The open nature of the Internet facilitates the exchange of information, allows for global commerce, and enables access to remote job opportunities. Freely accessing the Internet promotes economic and social value for a nation. However, many governments interfere with this access by reducing user’s bandwidth, blocking applications or websites, or shutting down Internet services entirely. Pakistan, in particular, is a leading offender of such intentional disruptions, with recent shutdowns costing its economy between $892 million and $1.6 billion.

While the Pakistani government may cite reasons such as protecting the nation from political unrest to justify Internet shutdowns, these actions also inflict significant harm to the country’s economy. Estimates show that both partial and complete shutdowns have substantial economic. To mitigate these impacts, Pakistani policymakers should explore alternative solutions to address political and security concerns without compromising the openness of the Internet.

The Pakistani government has a history of restricting the public’s Internet access to address political and security concerns. Citing the Internet as a source of political unrest, authorities previously reduced mobile bandwidth speeds on days when opposition leader Imran Khan’s party staged protests. More recently, the public has experienced widespread reductions in Internet speeds. While the cause of this slowdown remains unclear, the government has previously conducted Internet firewall tests that have similarly reduced speeds. Beyond slowing Internet access, authorities have also restricted certain applications and websites. For instance, millions of Pakistanis were unable to send or receive messages on WhatsApp earlier this year, while the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has been completely inaccessible since the government imposed a ban in February.

As a result, the Pakistani economy has likely incurred significant losses, with many Internet-dependent economic activities suddenly halted or disrupted. According to the Netblocks Cost of Shutdown Tool (COST), a complete Internet shutdown in Pakistan results in an estimated daily loss of $53.2 million. Partial shutdowns, where services like Facebook are restricted, throttled, or unavailable are estimated to cost $4.2 million daily. These figures are based on a methodology developed by the Brookings Institution to estimate the GDP impact of nationwide Internet shutdowns.

Using the COST calculator, a report by Top10VPN concluded that Pakistan experienced the highest economic losses globally from Internet shutdowns in 2024. The country lost $1.62 billion due to 9,735 hours of partial or complete Internet shutdowns, affecting between 258,408 and 111 million Internet users. Sixteen percent of these losses resulted from 14 Internet blackouts, while 84 percent stemmed from four incidents of social media shutdowns, particularly the ban of the social media platform X.

The Internet Society’s Netloss Calculator also highlights the significant economic losses Pakistan faces from Internet shutdowns, though its estimates are lower than those of the COST tool. This difference is partly due to its econometric model, which considers variables such as inflation and the share of the labor force with basic education that may influence GDP. According to the Netloss Calculator, a complete Internet blackout would cost Pakistan an estimated $19.1 million per day, while blocking a specific application or site, such as social media platforms, results in an average daily loss of $2.6 million. The calculator also estimates job losses from Internet shutdowns, with a full shutdown reducing employment by an average of 1,220 jobs per day, and blocking an application leading to 5.3 jobs lost daily. Based on these estimates, the ban of X, which began on February 18, 2024 cost the Pakistani economy approximately $405 million last year.

Using TOP10VPN’s data on Pakistan’s 9,735 hours of Internet shutdowns, ITIF estimated the total costs of partial and complete Internet shutdowns using the Netloss Calculator (see appendix for methodology). Our analysis indicates that Pakistan’s 84 days of Internet blackouts in 2024 cost the nation approximately $71 million, while its 322 days of social media blackouts resulted in an estimated loss of about $821 million, bringing the total to $892 million. Although these figures are lower than the COST tool’s estimates, both analyses suggest that Internet shutdowns in 2024 likely cost Pakistan between $892 million and $1.6 billion.

Pakistani policymakers should avoid partial and complete Internet shutdowns as a means of addressing political and security concerns. The nation’s economy relies heavily on the public’s ability to access the Internet and its services without major restrictions. Pakistanis frequently use the Internet for economic activities, such as providing ride-hailing services and offering freelance IT and software support. Disrupting Internet access inevitably reduces these activities, thereby diminishing economic output. As an ITIF report highlights, “Policymakers will quickly learn that in most cases an increase in Internet openness simultaneously increases the economic and social benefits of the Internet, while closedness decreases both.”

Appendix

ITIF estimated the total cost of partial and complete Internet shutdowns in Pakistan using the Netloss Calculator and the Internet Shutdown 2024 Data Sheet from Top10VPN. The Data Sheet included the hourly duration of each Internet shutdown that occurred in 2024, which was converted into days by dividing the figures by 24. These figures were then multiplied by the Netloss Calculator’s daily cost of Internet shutdowns in Pakistan to calculate the total cost of each shutdown, assuming all Internet users in Pakistan were affected.

In some cases, complete Internet shutdowns only occurred in one area of Pakistan. To account for this, we used the national shutdown with the highest number of internet users (111,000,000) as the baseline total for users in Pakistan in 2024. The users of all other complete Internet shutdowns were divided by this baseline number to obtain the share of users affected. The share was then multiplied by the cost of each complete shutdown if all Internet users in Pakistan were affected to obtain the actual cost of each complete shutdown.

Partial Internet shutdowns, or social media shutdowns, occurred for the entire nation. Therefore, we did not have to obtain the share of users affected by each partial shutdown.