Industrial machinery
exported to Sri Lanka

Seven separate charges can fall on a single consignment here, and none of them replaces another. Customs Import Duty, EDB CESS, the Ports and Airports Levy, excise, surcharge, the Social Security Contribution Levy and VAT at 18 per cent apply in sequence, the VAT figure having moved up from 15 per cent on 1 January 2024. The last two are not assessed on CIF. They are assessed on a built-up amount: CIF, plus a notional tenth of CIF, plus duty, CESS, PAL, excise and surcharge. A heading attracting no duty at all therefore still arrives carrying weight, and a seller who answers the buyer's question about the duty rate on its own has handed over a figure that will not survive the broker's calculation.

There is an inspection regime, and plant is not in it

The question gets asked because a border conformity scheme genuinely exists. The Compulsory Import Inspection Scheme belongs to the Sri Lanka Standards Institution under Gazette 2064/34 of 29 March 2018, and designated goods in Categories 1 to 3 cannot load without a Pre-Export Certificate of Conformity drawn in advance. Reading the designation list settles the matter for capital equipment. Across roughly 127 entries, the Chapter 84 content comes to electric fans with their regulators and LPG valve fittings and pressure regulators, while the Chapter 85 content is batteries, protective devices, switches, 13 A plugs and sockets, lamps, cables, kettles and hot plates. The remainder is foodstuffs and building materials. Processing, refrigeration, construction and agricultural machinery is absent, so no certificate is bought and no inspection body is appointed on the Chinese side. Confirm the live designation against the exact heading before quoting.

A bank now sits between buyer and deposit

Extraordinary Gazette 2493/39 of 18 June 2026 changed who may pay and when. Before releasing an advance import payment a bank must satisfy itself that the importer holds a Sri Lanka Customs registration, must attach a unique transaction number to the foreign exchange payment, and must report the proforma invoice number through to Customs. An unregistered buyer cannot pay anything up front however the contract reads, which makes registration a matter for the first exchange of correspondence. Because that invoice reference is reported and matched, settle at order stage how a revised proforma will be numbered when a specification changes.

Colombo, and a socket that narrowed

Containers have one realistic destination. The Port of Colombo takes them across Jaya Container Terminal, South Asia Gateway Terminals, Colombo International Container Terminals and the West Container Terminal; Hambantota, Trincomalee and Galle between them account for negligible box imports, and an expansion programme of around two billion US dollars is running, so terminal allocation repays checking. Electrically nothing needs altering at 230 V and 50 Hz, but the outlet has narrowed to Type G alone after a 2016 government decision and the prohibition on selling non-compliant fittings from August 2018. Types D and M should not be designed in.

Public buyers and language

State purchasing follows the Procurement Guidelines and Manual 2024, gazetted that November, administered by the Ministry of Finance with the National Procurement Commission as oversight. PROMISe at promise.lk held 324 active procuring entities in August 2026, yet a full-function national system is itself still being procured, so newspapers and individual agency sites continue to matter. Everything is conducted in English. The supply here is the machine and nothing past it: no parts stock is carried and no engineers are stationed in the market, so erection, instruction and the limits of any guarantee have to be bargained into the order itself.