Sri Lankan migrant workers will be able to borrow up to Rs 5 million for housing at heavily subsidised interest under a scheme announced in the 2027 Budget, with the state and the Foreign Employment Bureau splitting the subsidy between them.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake announced the scheme while presenting the Budget to Parliament on Thursday, as part of a set of measures aimed at Sri Lankans working or settled abroad, Hiru News reported.
How the subsidy is structured
The loan ceiling is Rs 5 million — stated in the speech as Rs 50 lakhs — and the interest subsidy is tiered, falling as the loan gets larger:
| Portion of loan | Interest subsidy | Government share | SLBFE share |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Rs 3 million | 10% | 6% | 4% |
| Remaining Rs 2 million | 5% | 3% | 2% |
The Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment carries the smaller share of the subsidy at both tiers. The two contributions sum exactly to the headline subsidy rate in each band — 6 plus 4, and 3 plus 2 — which is some internal confirmation that the figures were reported intact.
The Daily Mirror’s Budget spending breakdown lists “Housing loans for migrant workers Rs. 1 bn” among new proposals, which is the 2027 provision behind the scheme rather than the amount available to lend.
Where it sits in the housing package
The migrant worker line is one of five housing proposals in the Budget, together worth about Rs 13 billion:
| Proposal | Allocation |
|---|---|
| Finishing half-built houses from earlier schemes | Rs 5 billion |
| Houses for displaced people in the North and East | Rs 4 billion |
| Low-income housing project | Rs 2 billion |
| Disaster-damaged houses not covered by rebuilding | Rs 1 billion |
| Housing loans for migrant workers | Rs 1 billion |
Context
Remittances from workers abroad are one of Sri Lanka’s largest sources of foreign exchange, and successive governments have tried to channel them into formal banking rather than informal transfer networks. A subsidised housing loan tied to Bureau registration gives migrant workers a reason to remit through recorded channels, though neither filing makes that link explicitly.
The scheme was announced alongside the Global Sri Lankan Heritage Citizenship programme, under which dual citizenship fees are waived for spouses and descendants of the main applicant.
Sourcing note
Two verified newsrooms carry the measure. The scheme’s design — the Rs 5 million ceiling and the tiered government and Bureau subsidy shares — comes from Hiru News; the Daily Mirror independently confirms a migrant worker housing loan line and supplies the Rs 1 billion 2027 allocation, which Hiru News does not give. Neither EconomyNext nor NewsFirst had filed on the housing component at the time of writing; NewsFirst’s coverage of the same speech section deals only with the dual citizenship proposal.
Not reported
Neither filing says when the scheme opens, which banks will lend, what the underlying interest rate is before the subsidy, or how long the subsidy runs. Neither states whether a worker must be currently employed abroad or registered with the Bureau to qualify, whether returnees are eligible, or how many borrowers the Rs 1 billion provision is expected to cover.
