Sri Lanka Customs will stop accepting manually prepared import documents entirely from 19 October, setting a hard deadline that the agency’s paperless launch on 1 October did not impose.
Digital signatures on customs declarations and other documents will be mandatory for importers and declarants from that date, Customs Director and media spokesperson Chandana Punchihewa said. Declarations submitted through the existing system will not be accepted after the 19th, NewsFirst reported.
In a statement issued two days earlier, Customs said no importer will be permitted to submit manually prepared documents from the 19th, and that every importer must be registered for a digital signature by then. It added a point the later filing does not: importers who already hold a digital signature should not be submitting documents manually at any stage, even before the deadline, Hiru News reported.
What went live on 1 October, and what changes now
The two dates mark different stages, and the distinction matters for anyone still filing on paper. The Digital Signature and Paperless Customs Declaration Processing System came into effect on 1 October, making paperless declarations mandatory at the Long Room. The 19th is when manual acceptance stops outright.
Customs says the new paperless declaration process has started successfully for full container load (FCL) imports under the office code CBHQ1. Neither filing says whether less-than-container-load consignments are covered by the same deadline.
Three registration figures, three different measures
The uptake numbers reported over nine days are not directly comparable, and should not be read as a single curve:
- 1,144 importers registered at launch on 1 October — a group accounting for more than 60% of total imports
- more than 2,000 had obtained a digital signature by 8 October, with a significant number still waiting, according to Customs
- around 4,000 had applied for one by 10 October, per Punchihewa
Applying, obtaining and registering are distinct steps, and no filing says how many importers need a signature in total — so the share still unprepared cannot be calculated from these figures.
Not reported
No filing says what happens to an importer not registered by the 19th, whether consignments will be held, or whether any extension is available. None reports the position of freight forwarders and clearing agents, who file most declarations in practice, or a Customs response to the readiness concerns trade bodies raised before the 1 October launch.
