Sri Lanka tax law changes 2026: every instrument by date

Last verified against the primary sources on 21 October 2026.

Sri Lanka tax law changes 2026 came from three Acts and a run of Gazettes and IRD circulars: the Inland Revenue (Amendment) Act No. 11 of 2026 (certified 3 June 2026), the VAT (Amendment) Act No. 14 of 2026 (certified 30 June 2026, digital services and the 20.5 percent financial services rate from 1 July 2026) and the SSCL (Amendment) Act No. 10 of 2026 (Rs 9 million registration line from 1 July 2026). The table below dates every instrument we opened, and gives the day each one took effect, which is often not the day it was made.

Every row is an instrument we opened as a primary PDF or Gazette page; where the only copy sits on a non-government host, the row says so.

Every instrument has up to three dates, and only one decides when it bites

Date of instrument is the certification date of an Act, the Gazette masthead date, or the circular letter date. Effective date is when the rule bites. Those two dates are often different. Act No. 11 of 2025 on the national minimum wage was certified on 23 July 2025 and is deemed to have come into operation on 1 April 2025 [1]. Gazette 2500/106 moved a VAT invoice format date from 1 July 2026 to 1 October 2026 [2].

Statutory means an Act or a Gazette Order / regulation made under an Act. Administrative means an IRD circular, public notice or tax calendar. Administrative instruments explain or operationalise the statute; they do not repeal it.

WinCore piece links to the Regulation Desk article that walks through that instrument.

Sri Lanka tax law changes 2026: every instrument made this year

Oldest first. The 2026 rows are the ones that most often change a filing or a payment this year.

When applying an amendment, check how the consolidated Inland Revenue Act incorporates later changes rather than reading a superseded section alone.

The 2025 and earlier instruments these pieces still rely on

Certification is not commencement, and a circular cannot move a statutory date

A common error is to treat "certified on" as the day a rate changed. Companies (Amendment) Act No. 12 of 2025 was certified on 4 August 2025 and published on 7 August 2025, yet it waited for Gazette 2480/47 before it operated on 30 March 2026 [3] [4]. The PDPA story is sharper: Gazette 2366/08 once named 18 March 2025 for Parts I, II, III and VII, and Gazette 2427/34 repealed that paragraph before the day arrived [5] [6]. Gazette 2498/16 now points those duties at 1 January 2027 for sections 2 and 3 and Parts I and III [7].

Does a circular ever move a statutory date? Not on our reading. Circular SEC/2026/E/06 (Re-Revised) can move its own attachment deadline to 30 November 2026, but it cannot rewrite Act No. 11 of 2026 [8] [9]. When the circular and the Act disagree, the Act wins. The reverse case also exists: Gazette 2481/17 was signed on 24 March 2026 but says it operates from 1 October 2025, which our SVAT piece leaves open. Our income tax services team works from the Act, then the circular.

What this means for you

1. Sort by effective date, not by the day you first saw the news item. For the recurring dates these instruments produce, see our tax compliance calendar 2026 and the guide to the SET form being abolished.
2. Tag statutory versus administrative before you tell a reader a circular "changed the law".
3. Open the primary PDF linked in the table before you rely on our one-line summary.
4. Re-check after mid-year Budgets. This table is a snapshot verified on 21 October 2026. For what the next Budget proposes, see the Budget 2027 tax proposals for companies and employers.

Checklist: documents needed

• The primary PDF of each instrument you rely on, saved with the date you downloaded it
• For each Act, the commencement section (s.1) and any table of staggered dates
• For each Gazette Order, the "with effect from" line and the Order it amends
• For each IRD circular, the circular number, its date and whether it was revised
• A note of which rows are statutory and which are administrative

Common misreadings

• "The tax calendar is the statute." It is an IRD administrative PDF. Deadlines still sit in the Acts [10].
• "SVAT ended when Act No. 4 of 2025 was certified." The Act sets 1 October 2025 for the scheme end [11].
• "BO regulations 2480/48 are still live." Regulation 11 of the 1(I) regulations rescinds them from 8 October 2026 [12].

Open points

• Instruments cited only as margin notes in consolidations, where we have not opened a separate Act PDF (for example some pre-2012 EPF amending Acts beyond Act No. 2 of 2012), stay out of this table. Two older rows (ETF Act No. 18 of 1993 and the 2016 minimum wage Act) show the year only, because the copies we opened do not give us a day we have checked.
• Gazettes that appear on documents.gov.lk after 15 October 2026 are not listed here.
• Gazette 2496/03: Parliament's approval under section 527(3) of the Companies Act was not on record on 21 October 2026. On our reading the fees apply from publication until any disapproval.
• Gazette 2463/05: its own start date is not stated here; we checked only its rescission by 2481/22.
• Whether Act No. 12 of 2012 exists as a separate EPF amending Act (mentioned in secondary reports) remains open in our EPF piece; it is not listed here.

FAQ

What were the main Sri Lanka tax law changes in 2026?

Three Acts carry most of them. The Inland Revenue (Amendment) Act No. 11 of 2026 (certified 3 June 2026) changed instalments, TIN rules and penalties. The VAT (Amendment) Act No. 14 of 2026 brought VAT on non-resident digital services and a 20.5 percent financial services rate from 1 July 2026. SSCL Act No. 10 of 2026 lowered the registration line to Rs 9 million a quarter.

Is every Sri Lanka Gazette for 2026 in this table?

No. The table lists only the instruments we opened as primary sources while writing our Regulation Desk series. A Gazette we did not need for a piece, or one published after 15 October 2026, is not here. Check documents.gov.lk for the full list of Extraordinary Gazettes, and open the PDF before relying on any row. For the method behind these checks, see how we verify Sri Lanka tax rules.

Why do the certification date and the effective date differ?

Because an Act or Order can set its own start date. The minimum wage Act No. 11 of 2025 was certified on 23 July 2025 but is deemed to operate from 1 April 2025, and the Companies (Amendment) Act No. 12 of 2025 waited for Gazette 2480/47 to operate on 30 March 2026. Always read the commencement section.

Can an IRD circular change the law?

No, on our reading. Circulars and public notices are tagged administrative even when they quote an Act: they explain how the IRD runs the law and can be revised, as Circular SEC/2026/E/06 was twice in 2026. Where a circular and the Act disagree, the Act governs, so check the section the circular relies on.

Talk to us. If you need a filing calendar built from these instruments for your entity, book a consultation at our contact page.

WinCore Pvt Ltd

This article is general information on the law as at 21 October 2026 and is not advice on your specific transaction.

References

1. Parliament of Sri Lanka. National Minimum Wage of Workers (Amendment) Act, No. 11 of 2025, s.1(2) (deemed operation 1 April 2025); certified 23 July 2025. https://www.parliament.lk/uploads/acts/gbills/english/6388.pdf . Primary. Accessed 15 October 2026.
2. Government of Sri Lanka. Gazette Extraordinary No. 2500/106 (6 August 2026), amending the effective date in Gazette 2481/22 from 1 July 2026 to 1 October 2026. https://www.ird.gov.lk/en/publications/Gazette_Documents/2026_2500_106_E.pdf . Primary. Accessed 15 October 2026.
3. Parliament of Sri Lanka. Companies (Amendment) Act, No. 12 of 2025, certified 4 August 2025, published 7 August 2025, s.1(2). https://www.parliament.lk/uploads/acts/gbills/english/6389.pdf . Primary. Accessed 15 October 2026.
4. Government of Sri Lanka. Gazette Extraordinary No. 2480/47 (21 March 2026), appointing 30 March 2026 for Act No. 12 of 2025. https://documents.gov.lk/api/content-file-proxy?file=/extra-gazette-content/2480-47_E_1784568049.pdf . Primary. Accessed 15 October 2026.
5. Government of Sri Lanka. Gazette Extraordinary No. 2366/08 (8 January 2024), paragraph (b) naming 18 March 2025. https://documents.gov.lk/api/content-file-proxy?file=/extra-gazette-content/2366-08_E_1784565618.pdf . Primary. Accessed 15 October 2026.
6. Government of Sri Lanka. Gazette Extraordinary No. 2427/34 (14 March 2025), repealing paragraph (b) of the Order in Gazette 2366/08. https://documents.gov.lk/api/content-file-proxy?file=/extra-gazette-content/2427-34_E_1784566846.pdf . Primary. Accessed 15 October 2026.
7. Government of Sri Lanka. Gazette Extraordinary No. 2498/16 (22 July 2026), appointing 1 January 2027 for PDPA s.2, s.3, Part I and Part III. https://documents.gov.lk/api/content-file-proxy?file=/extra-gazette-content/2498-16_E_1785745588.pdf . Primary. Accessed 15 October 2026.
8. Inland Revenue Department. Circular SEC/2026/E/06 (Re-Revised), 12 August 2026, submission deadline 30 November 2026. https://www.ird.gov.lk/en/publications/Circulars_Circulars/SEC_2026_E_06_ReRiv_E.pdf . Primary. Accessed 15 October 2026.
9. Parliament of Sri Lanka / IRD. Inland Revenue (Amendment) Act, No. 11 of 2026, certified 3 June 2026, s.1(2) and s.1(3) table. https://www.ird.gov.lk/en/publications/Acts_Income%20Tax_2017/IR_Act_No_11-2026_E.pdf . Primary. Accessed 15 October 2026.
10. Inland Revenue Department. Tax Calendar 2026 (PDF creation date 9 January 2026). https://www.ird.gov.lk/en/publications/Tax%20Calendar_Documents/Tax_Calendar_2026_E.pdf . Primary (administrative). Accessed 15 October 2026.
11. Parliament of Sri Lanka / IRD. Value Added Tax (Amendment) Act, No. 4 of 2025, certified 11 April 2025; SVAT end 1 October 2025. https://www.ird.gov.lk/en/publications/Value%20Added%20Tax_Acts/VAT_Act_No_04-2025_E.pdf . Primary. Accessed 15 October 2026.
12. Department of the Registrar of Companies. Companies (Beneficial Ownership) Regulations, No. 1(I) of 2026 (Gazette 2509/67 on Registrar copy), regulation 1 and regulation 11. https://drc.gov.lk/en/?p=5001 . Primary. Accessed 15 October 2026.