Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund reached an IMF staff-level agreement on Thursday covering the fourth review of the $7 billion Extended Fund Facility and the third review of the Resilience and Sustainability Facility. Clearing both unlocks roughly $1.2 billion, subject to Executive Board approval.
The money is not available yet. Pakistan could draw it about four to five weeks after the Board signs off, which puts disbursement in November on the current timetable.
The numbers in the agreement
- Under the EFF: about $1 billion, or SDR 760 million
- Under the RSF: about $210 million, or SDR 154 million
- Combined: roughly $1.21 billion
- Reviews cleared: fourth under the EFF, third under the RSF
- Mission: led by Iva Petrova, in Pakistan from 23 September to 7 October
The Fund also concluded its 2026 Article IV consultations alongside the reviews, which means this round produced both a programme assessment and a broader health check on the economy.
A discrepancy in the cumulative total
Reported accounts put total disbursements under both arrangements at about $5.7 billion once this tranche lands. That figure does not reconcile cleanly with the programme’s own history.
The Board approved about $1.1 billion under the EFF and about $220 million under the RSF in May 2026, which was reported at the time as taking the cumulative total to roughly $4.8 billion. Adding the $1.2 billion now pending gives about $6 billion, not $5.7 billion. The gap of roughly $300 million has not been explained in the reporting, and may reflect either a revision to the earlier running total or different treatment of the SDR conversion.
Two other inconsistencies appear in coverage of the same announcement: the RSF is given as $1.4 billion in some places and $1.3 billion in others, and the EFF is described as both 37-month and 39-month. None of these changes what Pakistan receives this month, but they are worth noting before the figures are repeated as settled.
What the Fund found on the economy
Real GDP grew 4 percent across the first three quarters of FY26, but the full year is estimated at 3.6 percent. Those two figures only fit together if the fourth quarter slowed sharply — to roughly 2.4 percent, on the arithmetic — which makes the headline growth number less reassuring than it looks.
Headline inflation eased to about 10.3 percent in September, down from a peak in May but still in double digits. The current account was broadly balanced across FY26, and gross reserves stood at around $21.5 billion at the end of September — a figure the State Bank has since updated to $21.45 billion, with total liquid reserves at $26.80 billion.
Related: Petrol up Rs1.19, diesel down Rs1.91: fuel prices for 7 October
The fuel support scheme is on the list
The Fund called for the fuel support scheme to be phased out promptly, and said any future fuel support should be limited, time-bound, targeted and funded from within the FY27 budget.
That lands in an awkward week. Petrol has risen for six consecutive days under the daily pricing regime, with a further Rs2.31 increase effective Friday, and the austerity measures introduced during this year’s price shock — 9pm market closures, halved fuel allocations for official vehicles — are still running. Phasing out support while pump prices climb is politically the hardest version of this instruction.
The Fund also asked for tariff adjustments to prevent circular debt rebuilding, which is the same pressure that sits underneath the DISCO privatisation programme.
The fiscal anchor, and the spending it has to accommodate
The FY27 budget is anchored by an underlying primary surplus of 2 percent of GDP, and the Fund urged steady implementation. The State Bank, meanwhile, is to hold a tight policy stance until inflation returns to its target range — which, at 10.3 percent, it has not.
Against that, health and education spending has risen from 2.2 percent of GDP in FY24 to 2.5 percent in FY26, with a plan to reach 2.8 percent in FY27. That is a real increase in a programme usually characterised as pure austerity, and it is the commitment most likely to come under pressure if revenue disappoints.
What the RSF is doing in this package
The Resilience and Sustainability Facility is often reported as though it were simply a second tranche of the same loan. It is not. The EFF is balance-of-payments support tied to macroeconomic stabilisation; the RSF is longer-tenor financing attached to climate and resilience reforms, and it carries its own set of conditions.
At about $210 million, the RSF portion is roughly a sixth of this disbursement, and the smaller share has meant its conditions attract far less scrutiny than the fiscal targets attached to the EFF. Those conditions reach into areas — energy pricing, disaster financing, water management — where implementation is slower and harder to verify than a primary balance figure.
That is also where the two facilities meet. The instruction to adjust tariffs so circular debt does not rebuild serves the EFF’s fiscal arithmetic and the RSF’s energy-sector objectives at the same time, which is why it appears in a review covering both.
Why this review mattered more than most
Talks on the third EFF review and second RSF review failed to reach agreement in March 2026 before concluding successfully in May. A second consecutive clean review restores a rhythm the programme briefly lost.
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb held the wrap-up session with Petrova. The remaining step is the Board, which has approved every review that reached staff-level agreement in this programme — making the four-to-five-week drawdown window the more useful date to watch.
