The National Council for Road Safety has confirmed that the grace period given to vehicle owners to retrofit rear-seat seatbelts ends on June 19, after which legal action will be taken against both drivers and passengers travelling on expressways without restraints, NewsFirst reported.

Council Chairman Manjula Kularatne said enforcement would be strengthened the day the deadline expires. “Strict action will be taken against violations as part of ongoing efforts to improve road safety,” authorities said.

The June 19 deadline closes the window first opened earlier in 2026, when Transport Minister Bimal Rathnayake ordered strict seatbelt compliance during Avurudu after 49 road deaths in a single week. That episode set in motion the cabinet-level road-safety target of significantly reducing road accidents and deaths by 2029 that the Transport Ministry has been pursuing through driver-education, vehicle-inspection and seatbelt-retrofit measures.

Sri Lanka’s main expressway network — the Southern, Outer Circular and Central Expressways — operate under separate enforcement rules from local roads, and the post-June 19 regime places rear-seat passengers on equal footing with drivers and front-seat occupants for the first time. Vehicle owners who have yet to install rear-seat seatbelts have five days from Sunday to complete the work.

Update — June 16: Strict enforcement to begin June 20

Council Chairman Manjula Kularatne reiterated on Tuesday that the seatbelt rule will be enforced strictly from June 20, the day after the grace period ends, Ada Derana reported. All occupants of vehicles travelling on expressways — both front-seat and rear-seat passengers — must wear seatbelts, with no exceptions made once the deadline expires.

Sources:

Update — June 18: DIG Traffic confirms Saturday reinstatement

Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of Traffic Control and Road Safety W.P.J. Senadheera said on Thursday that the seat belt requirement on expressways will be reinstated from Saturday, June 20, and will apply to all vehicles using the network, NewsFirst reported. The gazette notification was originally issued by the Minister of Transport in September 2025 and remained in force until March 2026, after which authorities granted a three-month grace period — expiring Friday — to allow vehicle owners to install seat belts.

Source: Seat Belt Rule on Expressways Reinstated From Saturday (20th) — NewsFirst, June 18.

Update — June 21: 332 vehicles fined on day one of enforcement

Sri Lanka Police fined the drivers of 332 vehicles for travelling on expressways without seatbelts on the first day of enforcement, after inspecting 1,800 vehicles on June 20, NewsFirst reported. The 18 per cent non-compliance rate gives the first hard data point on how widely the gazette requirement was being ignored before active enforcement resumed.

National Council for Road Safety Chairman Manjula Kularatne reiterated that, with the grace period now expired, “wearing seatbelts has been mandatory for expressway travel starting from yesterday” for all standard vehicles. A separate three-month grace period was granted, effective from June 20, for vehicles that were not equipped with seatbelts during their manufacture before they may legally enter the expressway network.

Source: 332 Drivers Fined For Disobeying Seatbelt Rules On Expressways — NewsFirst, June 21.