The Special Commodity Levy charged on two categories of imported rice has been removed with effect from Tuesday, 3 November, cutting a tax of Rs 65 on every kilogram brought in under those categories.
Hiru News reported at 8.23 a.m. Colombo time on Wednesday that the levy has been lifted on two specific HS codes falling within the kekulu rice and parboiled rice classifications. HS codes are the international tariff headings customs uses to classify goods, so the relief is tied to those two headings rather than to imported rice in general.
The levy removed stood at Rs 65 per kilogram.
What it does and does not cover
The Special Commodity Levy is a single consolidated import tax applied to a defined list of food items in place of the ordinary combination of customs duty and other border charges. Because it is set code by code, removing it from two headings leaves it in force on any rice category not named in the revision.
Hiru’s filing identifies the two categories only by the broad descriptions above and does not reproduce the HS code numbers themselves, so this desk cannot state precisely which grades of kekulu and parboiled rice are covered.
A figure that recurs
The Rs 65 per kilogram rice levy has been raised, cut and suspended repeatedly in recent years, and reporting on those earlier changes uses wording almost identical to Wednesday’s. The amount on its own therefore does not identify which decision is being described. What distinguishes this one is the date it takes effect — 3 November 2026 — and the fact that it is a removal on two named headings rather than a temporary reduction for a fixed number of days, which is how several earlier rounds were structured.
Single-source
No second verified newsroom report of the change could be fetched and date-checked on Wednesday morning. Ada Derana carried it, but its site continues to return an access block to this desk; searches of the Daily Mirror, NewsFirst, EconomyNext, the Island, Daily FT and news.lk returned only earlier rice-levy decisions. The article rests on Hiru’s reporting alone.
Not reported
The filing does not name the gazette or the date it was issued, state who signed it, or say whether the removal is permanent or time-limited. It does not say what the levy was before the change took effect, what effect the government expects on retail rice prices, or whether the measure responds to a supply shortage, a price rise or a harvest forecast. No official is quoted, and there is no reported reaction from paddy farmers, millers or importers.
