Sri Lanka Land Registration Fee Calculator

The calculator follows the Registrar General's Department (RGD) published "Fees Payable" schedule for Land Registration under the Registration of Documents Ordinance (Chapter 117). Every deed registered at any of the 54 Land Registries pays a flat instrument fee plus a Registrar General fee, then a small set of optional line items: a pre-registration search, additional certified copies, additional folio extracts, and (for partitions or new lots) a title plan filing fee. Stamp duty is computed and shown separately because it is paid to the Provincial Council, not the RGD, and it dwarfs every RGD line.

The five RGD line items

1. Instrument fee. Rs 100 for every registered instrument, per the Registration of Documents Ordinance schedule of fees.
2. Registrar General fee. Rs 1,000 per instrument, added on top of the schedule fee.
3. Search fee. Rs 500 when you want the registry to look up the duplicate of deed or the land register before registration — Form A 33 A (land register) or A 33 B (duplicate of deed).
4. Certified copies. Rs 600 per certified copy of the registered deed. Most buyers take at least one copy at the counter on registration day.
5. Folio extracts. Rs 120 per extract from a specific folio of the land register volume — used in due diligence, rarely needed for a routine transaction.

Special-instrument fees

Three instruments bypass the standard structure and have their own gazetted fees. Lodging a caveat against one parcel for up to two years costs Rs 2,500 and stops the registry from registering any further deed affecting that parcel until the caveat is resolved. Cancellation of a registered Power of Attorney costs Rs 1,750. A partition deeduses the standard instrument fee but always requires a title plan filed with the registry; the RGD's plan-filing component is approximately Rs 5,000 (the precise figure varies by survey area), and the Licensed Surveyor who draws the plan charges a separate professional fee that is negotiated privately.

Stamp duty — the much larger separate payment

The RGD line is the cheap part. The big payment is stamp duty, charged on the deed itself under the Provincial Council Statutes that took over this revenue head after the 13th Amendment devolved property-transfer stamp duty to the provinces. The headline rate for a deed of transfer or gift is 3% on the first Rs 100,000 of the deed value and 4% on the balance, paid to the relevant Provincial Council via a nominated collecting bank (typically Bank of Ceylon or People's Bank) before the deed will be accepted for registration. A mortgage bond attracts a much smaller 0.1% (Rs 1 per Rs 1,000 of the secured amount). Lease stamp duty was revised in April 2025 and depends on premium + total rent — the dedicated stamp duty calculator handles the long tail. The calculator on this page shows the headline transfer / gift / mortgage estimates as a cross-reference, so the grand-total figure on the result panel is realistic rather than just the RGD slice.

The two registration systems

Sri Lanka runs two parallel registration regimes side by side. The deed system, governed by the Registration of Documents Ordinance, is what the overwhelming majority of land sits under and is what this calculator covers. The Title Registration Act (Bim Saviya) is the newer title-certificate system, currently rolled out in selected divisional secretariats; its fees are published as a separate table on the RGD site and follow a flat instrument-by-instrument schedule (Rs 1,000 normal, with expedited tiers) plus title certificate copy fees. If your parcel has been migrated to Bim Saviya you'll know because you hold a Title Certificate (not a chain of deeds); the calculator on this page won't apply.

Cross-checking and verification

The data module lib/data/sri-lanka-land-registration-fee-calculator.ts carries each rupee constant with a source citation and a LAST_VERIFIED stamp (2026-05-16). A separate calculateLandRegistrationFeeByClosedFormula helper reproduces the RGD subtotal in closed form and is compared against the line-item walk on every keystroke — the verified badge in the calculator card flips off if the two methods drift, which would only happen if a maintainer changed one path and forgot the other. The constants are reconciled against the RGD's published page plus the Registration of Documents Ordinance schedule; when a new Treasury Circular or Extraordinary Gazette moves a figure the page is refreshed within 24 hours and the LAST_VERIFIED constant advances.

What the calculator does not include

Statutory RGD fees only. The bill excludes the notary's attestation fee (privately negotiated, typically 1–2% of the deed value), the Licensed Surveyor's fee for a partition or new title plan (Rs 15,000–60,000 depending on complexity), lawyer or conveyancing fees, government valuation fees if a separate assessment is needed, photocopy and stamp charges levied by agents around the registry, and travel. Foreign-buyer surcharges under the Finance Act for non-resident purchasers are flagged at the registry but not modelled here. The dedicated capital gains tax calculator handles seller-side liabilities, and the vehicle ownership transfer fee calculator is the closest analogue for vehicle conveyancing.

Three scenarios that map to the most common ways Sri Lankans interact with the Land Registry fee schedule. Try each set of inputs in the calculator above — the line-by-line breakdown should match the rupee numbers below exactly.

• Registrar General's Department — Land Registration Services
• RGD — Title Registration (Bim Saviya) Charges
• LawNet — Registration of Documents Ordinance (Chapter 117)
• Department of Government Printing — Gazette Extraordinary archive
• Online LAND portal — live RGD transaction layer

The fees on this page were last reconciled against the RGD schedule on 2026-05-16. The page is reviewed when a new Gazette Extraordinary moves a figure or when the underlying Ordinance is amended.