Workers’ remittances reached $3.6 billion in July 2026, up 13 per cent year-on-year and 4.5 per cent on the month, the State Bank of Pakistan said (Geo News).
Saudi Arabia remained the largest corridor at $913.9 million, followed by the UAE at $737.3 million, the United Kingdom at $555.5 million and the United States at $317.2 million. Topline Research projects full-year remittances for FY27 at $40.1 billion.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the figure “highly encouraging” and described overseas Pakistanis as a valuable and integral part of the national economic mainstream.
Economists were more measured about what the number represents. Dr Khaqan Najeeb said remittances were becoming an increasingly important source of foreign exchange precisely because the export engine remains weak.
“A weak domestic economy, limited job creation and large differences in earnings abroad are encouraging more Pakistanis to seek work overseas,” he said. “What leaves as labour is returning as foreign exchange.”
The inflows are keeping the balance of payments manageable, he said, but are also a reminder of what weak growth costs. “Instead of creating enough productive jobs at home, we are increasingly exporting our labour.”
That framing matters for how the figure is read. Remittances are counted as an inflow, but the mechanism generating them is emigration — and the countries sending the most money back are the same Gulf states whose labour markets absorb the Pakistani workers the domestic economy has not employed. A rising remittance line and a weak export line are not independent facts; they are two readings of the same shortfall.
The July figure lands in a week when textile mills warned that a goods transport strike was threatening export shipments and cotton supplies, and when the country’s largest export sector was reporting stranded containers at the ports.
