Punjab vehicle verification: one registry, every district

It is the process of confirming that a Punjab-registered vehicle’s record with the Excise, Taxation & Narcotics Control Department matches the car and the person selling it. The free part — registration, owner name, token tax — is available to anyone on MTMIS Punjab. The part that protects your money — lien status, file authenticity, engine and chassis agreement — needs a physical document check.

Yes. MTMIS Punjab is a single provincial database. A car registered in Sargodha, Sialkot, Bahawalpur or Lahore is looked up exactly the same way, on the same site, with the same SMS shortcode (8785). There is no separate portal per district — a common misconception that sends buyers looking for a "Multan MTMIS" or "Faisalabad Excise" site that does not exist.

Send the registration number as a plain text message to 8785 from any Pakistani mobile network. You receive the basic registration and ownership details held by Punjab Excise. It costs standard message rates and works without internet — useful when you are standing at a seller’s house on weak mobile data.

No, and this catches people out constantly. Rawalpindi is Punjab: its records sit on MTMIS Punjab and use 8785. Islamabad is federal territory (ICT): its records sit with Islamabad Excise and use 8521. The two cities are adjacent, but a Rawalpindi-registered car checked on the Islamabad portal simply returns nothing — which buyers sometimes misread as the car being fake.

Three things that matter most, in our experience of inspecting used cars. It does not reliably show an open bank loan or lease, so a car can look clean and still be legally encumbered. It does not tell you the file is genuine rather than a good forgery. And it cannot confirm the engine and chassis stamped on the actual car match the numbers on the record — because it has never seen the car.

Start with the paperwork, because the free portal will not tell you. MTMIS confirms the registration record but does not reliably show an open bank loan or lease, so a financed car can look clean online. The most telling check costs nothing: ask for the original registration book. Lenders normally hold it until the loan is settled, so a seller who can only produce a photocopy is worth questioning. Our PKR 1,500 document verification examines the file and record for recorded financing entries and warning signs and tells you what we find — but proving a loan is actually settled is something only the lender can do, by issuing an NOC. If anything points to financing, ask the seller for that NOC before you pay.

PKR 1,500, flat, for any Punjab-registered vehicle — Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Sargodha or Bahawalpur. We check the record against the file, confirm the ownership chain and transferability, and look for the lien and tampering signals the free portal cannot show. The result comes back the same day on WhatsApp.

Yes. Document verification follows the vehicle’s registering authority, not the buyer’s location. If the car is on the Punjab register, we can verify it whether you are in Karachi, Peshawar or abroad arranging a purchase for family. What we cannot yet do outside Lahore is put an inspector physically next to the car.

The original registration book — not a photocopy — matching the car; a signed transfer deed and any earlier transfer letter; the seller’s CNIC in the same name as the registered owner; the latest token-tax receipt; and, for imported vehicles, the bill of entry and auction papers. Punjab transfers also involve biometric verification, so an unfinished transfer tends to leave a visible trail.

Usually because the car has changed hands informally and the transfer was never completed — the record still shows an owner from two or three sales ago. It is extremely common in Pakistan and not automatically fraud, but it does mean you are buying a transfer problem along with the car. Confirm who can legally sign the transfer before any money moves.

Clean papers and a sound car are two different questions. The registry has no opinion on accident repair, engine condition or odometer tampering. A verified file tells you the car can be legally transferred to you; a 70+ point inspection tells you whether it is worth what is being asked. CarOK currently does doorstep inspections in Lahore.