Punjab Arms Licence Online: Digital Version Coming to the NADRA Pak ID Wallet

The Punjab Home Department has approved an amended agreement with NADRA under which holders of a Punjab arms licence will be able to get a verifiable digital version of it in the Pak ID wallet. ProPakistani reported the approval on 14 September 2026 and ARY News on 15 September. The agreement now runs from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2026, and a single sign-on clause was removed from it on the advice of the Punjab Information Technology Board over security concerns. The physical licence, the renewal process and the fees are not changed by the announcement.

A licence holder stopped at a checkpoint in Punjab currently proves the licence with a card. The change reported this week means the same proof can sit on a phone, signed by NADRA, and be checked by scanning a code. That is the whole of what has been approved. Anyone searching for a Punjab arms licence online in the sense of applying from home is looking at a different, older change, which we cover below.

We read NADRA's own pages on verifiable credentials and the Pak ID vault on 17 September 2026, through a rendering proxy because nadra.gov.pk refuses automated requests. We could not read the Punjab arms licence portal at pal.nadra.gov.pk or the Punjab government's arms licence pages at all, which limits what this page can say about fees and steps, and we say so where it matters.

What did Punjab approve?

An amendment to the Home Department's existing agreement with NADRA. The amendment lets NADRA issue a verifiable digital credential for each Punjab arms licence into the holder's Pak ID wallet, extends the agreement's validity to 31 December 2026, and drops the single sign-on and shared login clauses from the draft after PITB flagged technical and security concerns.

The date matters less than the sequence. The Punjab Cabinet's standing committee had already approved extending the NADRA agreement in June 2026 so that computerised licence issuance and verification would not lapse. This month's step adds the digital credential to that extended agreement and settles what the two sides will and will not share with each other. The revised text was approved after a legal review, according to all three reports.

One thing the reports do not give is a start date for holders. Approval of an agreement is not the same as the credential appearing in your app, and nothing we read says when that happens.

What is a verifiable digital credential?

In NADRA's own words, a verifiable credential is a digital version of an important document, such as a CNIC, a degree or a licence, that you store online and share when needed. Each one carries a unique QR code, can be verified offline by scanning that code, is digitally signed so it cannot be altered, and can be checked by any organisation with your consent.

The wallet that holds it is what NADRA calls the PakID Vault, described on its site as a secure digital locker for a CNIC, degrees, licences and certificates, with viewing, download and a QR code for each document. Both sit inside the Pak ID app, which NADRA links from its digital identity page for Android and iOS.

1. The holder opens the credential in the Pak ID app on their own phone.
2. The app displays the QR code attached to that credential.
3. The person checking scans the code, with the holder's consent.
4. The digital signature confirms the credential was issued by NADRA and has not been altered.
5. The check works without an internet connection, according to NADRA's page.

That offline point is the practical one for an arms licence. A checkpoint on a highway at night does not always have signal. A signed code that verifies locally does not need it. Whether police in Punjab will be equipped and instructed to scan is a separate question, and one that the announcement does not answer.

The single sign-on clause, and why it went

Single sign-on means one login for many services. NADRA's own digital identity page lists it as a headline feature, "one login to access all government services". Punjab's technology board looked at the same idea inside this agreement and recommended taking it out, along with a shared login clause, citing technical and security concerns. The Home Department agreed.

Read plainly, Punjab wanted NADRA's signed credential but not a shared door into its licensing system. For a database of who holds which weapon, that is a reasonable line to draw, and it is the kind of detail that usually surfaces only after something goes wrong. Here it surfaced before.

How does a holder get the digital licence?

Through the Pak ID app, once the credential goes live. The reports say holders will obtain the digital licence through the Pak ID wallet, and NADRA's pages describe the vault inside that app, but no step-by-step process, start date or enrolment method has been published by the Home Department or NADRA as of 17 September 2026.

What is known about the app itself comes from NADRA. Pak ID needs an account tied to your CNIC, and verifies you with biometrics through the phone's camera. The same fingerprint and face checks are used across NADRA's services now, and NADRA's facial and iris verification exists for people whose fingerprints will not read. It is a fair guess that the arms credential will be released into the vault of the account matching the licence holder's CNIC, but that is our reading of how the vault works, not something either body has said.

Until the process is published, there is nothing for a holder to do. No form has been announced, and no fee for the credential has been announced. A message or website offering to "activate your digital arms licence" for a payment is not part of anything reported.

What does the digital credential not change?

The licence itself, who issues it, how it is renewed, and what it costs. The credential is proof of a licence that already exists in the Punjab Home Department's records. It does not issue a licence, it does not replace the physical card as far as any report says, and the announcement carries no fee schedule.

On fees, we tried to read NADRA's e-Sahulat fee page for the Punjab arms licence and the Punjab portal's procedure page. Both refused our requests. Rather than repeat a figure from a fee aggregator, we are printing none. Several sites that rank for arms licence fees are the same ones that disagree with each other on NADRA CNIC fees, which is reason enough to wait for a page with a government domain on it. NADRA's own document fees are a different list, and what every NADRA document costs does not include arms licences, because those are a provincial charge.

How do renewal and verification work on pal.nadra.gov.pk?

The Punjab arms licence portal is pal.nadra.gov.pk, and applications, renewals and biometric verification have run through it and the Pak ID app since the Home Department halted manual licensing in November 2025, according to reporting from April 2026. We could not open the portal on 17 September 2026. A direct request was refused, and a rendering proxy returned a notice that the service is not available in our region.

So what follows is reported, and we name the source. TechJuice reported on 17 April 2026 that an applicant submits the application on pal.nadra.gov.pk and completes biometric verification in the Pak ID app instead of visiting an office. ProPakistani reported on 22 April 2026 that NADRA changed renewal so that a licence runs for five years from its issue or last renewal, instead of every licence expiring on 31 December. That second report concerned federally issued licences. Whether Punjab's provincial licences follow the same clock is not something we could confirm.

The federal side is easier to read, because the Punjab government's own e-Khidmat page describes it. Renewal of a federal arms licence is done at NADRA counters in e-Khidmat centres, with the original CNIC, the expired licence and the holder present in person. The fee is generated by the system according to the renewal period and any fine, paid in cash, and the renewed licence is delivered within 22 working days. That is federal. A Punjab provincial licence is a different document with a different process, and the digital credential approved this week is for the provincial one.

The domain point is the one we would put above every other on this subject. In August we stopped writing a Punjab arms licence guide because we could not establish which portal was official, and the reason for that caution has not gone away. KP's Dastak portal handles arms licences and Punjab's Dastak does not, and one search for the topic returns both, plus several commercial sites with NADRA in the name and no government domain. For Punjab, the two addresses that matter are nadra.gov.pk and punjab.gov.pk. Anything else asking for money is not the licence process.

What should a licence holder do now?

Nothing yet, beyond keeping the physical licence valid. The credential has been approved, not released. When NADRA or the Home Department publishes the steps, they will appear on nadra.gov.pk or punjab.gov.pk, and the credential will be in the Pak ID app, not in a link sent to you.

We will update this page with the enrolment steps and any fee when either body publishes them, with the page we read them on.

Common questions about the Punjab digital arms licence

Is the Punjab arms licence now available online?

A verifiable digital copy has been approved for the Pak ID wallet, as reported on 14 September 2026. No release date or enrolment steps have been published yet.

What is the Pak ID wallet?

NADRA calls it the PakID Vault: a digital locker inside the Pak ID app that stores a CNIC, degrees, licences and certificates, each with a QR code for verification.

Does the digital copy replace the physical licence?

Nothing reported says the card is withdrawn. The credential is proof of the licence, and the licence is still issued by the Punjab Home Department.

What does it cost?

No fee for the credential has been announced, and we could not read the official Punjab arms licence fee page, so we are not printing a figure.

Why was single sign-on removed from the agreement?

The Punjab Information Technology Board recommended removing the single sign-on and shared login clauses over technical and security concerns, and the Home Department agreed, according to the reports.

Does this apply to a federal arms licence?

No. Federal licences are renewed through NADRA counters at e-Khidmat centres under a separate process. This agreement covers Punjab provincial licences.

Last checked and sources

Last checked 17 September 2026. The approval, the agreement period of 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2026, the issue of verifiable digital credentials for Punjab arms licences through the Pak ID wallet, the removal of the single sign-on and shared login clauses on the recommendation of the Punjab Information Technology Board, and the legal review are reported by ProPakistani of 14 September 2026, ARY News of 15 September 2026 and TechJuice of 14 September 2026, which agree on every point; ARY gives the approval date as 15 September and ProPakistani as 14 September. The June 2026 standing committee approval of the extended agreement is from The News of 16 June 2026. The description of verifiable credentials, the PakID Vault and NADRA's digital identity features including single sign-on was read on nadra.gov.pk on 17 September 2026 through a rendering proxy, because the site returns a 403 to automated requests; a page read that way was not read in a browser, and NADRA's pages do not name the Punjab arms licence among their examples. The federal arms licence renewal process, documents, cash fee and 22 working day delivery were read directly on the Punjab government's e-Khidmat Markaz page for the Federal Arms License. We could not read pal.nadra.gov.pk, which refused a direct request and returned a not-available-in-your-region notice through the proxy; the Punjab portal's arms licence procedure and centres pages, which returned access denied; or NADRA's e-Sahulat fee page for the Punjab arms licence, which returned 403. The November 2025 halt to manual licensing and the application steps on pal.nadra.gov.pk are from TechJuice of 17 April 2026. The five year renewal clock is from ProPakistani of 22 April 2026 and concerns federal licences. No fee, form, start date or enrolment step for the digital credential has been published by the Home Department or NADRA as far as we could find, and none is stated here.