Sri Lanka RTI Fee & Deadline Calculator

Two things decide whether an RTI request succeeds, and neither is written down in one place: the date the office is actually in default, and the figure it may lawfully charge. This page computes both from the statute and the gazette.

The clocks. Section 25(1) gives the information officer 14 workingdays from receipt to decide. The Act does not define “working day”, so this tool reads it as a Monday-to-Friday that is not a gazetted Public Holiday — and counts from the day after the request landed, not the day itself. The holiday dates come from this site's single gazetted-holiday dataset, the same one behind the public holidays calendar and the working days calculator, so the three can never give different answers. Section 25(2) then adds 14 calendar days to supply the information; section 25(5) allows an extension of no more than 21 days, on two grounds only, and section 25(6) makes the authority notify that extension within fourteen days. Where a request concerns life or personal liberty, section 25(3) replaces all of that with 48 clock hours.

The appeals. Section 31(1) gives you 14 days to appeal to the designated officer — measured from the refusal, from the act complained of, or from the day you became aware of the ground. Where the authority simply went silent there is no letter to date, so the tool runs that clock from the section 25(1) deadline and labels the row as an assumption rather than hiding it. The designated officer owes a receipt within 3 working days (s.31(2)) and a decision within three weeks, 21 days (s.31(3)). Section 32(1) then allows 2 months to reach the Commission, which has 30 days to decide; section 34(1) allows one month to the Court of Appeal. Calendar months are added by month, clamped to the end of the target month, so 31 December plus two months is 28 February.

The money. Rule 3 of the Right to Information Rules of 2017 charges nothing for the form or for processing. Rule 4 then prices copying, storage media and inspection, and Rule 6(1) supplies the first 4 A4 pages free. One line of that schedule — Legal to A3 photocopying — was repealed and replaced by Gazette 2006/43 a fortnight after the original, so this tool reads that figure from the amending gazette. Every rate carries its rule number on screen.

Checked twice. The 14-working-day date is produced by walking forward to the fourteenth qualifying day, then verified by separately tallying every working day in the resulting span — a different loop that must return 14. The copying charge is priced per sheet at the gazetted sheet rate, then again per side at half the double-sided rate. Those two agree because every “both sides” figure in Rule 4 is exactly twice its “one side” figure — which is itself worth knowing: back-to-back copying saves the office paper, never you money.

What it will not do: file the request, name your information officer, or predict whether the section 5 exemptions will be used against you.

Rule 4 of the Right to Information Rules of 2017, as amended by Gazette Extraordinary No. 2006/43 of 17 February 2017. Rates are per sheet. Re-read from the gazettes on 2026-09-26.

The first 4 A4 pages are free under Rule 6(1), and anything the authority ordinarily supplies free of charge stays free under Rule 6(2). A Rs 2 A4 photocopy is the single rate most people need; the rest of the table is here so a quoted figure can be checked against its own rule.

• Right to Information Act, No. 12 of 2016 — ss.15(g), 25, 26, 31, 32 and 34 (Parliament of Sri Lanka)
• Gazette Extraordinary No. 2004/66 of 03.02.2017 — Right to Information Rules of 2017: Rules 3 to 7 and 13, and the RTI 01–RTI 12 forms
• Gazette Extraordinary No. 2006/43 of 17.02.2017 — amendment replacing Rule 4(ii)(b) and substituting the appeal forms
• Right to Information Commission of Sri Lanka — Rules on Fees and Appeals, the current forms, and the Commission's decisions

Every period and every rate on this page was re-read from the Act and the two gazettes on 2026-09-26. The Commission's own Rules page carries a notice that the Rules are being amended, which is why this tool is scheduled for a re-check by 2026-12-26 rather than once a year. Public-holiday dates are held for 2026–2027and come from this site's single gazetted-holiday dataset, so this tool and the holidays calendar cannot disagree.

This is a calculator, not legal advice. It states the statutory periods and the gazetted fee; whether a particular record is exempt under section 5, and what an authority will actually do, are separate questions. If your request concerns a school admission, the Grade 1 admission marks calculator shows what the marking sheet you are asking for should contain.