Sri Lanka Vehicle Ownership Transfer Fee Calculator

When a registered vehicle changes hands in Sri Lanka, the buyer settles four separate statutory line items at the Department of Motor Traffic counter. The calculator adds them up; this section explains where each one comes from so you can verify any receipt you are handed:

1. Class transfer fee. Set by the Motor Traffic Regulations and revised by gazette. The amount is keyed to the vehicle class on the CR book:
   • Motor car / Jeep: Rs 5,000
   • Motorcycle: Rs 1,500
   • Three-wheeler (tuk): Rs 3,000
   • Dual-purpose vehicle: Rs 5,000
   • Lorry / Goods vehicle: Rs 7,500
   • Bus / Coach: Rs 7,500
   • Hand tractor / Land vehicle: Rs 2,000
   Hybrids and battery-electric vehicles use the same class fee as their petrol equivalent — the schedule is body-type driven, not fuel-driven.
2. DMT service charge. A flat Rs 1,000added to every transfer regardless of class, funding the DMT's record-keeping and printing costs.
3. Stamp duty on the declared value. stampDuty = round(declaredValue × 0.01). The Stamp Duty Act No. 12 of 2006, read with each Provincial Council's stamp-duty gazette, levies 1% of the sale value on every motor-vehicle change of ownership. The duty is the buyer's liability and is routed to the buyer's Provincial Council. Under-declaring is a statutory offence — the IRD can re-assess against comparables and add a 50% penalty.
4. Late-transfer penalty. §11 of the Motor Traffic Act gives the buyer 14 days from the sale agreement to file MTA-6 / MTA-8 at the DMT. From day 15 the counter adds a penalty equal to the class fee: penalty = (daysSinceSale > 14) ? classFee : 0. The penalty stops at one multiple of the class fee, but a long delay can also trigger a separate police-fine prosecution under §31.

The calculator totals all four components and runs a parallel additive-formula cross-check — total = round(declared × 0.01) + classFee × (1 + lateFlag) + service — warning you if the two paths disagree. The day counter is computed in UTC to avoid the daylight-saving edge case that would otherwise swing the 14-day boundary on a 1-day trip.

A few things the calculator deliberately does not include: one-time registration fees on a brand-new import (those belong in the vehicle import tax calculator); the annual revenue licence (use the revenue licence calculator); private brokerage commission, which is not statutory; and the emission-test fee, which is bundled into the revenue-licence trip and is not part of the transfer paperwork.

• Department of Motor Traffic — Transfer of Ownership service page (class fees, MTA-6 / MTA-8 forms)
• Motor Traffic Act §11 — change-of-ownership obligation and the 14-day reporting window
• Inland Revenue Department — Stamp Duty (Special Provisions) Act No. 12 of 2006
• Department of Motor Traffic — official site

The class-fee schedule and stamp-duty rate on this page were last cross-checked against the DMT Transfer of Ownership service page and the Provincial Council stamp-duty gazettes on 2026-05-16. The page is reviewed every six months and after any gazette amendment. Spot a discrepancy at the counter? Email a receipt and the page is corrected within 24 hours.