Sri Lanka’s Cabinet has approved a proposal to have the Legal Draftsman prepare a draft bill amending the Customs Ordinance, based on recommendations made by a Steering Committee on Customs Affairs that spent almost seven months reviewing the legislation, government spokesperson Minister Nalinda Jayatissa said on Tuesday.
“With the aim of creating and establishing world-class revenue administration mechanisms in the country,” Jayatissa told reporters after the weekly Cabinet meeting.
The Steering Committee studied the existing Customs Ordinance in depth, identified outdated provisions, determined those that should be amended on a rolling basis, and consulted the business community, the import and export sector and other stakeholders, the minister said.
“The committee met continuously for almost seven months and submitted a detailed report after discussions with relevant parties,” Jayatissa said.
Sri Lanka’s Customs Ordinance dates back to 1869 with successive amendments and is the cornerstone statute for tariff collection, anti-smuggling enforcement and trade facilitation. Industry bodies have long argued that the law is built around physical-document and post-clearance audit assumptions that no longer match the realities of containerised, digitised trade and that the penalty regime needs recalibrating to international norms.
The amendment fits alongside other ongoing modernisation tracks, including Sri Lanka Customs’ integration with the Inland Revenue Department’s Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) system — recently required for all import-related companies in response to the bogus-imports forex fraud uncovered by the Public Security Ministry. It also lands as Cabinet works through a series of revenue and trade-facilitation amendments stemming from the 2026 Budget commitments to the IMF.
The draft bill will be submitted to Cabinet for further approval once it is prepared by the Legal Draftsman, after which it will be tabled in Parliament.
