Pakistan handled more than 22.65 million international passenger movements during 2025, according to official data, comprising 11,097,240 arrivals and 11,552,959 departures across the country’s airports. Against this backdrop of steadily rising cross-border travel, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is introducing greater automation and digital verification at immigration counters, with FIA Additional Director General Immigration Nouman Siddiqui telling local media that under Director General Dr Usman Anwar, a plan is being implemented to facilitate genuine travellers while tightening checks against illegal travel and fraudulent documents. On the specific day covered by the underlying data, Pakistan’s international entry and exit points recorded 51,517 passenger movements across 295 arriving and departing flights, with six major airports accounting for the vast majority of that traffic.
A key component of FIA’s modernization push is the introduction of automated e-gates, initially rolling out as a pilot project rather than a nationwide deployment from the outset. Under the pilot, eligible travellers, including work permit holders and others whose credentials can be digitally verified, will be able to complete immigration formalities through automated systems rather than standard manual counters. Siddiqui said automated processing was expected to make immigration clearance for eligible passengers 70 to 80 percent faster, a substantial reduction that could meaningfully ease congestion at Pakistan’s busiest airports if the pilot scales successfully. The initiative builds on earlier phases of FIA’s e-gates rollout, including a broader one-window airport clearance plan discussed in April 2026 that aimed to bring immigration processing time down to under 45 seconds per passenger using biometric e-gates linked directly to FIA databases.
Beyond e-gates specifically, the agency is expanding its use of technology to detect fake passports, fraudulent visas, and other forged or suspicious travel documents, while continuing action against human smuggling and illegal migration. Digital verification is intended to allow genuine passengers to be cleared more quickly while forged documents get flagged at an early stage of the immigration process, rather than only being caught through manual scrutiny at the counter. FIA is also improving mechanisms for handling passenger complaints and identifying operational bottlenecks, suggesting the modernization effort extends beyond the technology itself into how the agency processes feedback and addresses recurring friction points in the passenger experience.
Siddiqui described e-gates, digital document verification, clearer procedures, passenger complaint mechanisms, and improved inter-agency coordination as forming part of a broader modernisation programme within FIA, echoing similar language used in earlier FIA announcements around its AI powered immigration app and Integrated Border Management System upgrades. With international passenger traffic continuing to climb year over year, the practical test for FIA’s automation push will be whether the e-gates pilot can move beyond its initial eligible traveller pool to a broader rollout without compromising the document verification checks the agency says remain central to its anti-trafficking and anti-fraud mandate.
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