Sri Lanka Building Approval Fee Calculator

A building approval fee in Sri Lanka is the sum of four to five line items, each set by a gazetted schedule. The calculator above walks the same schedule by hand: it picks the correct application, planning, scrutiny, and Certificate of Conformity figures based on the authority, zoning, and floor area you entered, adds an NBRO surcharge if you flagged the site as landslide-prone, and prints the running total.

1. Application fee. A flat fee that opens the file with the local authority. The UDA Schedule of Fees sets Rs 1,000 for residential single-family up to three storeys, Rs 5,000 for commercial/industrial, and Rs 50/sqm-capped for religious uses. Municipal Councils gazette their own application figures — CMC uses Rs 2,000 residential and Rs 7,500 commercial; Pradeshiya Sabha standard by-laws cap residential at Rs 500.
2. Planning approval fee. A per-square-metre charge multiplied by the approved built-up area. UDA rates: Rs 150/sqm on the first 200 sqm of a residential ≤ 3-storey build and Rs 200/sqm thereafter; Rs 250/sqm flat for residential above three storeys; Rs 350/sqm for commercial and mixed-use; Rs 500/sqm for industrial; Rs 50/sqm concessional for religious and charity buildings. Local authorities apply a gazetted multiplier — most Municipal Councils sit at 0.85–0.95× UDA; Pradeshiya Sabhas at 0.7×.
3. Scrutiny fee.A banded flat charge by floor area covering the plan-review process. Bands per UDA Planning & Building Regulations Part B: up to 100 sqm = Rs 1,500; 101–300 sqm = Rs 3,500; 301–1,000 sqm = Rs 8,000; 1,001–5,000 sqm = Rs 20,000; above 5,000 sqm = Rs 40,000 + Rs 5/sqm beyond the 5,000 sqm anchor.
4. Certificate of Conformity (CoC). Issued after site inspection confirms construction matches the approved plan. Under the UDA schedule the CoC fee is 25% of the planning fee. Some Municipal Councils — CMC notably — use a flat CoC instead: Rs 2,500 residential, Rs 7,500 commercial.
5. NBRO surcharge. If the site is in one of ten landslide-prone districts (Badulla, Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Kegalle, Ratnapura, Matale, Kalutara, Galle, Matara, Hambantota) on a slope above 11°, NBRO clearance is mandatory and adds Rs 5,000 for residential or Rs 15,000 for non-residential field inspection.

How the per-sqm rate is decided

The planning fee dominates the bill at most floor areas, so getting the per-sqm rate right matters more than the smaller flat lines. The rate is a function of three inputs: zoning, storey count, and (for residential only) the size band. Residential under three storeys is the only category that uses a two-band rate — first 200 sqm at the base figure, remainder at the higher one. Once you cross three storeys the calculator switches to the flat high-rise rate even if zoning is still residential. Commercial, mixed-use, industrial and religious uses are flat per sqm regardless of size. The authority multiplier then scales the rate; the calculator surfaces both the effective Rs/sqm and the Rs/sqm-of-total-bill in the result tiles so you can sanity-check either way.

Why the same building costs different fees in different councils

The UDA Act of 1978 lets each local authority publish its own schedule for areas outside UDA-declared zones, and they do. Colombo Municipal Council, for instance, charges twice the UDA residential application fee (Rs 2,000 vs Rs 1,000) but uses a much smaller flat CoC than the 25%-of-planning UDA default — so a small residential build is cheaper inside CMC, while a large commercial build is more expensive. Pradeshiya Sabhas are the cheapest tier in most cases: standard by-laws cap residential application at Rs 500 and apply a 0.7× multiplier on planning. The side-by-side panel in the calculator shows the same project priced against UDA-direct, CMC, and the generic Pradeshiya Sabha schedule so you can see the spread before committing.

What this calculator does not include

Five categories of cost sit outside the building-approval bill and are explicitly excluded. (1) Service connection fees — CEB or LECO for electricity, NWSDB for water and sewerage, telecom carriers for fibre — are billed separately by each utility. (2) Architect and chartered-engineer fees are private professional services, not government charges. (3) Environmental Impact Assessment and Initial Environmental Examination referrals to the Central Environmental Authority apply above gazetted thresholds (10,000 sqm built-up, certain use classes); the calculator flags the threshold but does not compute CEA fees. (4) Plan-revision fees on rejected or modified applications attract a separate schedule deferred to v2. (5) Special projects above 40 storeys, hotels above 99 rooms, and certain industrial use classes attract discretionary additional UDA fees and case-by-case structural referrals — the calculator surfaces an advisory note and quotes the indicative lower bound.

Edge cases and rounding

Three edge cases worth knowing. (1) At exactly 100 sqm the scrutiny fee falls in the lowest band (≤ 100 sqm = Rs 1,500); at 101 sqm it jumps to Rs 3,500. The calculator treats the upper bound inclusively, so a 100 sqm input lands in the cheapest band. (2) At exactly 200 sqm residential the entire planning fee uses the base rate; one extra square metre splits the bill into a base tranche and a top tranche, but only the marginal area is charged at the higher rate. (3) Above 5,000 sqm the scrutiny line becomes a flat anchor plus a per-sqm surcharge — a 6,000 sqm industrial warehouse pays Rs 40,000 + Rs 5,000 = Rs 45,000 scrutiny, not Rs 40,000.

Three reconciled scenarios. Plug each set of inputs into the calculator above and the breakdown should match line by line.

• Urban Development Authority — Planning & Building Regulations, Gazette No. 2235/54 of 22 July 2021
• Sri Lanka Government Documents — Pradeshiya Sabhas Act No. 15 of 1987 (standard by-laws)
• Colombo Municipal Council — building application and CoC schedules
• National Building Research Organisation — landslide hazard zonation and clearance procedure

Last cross-checked against the cited gazettes and council by-laws on 2026-05-16. The schedule is reviewed whenever the UDA gazettes a new Planning & Building Regulation or a Municipal Council republishes its by-laws.