Sri Lanka Passport Office Finder: Hours and Fingerprints

This is a lookup with one piece of date arithmetic at the end. Nothing here is estimated: every branch traces to a page the Department of Immigration and Emigration publishes, and all four were fetched on 2026-10-03.

1. The age band decides the fingerprint question. The Department cites the Immigrants and Emigrants Act No. 20 of 1948, as amended by Act No. 7 of 2015: every applicant above 16 and below 60years of age must give fingerprints. Outside that band the tool says the cited provision does not reach you, not that you are barred from giving them, because the source does not say that. The same page also summarises the band as “between 16 - 60 years”, which is inclusive where the statutory wording is exclusive. The two readings only disagree at exactly 16 and exactly 60, so the input is a band rather than an exact age.
2. The route decides where fingerprints are taken.This is the split that makes the page worth building. For an in-person application the Department is explicit: “Fingerprints will be obtained only at the Head Office and Regional Offices.” For an online application it publishes a separate schedule of Divisional Secretariats that capture them, 52 entries across 25 districts. A page that blended the two would send a Ratnapura applicant on a four-hour bus to Battaramulla when Balangoda, Kuruwita and Embilipitiya would have done.
3. The submission point is a list, not a lookup. Applications may be handed in at the Head Office, at any of the 5regional offices, or at an overseas mission. No district-to-office assignment is published anywhere on the Department’s site, so none is asserted here. All 6 are shown with street address and telephone number, and 5 of them with a fax number.
4. Hours come from a table, because they vary two ways. They differ by office type and by service, not just by office. The Head Office takes one-day applications 7.00am to 1.00pm and normal applications 8.00am to 1.00pm, and runs a separate counter for online-application queries 8.00am to 12 noon. The regional offices take one-day applications from 7.30am and normal applications only after 12.30pm, up to 4.00pm. The office has been kept closed on weekends and on public holidays.
5. Delivery is counted, not guessed. Normal service is 30 working days and urgent service is same day. For normal service the tool counts 30working days forward from the day after your application date, skipping Saturdays, Sundays and every date flagged as a gazetted public holiday in this site’s shared holiday calendar. That calendar is the same dataset the public holidays page uses, so a gazette correction fixes every tool at once rather than one of them.
6. The answer is then re-derived the other way round. The projection targets a date by walking forward a fixed number of working days. The cross-check counts the working days between your application date and that projected date and asserts the answer is 30. Two different traversals have to agree before the card shows the green “cross-checked” line, so an off-by-one in either one would surface rather than ship.
7. Two source contradictions are shown, not resolved.The Department’s pages disagree on whether one-day service exists outside Battaramulla, and on how many regional offices there are. Both are shown with the conflicting sentences quoted and the Department’s hotline, because a tool that silently picked a side would be guessing with somebody’s bus fare and visa deadline.

The fingerprint schedule is transcribed exactly as printed, which means two rows are left alone on purpose. The Kurunegala row reads “DRP, North Western Province Regional Office, Kuliyapitiya East, Nikaweratiya”, and it is not clear whether “DRP” is a separate entry or the start of the office name, which is why the national count is 51 or 52rather than one number. The Matale row reads “Nawula”, where Ministry of Public Administration listings spell the Divisional Secretariat “Naula”. Both are shown as printed with a footnote, because correcting a government list from the outside is how a small transcription error becomes a wasted journey.

What this page does not do: quote passport fees beyond the two statutory processing figures (Rs 10,000 normal, Rs 20,000urgent), list authorized photo studios, or claim a nearest office. Fees belong to the passport fee calculator. The studio list is roughly a thousand private businesses that open and close constantly, so the page states the requirement and links the Department’s own district search instead of serving a copy that would go stale.

Transcribed from the Department’s General Information on Passports page. Hours vary by office type and by service, so read the row that matches both.

The office has been kept closed on weekends and on public holidays. Hotline 1962, switchboard +94 11 2101 500.

Source: Department of Immigration and Emigration, Contact Information. Any of these 6 offices will accept a passport application from any district.

The Department’s own schedule, 52 entries across 25 districts, transcribed exactly as printed. This applies to the online route only. An in-person application has its fingerprints taken at the office that receives it.

• * Kurunegala: The PDF prints this row as "DRP, North Western Province Regional Office, Kuliyapitiya East, Nikaweratiya". It is not clear whether "DRP" is a separate entry or the start of the office name, so it is shown as printed. Ring 1962 before travelling to either of the first two.
• * Matale: The PDF prints "Nawula". The Divisional Secretariat in Matale district is spelled "Naula" in Ministry of Public Administration listings. Shown as printed rather than corrected.

• Department of Immigration & Emigration: General Information on Passports (working hours, fingerprint age band, photograph rule, validity)
• Department of Immigration & Emigration: Issue of Passports (where to submit, document checklists, delivery times, processing fees)
• Department of Immigration & Emigration: Contact Information (Head Office and regional office addresses, telephone and fax)
• Department of Immigration & Emigration: The Divisional Secretariats where finger prints can be provided (PDF)
• Department of Immigration & Emigration: Authorized photo studios, searchable by district
• Department of Immigration & Emigration: Immigrants and Emigrants Act and Amendments (Act No. 20 of 1948, amended by Act No. 7 of 2015, the statutory basis for compulsory fingerprints)

All four Department pages were fetched on 2026-10-03and returned HTTP 200. The passport section carries a “Last Update” of 2026-10-02. The delivery projection reads weekends and gazetted public holidays from this site’s shared holiday calendar rather than a copy kept in this tool, so a gazette correction reaches every page at once. Addresses and counter hours change without notice: ring 1962 before a long journey.