Abstract Pakistan has an enormous amount of renewable and sustainable energy sources. However, it is unfortunate that the country remains unsuccessful in using these sources to deliver increasing electricity demand. Studies attribute various barriers to this failure. However, little is known about the degree to which these barriers impede renewable energy (RE) in Pakistan. Therefore, the current study presents a systematic framework to prioritize barriers according to their importance. The study is divided into three phases. Firstly, barriers were identified using literature survey. Secondly, the Modified Delphi method was used to finalize and categorize barriers in the Pakistani context. Twenty-one barriers were finalized, which were then categorized under five main barriers, including, political and regulatory, market competitiveness, institutional, technical, and social. Finally, Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchical Process (FAHP) was employed to calculate weights and rankings of barriers and sub-barriers. The results revealed that political and regulatory barrier category ranks highest among major categories, whereas, overall ranking of barriers showed that political instability sub-barrier is more important than the rest of twenty sub-barriers within different categories.