Sri Lanka VAT standard rate
Sri Lanka VAT standard rate is 18 percent, in force since 1 Jan 2024, cited to Value Added Tax. It was 15 percent before that. Last checked against the official source on 24 Jul 2026.
Official source: Value Added Tax · Last checked 2026-07-24 · source fingerprint
Standard rate of Value Added Tax charged under section 2(1) of the Value Added Tax Act, No. 14 of 2002, administered by the Department of Inland Revenue.
| Current value | 18 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2024-01-01 |
| Official source | Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, No. 16 of 2024 (certified 20 March 2024; Gazette supplement of 22 March 2024), section 2(3) inserting item (ix) into section 2(1)(v) of the Value Added Tax Act, No. 14 of 2002: 'for any taxable period commencing on or after January 1, 2024 at the rate of eighteen per centum (of which the tax fraction is 9/59)' |
| Last verified | 2026-07-24 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
18% (tax fraction 9/59) on taxable periods commencing on or after 1 Jan 2024, up from 15%. SOURCING TRAP: the rate change is NOT in the Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, No. 32 of 2023 — that Act, certified 13 Dec 2023, only rewrote the exemption Schedule (inserting a new Part III of the First Schedule effective 1 Jan 2024, which removed many exemptions). The rate itself was legislated retrospectively by Act No. 16 of 2024 in March 2024. The same Act also raised the registration threshold from 1 Jan 2024 to LKR 15 million per taxable period or LKR 60 million per 12 months (previously LKR 20 million / LKR 80 million). DIGITAL SERVICES: VAT on services supplied by a NON-RESIDENT person through an electronic platform to a person in Sri Lanka was created as a new charging head, section 2(1)(c), by the Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, No. 4 of 2025 (certified 11 Apr 2025) 'with effect from October 1, 2025' — but that start date was POSTPONED to 1 July 2026 by section 2 of the Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, No. 14 of 2026 (certified 30 June 2026), which also inserted a new Chapter IIIC (sections 25L-25N) setting up registration of non-resident digital service providers (thresholds LKR 60m per rolling 12 months or LKR 15m per quarter, from 1 July 2026), a Sri Lanka-location test (billing address, Sri Lankan bank/payment instrument, or Sri Lankan IP), and a carve-out where the recipient is itself VAT-registered. Sources still stating that Sri Lanka taxes non-resident digital services from 1 Oct 2025 are citing the superseded date. Digital services are charged at the standard 18%. SEPARATE TAX, DO NOT CONFUSE: VAT on Financial Services (Chapter IIIA, section 25C) is a distinct levy on specified institutions — it was 18% for periods up to 30 June 2026 and rises to 20.5% for periods commencing on or after 1 July 2026 (Act No. 14 of 2026, section 7). ACCESS PROBLEM: the Department of Inland Revenue site (ird.gov.lk and www.ird.gov.lk) returned HTTP 503 and, in a browser, a 'System Maintenance' page for the whole domain at confirmation — every ird.gov.lk path was unreachable. Rates were therefore verified against the certified Act texts published by the Department of Government Printing at documents.gov.lk, which is the official gazette publisher. Re-verify on ird.gov.lk when it returns.
Earlier values
| From | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-09-01 | 15 | Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, No. 44 of 2022 (certified… |
| 2022-06-01 | 12 | Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, No. 44 of 2022, section… |
Get it programmatically
curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/lk/vat
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/lk/vat/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://asiaref.dev/provenance/lk/vatOther Sri Lanka series: Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) · VAT registration threshold · National minimum wage · Public holidays · CCPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax standard rate · Withholding tax rates · Legal interest rate (Civil Procedure Code s. 192) · Personal income tax bands · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Taiwan · Thailand · Türkiye · United Arab Emirates · Uzbekistan · all 28