakoram Highway, long night drives or a wedding convoy where you would rather be a guest than a navigator, a car with a driver is usually the better answer. Our comparison of self-drive versus a car with driver weighs the trade-offs, and our sister service Pakistan Taxi, also run by iDrive, arranges car and driver hire for families who want someone local at the wheel.

If self-drive is still the right fit, start with self-drive car rental in Pakistan to see how requests are handled, then send your dates, pick-up city and driver details through the iDrive booking page. Availability, vehicle and price are confirmed by the supplier after the request is reviewed; nothing is fixed until that confirmation arrives.

Questions people ask

What is the speed limit on Pakistan’s motorways right now?

For cars and light vehicles it is 120 km/h, and 110 km/h for buses and heavy vehicles, after the government withdrew its temporary March 2026 reductions on 22 June 2026. Posted signs always take priority, and limits have changed at short notice before.

Can I drive a rental car in Pakistan on a foreign licence?

UK licence holders need the 1968 International Driving Permit alongside the licence, according to the FCDO, and must buy it before travel. Other nationalities should check their own government’s advice and the rental supplier’s eligibility rules before booking.

Do rear passengers have to wear seat belts in Pakistan?

The legal duty in the National Highways Safety Ordinance falls on the driver, and there is no national child-restraint law. Every occupant should still wear a belt; the lack of a fine does not reduce the injury risk.