Sri Lanka VAT rate
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 Sources still stating that Sri Lanka taxes non-resident digital services from 1 Oct 2025 are citing the superseded date.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 |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-06-01 | 12 | Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, No. 44 of 2022, section 2(3 |
| 2022-09-01 | 15 | Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, No. 44 of 2022 (certified 1 |
Get it programmatically
curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/lk/vat
# $0.001 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: policy interest rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · income tax rates