Sri Lanka Driving Licence Fee Calculator (DMT)

The calculator implements the Department of Motor Traffic (DMT) published fee schedule under the Motor Traffic Act No. 14 of 1951 (as amended), and adds the National Transport Medical Institute (NTMI) medical-fitness-test fee where required. Every rupee figure is held as a named constant in the underlying data module with a source URL and a LAST_VERIFIED date, so the page is straightforward to re-validate against the live DMT schedule.

Six steps build the total:

1. Base licence-issue fee. The flat DMT fee for the chosen service — new issue (Rs 1,300), renewal (Rs 1,300), duplicate (Rs 800), add-a-class (Rs 1,300), foreign-licence conversion (Rs 4,500), or learner permit (Rs 500).
2. Per-class practical trial fee. When the service requires a trial, DMT charges Rs 1,000 per light class (A1, A, B1, B, G1, G, J) and Rs 1,400 per heavy class (C1, C, CE, D1, D). The trial is conducted on the vehicle type for the class being tested.
3. Additional-class incremental fee. Only for new-issue and add-a-class services. For each class beyond the first selected in the same application, DMT adds Rs 700 on top of the base issue fee.
4. NTMI medical certificate. Standard test — Rs 750 for light-only applicants. Extended test — Rs 1,200 if any heavy class is included. The certificate is valid for 6 months and must be obtained before the DMT practical trial.
5. Postal sub-station handling. If you collect the card at a district DMT sub-station outside Werahera, DMT adds Rs 200 per application.
6. Cross-check.The page recomputes the total by an independent ‘sum-of-constants’ formula and compares it to the line-by-line sum. The header badge flips to ‘Recompute mismatch’ if they ever disagree — a guardrail for future fee edits.

The total is then split into three payment buckets — what to pay at the DMT counter, what to pay at NTMI, and what to pay at the Bank of Ceylon or People's Bank counter — so the trip itself can be planned accurately. The district selector is informational; the licence fee is uniform nationwide. For the vehicle's annual revenue licence (the tax on the vehicle, not the driver), use the Sri Lanka Vehicle Revenue Licence Calculator instead — they are distinct fees often confused with each other.

How the light-versus-heavy split changes the maths

The single biggest lever on the total is whether any chosen class sits in the heavy bucket. DMT groups A1, A, B1, B, G1, G and J as light classes and C1, C, CE, D1 and D as heavy classes. Two rules key off that split. First, the practical trial fee rises from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,400 per heavy class, because the test is conducted on a heavy vehicle. Second, the NTMI medical escalates from the standard Rs 750 certificate to the extended Rs 1,200 certificate the moment a single heavy class enters the application. The calculator applies the extended medical once for the whole application — it does not double-count if you pick two heavy classes — which mirrors how NTMI issues one certificate per visit.

What the fee does — and does not — cover

The figure this page produces is the government and medical cost of obtaining or amending the licence document itself. It deliberately excludes a few real-world costs that vary too much to quote as a fixed line. Driving-school lessons are not a DMT fee and are not included — those are negotiated privately and differ by city and class. The written (theory) test is sat before the practical trial; where a service requires it, the learner permit line of Rs 500 stands in for that pre-trial stage. Penalties for driving on an expired licence are also outside this calculator — if you have already been fined, the Sri Lanka Traffic Fine Calculator covers the spot-fine schedule separately. Likewise, the licence fee is not the same as the cost of insuring the vehicle you intend to drive; estimate that with the Sri Lanka Motor Insurance Premium Calculator.

Three structural points keep the receipt honest. The base issue fee is charged once per application no matter how many classes you bundle — bundling classes in one visit is cheaper than returning for each separately, because you pay the incremental Rs 700 rather than a fresh base fee each time. The duplicate service never carries a trial or an additional-class fee, since you are replacing a card you already earned. And the foreign-conversion base fee of Rs 4,500 replaces the new-issue fee rather than stacking on top of it — a common double-counting mistake when expats budget for the switch. Once you hold the licence, the recurring cost of running the vehicle shifts to fuel and revenue licence; the Sri Lanka Fuel Cost Calculator is the natural next step for that ongoing budget.

The next example is the edge case most people get wrong: a heavy-vehicle add-on. The trial fee jumps to the heavy rate, the NTMI test switches to the extended (heavy) certificate, and because only one class is being added there is no incremental additional-class fee — so the total is driven by the higher trial and medical lines, not by the count of classes.

Compare this with the second example: both add a single class to an existing Class B licence, but swapping a light class (Class A) for a heavy class (Class D) raises the trial by Rs 400 and the medical by Rs 450. That single light-versus-heavy choice moves the bill more than adding a second light class would.

• Department of Motor Traffic — Services & Fees schedule
• Department of Motor Traffic — Driving Licence Classes (A, B, C, D, G, J)
• National Transport Medical Institute — medical-fitness fee schedule
• Department of Motor Traffic of Sri Lanka — official site

Fees on this page were last cross-checked against the DMT and NTMI published schedules on 2026-05-16. The legal basis is the Motor Traffic Act No. 14 of 1951 and the regulations gazetted under it; DMT revises its fee schedule by gazette extraordinary from time to time and this page is updated when a revision is published.