Sri Lanka Customs is preparing to auction more than 1,000 imported vehicles that have been left uncleared at Hambantota Port, officials have said.
Customs Media Spokesperson Chandana Punchihewa told the Daily Mirror that around 1,025 vehicles brought into the country have not been cleared by their respective importers, with 625 of them sitting at the port for more than six months. He said the vehicles are not linked to any customs violations. Speaking to NewsFirst, Punchihewa said importers had held back from clearing the stock for reasons including economic difficulties, a surge in imports and a mismatch between supply and demand.
Action will nonetheless be taken under Section 109 of the Customs Ordinance to dispose of the uncleared stock through auction or other means unless importers come forward with valid documentation, Punchihewa said. Proceeds from any sale will first be applied to government taxes, followed by port and storage charges, with any remaining balance returned to the importers.
The move follows weeks of mounting pressure at the southern port, where importers have been abandoning vehicles rather than pay the detention fees required to release them.
Nearly 40,000 imported vehicles are currently parked at Hambantota Port. Many have remained there due to disruptions in re-export operations and the conflict in the Middle East, which has affected shipping to destinations such as Dubai. Vehicles brought into the country for re-export have faced the same detention-fee problem.
Customs earlier cited the case of a local importer who tried to release a luxury vehicle worth about Rs. 20 million that had been parked at the port for close to six years. The importer was told he would have to pay almost Rs. 50 million in accumulated detention charges — pushing the total cost to nearly Rs. 70 million, more than three times the vehicle’s value — and decided not to release it.
With hundreds of similar cases building up, the planned auction is intended to clear long-idle stock and ease storage pressure at the facility.
Update, July 27: Hambantota International Port Group (HIPG) has issued a statement clarifying its vehicle storage policy, saying “the Port’s business is built on the efficient movement of cargo, not on earning revenue from storage charges,” EconomyNext reported.
“Ports are designed to facilitate cargo movement, not to serve as long-term vehicle storage yards. Every vehicle that remains in the Port for months or years occupies valuable operational space required to handle new cargo and support the continued growth of Sri Lanka’s automotive logistics sector,” HIPG said in a media release.
The operator put its own figures on the backlog. Of the more than 50,000 vehicles currently at the port — covering both transhipment cargo and local imports — approximately 1,278 have been in the yard for over three months and 581 have remained for more than a year. HIPG attributed the year-plus cases to legacy market conditions created by Sri Lanka’s vehicle import restrictions: 400 of those vehicles arrived before imports resumed in 2025, and a further 175 predate the restrictions imposed in 2020.
