Sri Lanka Customs Baggage Allowance Calculator (BIA)

Sri Lanka Customs publish a Personal Baggage Allowance schedule that keys each arriving passenger to one duty-free concession, denominated in US dollars. The calculator above looks up your concession, converts it and your declared item values to rupees at the rate you enter, and runs the standard tariff stack on the excess, exactly the build-up applied at the Red Channel at Bandaranaike International Airport.

1. Look up the duty-free concession. The gazetted schedule keys the concession off period of stay abroad alone, in US dollars, for purchases at the Duty Free Shop on arrival: Category A (under 90 days) USD 187.50, Category B (90 to 365 days) USD 625, Category C (over 365 days) USD 1,750. Minors under 18 get USD 125 under 90 days and USD 187.50 over. Trip purpose does not change the figure, so every Category C passenger, migrant worker, returning student, permanent returnee, gets the same USD 1,750. Foreign passport holders arriving as tourists are allowed USD 250 of personal effects and gifts.
2. Convert your declared items to LKR. declaredLkr = (personalEffectsUsd + electronicsUsd) × fxRate. Customs use the Central Bank of Sri Lanka middle rate on the arrival date.
3. Compute the dutiable balance. dutiable = max(0, declaredLkr − concessionUsd × fxRate). If the dutiable balance is zero, no levies apply on goods.
4. Apply the tariff stack on the dutiable balance. Order is statutory and matters, each levy compounds on the previous total:
   • CID = 15% × Dutiable
   • PAL = 10% × (Dutiable + CID)
   • CESS = 15% × Dutiable (electronics declared)
   • VAT = 18% × (Dutiable + CID + PAL + CESS)
5. Check the gold allowance. Neither official source publishes a gram limit, both say gold jewellery must be declared to the Customs Arrival No. 1 Officer, who assesses it. The calculator uses the figures in general circulation, 50 g for female and 20 g for male passengers with excess grams at roughly Rs 20,000 per gram of compounded duty. These are estimates, not gazetted figures.
6. Foreign currency declaration. Under the Foreign Exchange Act No. 12 of 2017, you must complete a Foreign Currency Declaration form at arrival if you are carrying foreign currency notes equal to or above USD 15,000. Failure to declare is treated as an exchange-control offence.
7. Restricted-items check.One mobile phone and one laptop are bundled inside the concession for personal use. Tobacco of any kind is fully dutiable. Up to 1.5 L of spirits and 2 L of wine fit inside an adult passenger's liquid allowance; Sri Lankan residents are additionally allowed 2.5 L of liquor, 2 L of wine and a quarter litre of perfumed spirits.

As an internal sanity check the calculator runs the same dutiable total through a closed-form identity, Total = D × X × (1 + VAT) − D where X = 1 + CID + PAL × (1 + CID) + CESS , and surfaces a warning if the step-by-step and compounded forms disagree. The full passenger-category and tariff tables live in a single typed module so updating a Director General's Order is a one-file change.

Two rules that bite outside a single arrival. The baggage concession is granted only once within any 365-day period, unless the Director General of Customs determines otherwise, so a second trip inside the year does not reset it. And if you do not use the allowance on arrival you may claim it against unaccompanied personal baggage (UPB) cargo instead; use it partly and you may claim the proportionate balance against UPB. Use it in full on arrival and no UPB allowance remains. The UPB column is lower than the arrival column, USD 125, 500 and 1,000 for Categories A, B and C, and this calculator models the arrival column only.

Important caveat.Sri Lanka Customs concession amounts can change by Director General's Order without much warning. Customs may also reassess your declared CIF at the wharf. Treat the headline figure here as a budgeting estimate, build a 5-10% buffer into your travel plan, and verify the live concession against customs.gov.lk before you board.

Figures are the published Duty Free Shop on arrival column of the Personal Baggage Allowance schedule, which is gazetted in US dollars, the calculator converts at the rate you enter. The UPB cargo column is lower (USD 125 / 500 / 1,000). Subject to revision by Director General's Order. Cross-checked 2026-10-02.

• Sri Lanka Customs: Travellers (passenger baggage allowance schedule)
• Airport & Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Ltd: Duty Free Allowances
• 'Passenger' Baggage (Exemption – Inward) Regulation No. 01 of 2023
• Sri Lanka Customs: official site
• Foreign Exchange Act No. 12 of 2017 (CBSL)
• Inland Revenue Department: Value Added Tax (Act No. 14 of 2002)
• Ports and Airports Development Levy Act No. 18 of 2011
• Sri Lanka Customs: National Imports Tariff Guide (HS-coded duty rates)

The USD concession amounts were cross-checked line by line against both the Sri Lanka Customs Travellers guide and the Airport & Aviation Services allowances page on 2026-10-02, and the currency threshold and tariff rates against the CBSL and IRD source documents. The gold gram limits are not published by either Customs source and remain estimates. The page is reviewed after each Budget speech and whenever a new Director General's Order is gazetted. Before depending on a number for a real arrival, verify against the live Customs page.