Abstract A long-term energy crisis has resulted in increased combustion of biomass fuel in industrial and household sectors in Pakistan. We report results of a study on the emission characteristics of rice husk, rice straw, corncobs and bagasse since they are frequently used as biomass fuel and differed remarkably in physico-chemical and combustion characteristics. Emission concentrations and emission factors were determined experimentally by burning the biomass fuel using a burning tower. Modified combustion efficiency (MCE) of rice husk, rice straw, corncobs and bagasse was >0.97 indicating that combustion was dominated by flaming mode. Emission factors of gaseous pollutants CO, CO 2 , NO 2 , NO, NO x and SO 2 for rice straw were calculated to be 17.19 ± 0.28, 1090.07 ± 24.0, 0.89 ± 0.03, 1.48 ± 0.04, 3.16 ± 0.08 and 0.38 ± 0.03 g kg −1 respectively which were significantly ( p −1 ), corncobs (8.63 ± 0.12, 595.44 ± 10.38, 0.16 ± 0.01, 0.70 ± 0.01, 1.23 ± 0.02 and 0.02 ± 0.00 g kg −1 ) and bagasse (12.39 ± 0.08, 937.03 ± 9.07, 0.36 ± 0.03, 1.44 ± 0.02, 2.57 ± 0.04 and 0.18 ± 0.02 g kg −1 ). Total emissions of CO, CO 2 , NO 2 , NO, NO x and SO 2 were estimated to be 3.68, 230.51, 0.05, 0.36, 0.60 and 0.03 Gg for rice husk, 33.75, 2140.35, 1.75, 2.91, 6.20 and 0.75 Gg for rice straw, 1.11, 76.28, 0.02, 0.02 and 0.03 Gg for corncobs and 42.12, 3185.53, 1.22, 4.90, 8.74 and 0.61 Gg for bagasse respectively. Rice straw, however, had significantly ( p