Sri Lanka’s official reserve assets rose to US$6.9 billion at the end of August 2026, a 4.6% increase on the US$6.6 billion held in July and the highest level in five months, according to Central Bank of Sri Lanka figures reported by the Daily FT and Hiru News.

It is the third-highest reserves position recorded this year.

Where the increase came from

Foreign currency reserves grew 5% to US$6.69 billion, while gold holdings rose 9.4% to US$210 million.

The Central Bank stepped up its purchases from the domestic foreign exchange market to rebuild the position, buying a record US$579 million in August alone. That takes net purchases for the first eight months of 2026 above US$1.48 billion.

Those purchases sit alongside a strong month for inflows. Migrant worker remittances reached US$748.6 million in August, taking the eight-month total to US$6.131 billion — although the year-on-year growth rate has been easing steadily through the year.

The drain ahead

The headline figure comes with a significant qualifier. The Central Bank reports that the short-term drain on reserves over the next 12 months amounts to nearly US$6 billion, with principal and interest payments on foreign currency obligations accounting for US$2.2 billion of that.

Measured against scheduled outflows, in other words, a US$6.9 billion stock is not a large buffer.

The Central Bank Governor has separately argued that reserve building “cannot come at any cost” and requires fiscal support — a point that lands differently this week, with the budget having swung back into deficit in July.

The two accounts agree on every figure

Hiru News and the Daily FT filed the release separately, and their numbers reconcile line for line: the US$6.9 billion headline, the 4.6% rise from US$6.6 billion in July, the five-month high and third-highest position of the year, foreign currency reserves up 5% to US$6.69 billion, gold up 9.4% to US$210 million, the record US$579 million of August purchases, net purchases above US$1.48 billion for the eight months, and the near-US$6 billion 12-month drain of which US$2.2 billion is principal and interest. There is no discrepancy between them to resolve.

Not reported

Neither outlet states the reserves figure in months of import cover, the benchmark most commonly used to judge adequacy, nor whether the August total includes proceeds from the People’s Bank of China swap arrangement that has featured in earlier reserve reporting — a distinction that matters, because swap proceeds are usable only under conditions. Neither gives the rupee’s August movement against the dollar, which bears directly on the cost of the Central Bank’s record purchases, and neither says whether the pace of buying is expected to continue.

Ada Derana also carried the release but could not be retrieved: the site has returned a CloudFront 403 block to every fetch attempt for several weeks, so it is not cited here.