Sri Lanka Withholding tax rates
Sri Lanka Withholding tax rates: no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.
The withholding taxes Sri Lanka levies on payments to non-residents under the Inland Revenue Act No. 24 of 2017 as amended, most recently by the Inland Revenue (Amendment) Act No. 2 of 2025 (certified 20 March 2025) which reinstated dividend withholding at 15% and raised interest withholding to 10% from 1 April 2025 - dividends, interest, royalties and service fees, each at its domestic statutory rate before any tax-treaty relief. Administered by the Inland Revenue Department (IRD).
Compare withholding tax rates across all 28 Asian countries →
| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2025-04-01 |
| Official source | Inland Revenue Act No. 24 of 2017 as amended by the Inland Revenue (Amendment) Act No. 2 of 2025; IRD notice PN/IT/2025-01 (26.03.2025) and circulars SEC/2025/E/02 and SEC/2025/E/03 (rates from 1 April 2025): dividends 15%, interest or discount 10% (raised from 5%), royalties 14%, payments to non-residents (service fees, rent, insurance) 14% |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | secondary — Corroborated, but the primary instrument was NOT read (usually the publishing host blocks automated access). The IRD's own notice PDFs (PN/IT/2025-01, SEC/2025/E/02) could not be text-extracted during this pass, so the operative words are not quoted verbatim; rates and the 1 April 2025 effective date are corroborated across two independent practitioner summaries that cite those instruments and the Inland Revenue (Amendment) Act No. 2 of 2025 by name. Treat as secondary until the IRD notice text is quoted directly. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
THERE IS NO SINGLE WITHHOLDING TAX RATE, WHICH IS WHY value IS NULL. Sri Lanka applies 15% to dividends, 10% to interest, and 14% to royalties and to service fees paid to non-residents; a caller wanting a number must name which payment type and read withholding_rates rather than expecting a headline figure. ALL RATES ARE DOMESTIC STATUTORY RATES, BEFORE TREATY RELIEF. A double-tax agreement can reduce them, and treaty relief requires a tax residence certificate; outward remittances to non-residents additionally require a Tax Clearance Certificate from the Commissioner General of Inland Revenue except for negative-list remittances. We do NOT serve treaty rates: they are bilateral, run to thousands of country pairs, and applying one is a legal determination rather than a lookup. HISTORY MATTERS HERE: withholding tax on many payments was abolished from 1 January 2020, partially reinstated from 1 January 2023 (dividends 15% then briefly removed for resident recipients, interest 5%, service fees 14% via the No. 45 of 2022 amendments), and reset again by the Inland Revenue (Amendment) Act No. 2 of 2025 - dividends 15% reinstated as a final tax and interest raised from 5% to 10%, both from 1 April 2025. Sources dated before April 2025 will quote 5% interest; they are stale, not conflicting.
Get it programmatically
curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/lk/withholding-tax
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://asiaref.dev/v1/lk/withholding-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://asiaref.dev/provenance/lk/withholding-taxOther Sri Lanka series: Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) · VAT standard rate · VAT registration threshold · National minimum wage · Public holidays · CCPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax standard rate · 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