Sri Lanka Import Control License Checker by HS Code

There is no arithmetic on this page. There is a transcription and a lookup, and the honesty of both is the whole product. The Department of Imports and Exports Control publishes its entire control list as one HTML table titled “HS-Code Requiring Licensing”, 1,802 rows of HS code, heading description, item description, recommending authority and import/export direction. It has no search box, no filter and no download in a usable shape. Everything below is that table, read on Oct 2, 2026 and reproduced field for field.

Step 1, read the table as published

Every field is stored exactly as the Department prints it, including its own spellings (“aluminum” beside “aluminium”, “Waste and scrap” beside “Waste and Scrap”), its blank authority cells, and its (Suspended License) markers. The only edit is whitespace: the Department's HTML wraps long descriptions with literal newlines, and runs of whitespace collapse to one space. Nothing is averaged, inferred or tidied.

Step 2, normalise the HS code into a search key

The Department writes the same kind of code in six different shapes, so a literal string search misses most of the list. Four padding rules, each one forced by the nomenclature and by the table's own neighbouring rows, not chosen for convenience, turn every readable code into a digits-only key:

• 0104.10.10 → key 01041010. The plain dotted form, 1,203 rows.
• 102.29 → 0102.29. HS headings are always four digits, and the Department prints 0102.21 two rows above 102.29, so the missing digit is a leading zero, chapter 01, live animals, never chapter 10, cereals. 54 rows.
• 1005.1 → 1005.10. HS subheadings are two digits, so 1005.1 is Seed and 1005.9 is Other. 204 rows.
• 3307.4100 → 3307.41.00. A four-digit tail splits two and two. 2 rows.
• 12/10/8517 → 8517.12.10. The Department's own subheading/item/heading ordering. 42 rows.

25 rows satisfy none of those shapes — 9 are entirely blank and one reads 28742.90.30, a five-digit heading that cannot exist. That last one is almost certainly a typo for 2842.90.30, but “almost certainly” is not a source, so it is flagged rather than corrected: it stays searchable by description, is excluded from code matching, and is counted on the coverage panel inside the tool.

Step 3, group the rows, never merge them

Rows that normalise to the same key are one HS line, and grouping them is what makes the list usable. HS 8517.12.10, used and reconditioned cellular mobile telephones, is printed twice: the dotted row leaves the authority cell empty, while its 12/10/8517twin names the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission. Grouping recovers that authority instead of losing it. It also exposes where the list disagrees with itself, HS 0906.11.14, cinnamon featherings, appears once suspended and once not, and those lines are badged “printed both ways” rather than resolved by picking a winner. 1,793 published rows become 1,702 HS lines across 66 chapters.

Step 4, answer, without overstating

A digit query matches by key prefix in both directions, so 8517 returns the whole heading and 8517.12.10 also returns a control sitting at the broader 8517.12 level, because a licensed subheading covers its items. A query with a letter in it matches every whitespace-separated word against the heading and item descriptions. The verdict is then one of three, and the third is phrased carefully: a line with no match is reported as the Department's list does not name this line, not as “no licence is needed”, Customs, the Food Act, the Plant Protection Act and standards orders are separate regimes with their own permits. 876 rows name no recommending authority at all; those say so and point at the Department, because the tool never supplies an agency the list does not name.

Every count quoted above is recomputed from the encoded data each time this page renders and compared against the figures transcribed from the Department's table. If a row were lost, an authority cell edited or a direction flipped, one of these lines would go red instead of the page quietly looking fine.

All seven counts reconcile. The eight worked cases below are re-run the same way: all 8 reproduce their hand-computed answers.

• A. Query "cellular mobile telephones" (import): authority recovered by groupinglicence-required/2 · Telecommunication Regulatory Commission
• B. Query "worn clothing" (import): every matched line suspendedsuspended/2
• C. Query "0104.10" (import): plain licensed line, no merge, no suspensionlicence-required/2 · Department of Animal Production and Health
• D. Empty query and one-character query "8": handled, not searchedidle/0 and too-short/0
• E. Query "102.29": left-padded into chapter 01, not chapter 10licence-required/2 · keys 010229, 01022900
• F. Query "999999999999": outside the nomenclaturenot-listed/0
• G. Query of 200 characters: truncated to 80, never rejectedtruncated, 80 characters searched
• H. Query "0906.11.14": the list contradicts itself, so the line is flaggedlicence-required/1 · suspension mixed · 2 authority strings

• Duty, VAT, PAL or CESS. A licence is permission to import; duty is a separate calculation. Those rates belong to the HS code import tax finder, and for a courier package the parcel import duty calculator. Keeping one dataset in one place is why no rate is restated here.
• The licence fee in rupees. The Department states the minimum is Rs 1,000 and that the amount differs by item. The scale sits in 7 gazettes, listed in the sources below. They were not read when this list was transcribed, so the fee is cited, not quoted.
• Vehicle eligibility.The Department says the vehicle licensing policy “is changed time to time” and tells applicants to contact the Controller (Operation) before applying. The tool shows the vehicle lines and that instruction verbatim; it makes no eligibility ruling. Gazettes 2044/40 and 2143/36 are the instruments.
• Pet import conditions. The control line and the recommending authority are here; the vaccination, titre-test and quarantine timetable is in the pet import permit checker.
• A live suspension feed. Suspensions were read from the control list on Oct 2, 2026and are dated accordingly. There is no request-time scraping of the Department's site, so confirm with the Department before money moves.

The Department publishes this table in English only, so search here is English-only too.

Up to 5foreign suppliers may be named on one IECD application, and the Department says that number can vary with the recommending authority's advice. Debiting an ICL is compulsory, and the Department must be told if an item is not imported after a licence is issued. All of this is from its FAQ answers 9 to 12. Since, policy on issuance of license for vehicle is changed time to time, please contact Controller (Operation) before apply for License.

You do not need a company to need a licence. For a phone, a drone or a pet brought in for personal use, the Department names the recommending authority directly:

The 66HS chapters that carry at least one controlled line, with the Department's own heading wording as the example. The Department's table gives heading descriptions but no chapter titles, so none is invented here.

• Department of Imports and Exports Control: HS-Code Requiring Licensing (the control list itself)
• Department of Imports and Exports Control: FAQs (document checklists, fee gazettes, recommending authorities, amendments)
• Department of Imports and Exports Control: Consolidated Control List (download)
• Department of Imports and Exports Control: Gazette (Extraordinary) index
• Imports and Exports (Control) Act, No. 1 of 1969 (as amended): the statute behind these licences
• Department of Imports and Exports Control: IECD application forms
• Department of Imports and Exports Control: Recommending Authorities List
• Department of Imports and Exports Control: official site