How to File Your Income Tax Return in Sri Lanka

Here's the whole process, in the order you'd actually do it.

Before anything: check that you have to file

Not everyone does. Broadly, if your income for the year was under Rs. 1,800,000, or your only income was a salary your employer already deducted tax from, you may not need to file at all.

Who has to file is its own question with its own edge cases, and we cover it properly in a separate guide. The rest of this one assumes the answer is yes.

Step 1: get your TIN and PIN

You need two numbers to file online:

• Your TIN identifies you as a taxpayer. If you've ever dealt with the IRD, you may already have one. Check before applying again.
• Your PIN is the login for the e-Services portal. You request it separately, after you have a TIN.

Both are requested through IRD e-Services on ird.gov.lk. If you forget your PIN, or lock your account by getting it wrong too many times, you request a new one from the same place.

Step 2: gather your paperwork

The return asks you to declare income from every source, so collect the year's records before you open the portal:

• If you're employed: your APIT certificate, called T.10, from your employer. You attach it to support the tax your employer already deducted.
• If you freelance or run a business: invoices, bank statements, and a note of your deductible costs. If a Sri Lankan client deducted 5% before paying you, get the withholding certificate.
• From your bank: certificates for tax deducted on interest. Withholding agents must issue these free of charge.
• If you're claiming reliefs: receipts, for example for solar panels or qualifying donations.

You'll also file a Statement of Assets and Liabilities with the return: the value of every asset and liability you hold, in or outside Sri Lanka, as at 31 March 2026. That covers property, vehicles, bank deposits, shares, cash, money owed to you, gold and jewellery, and your loans.

It's less alarming than it sounds. The IRD's own guide says these values aren't used to work out your tax. They're for information only.

Step 3: log in and open the return

Filing online is mandatory. It has been for individuals since Y/A 2023/2024, and the IRD's guide is blunt about it: individuals aren't entitled to file on paper. Two exceptions exist. Senior citizens may file in writing from Y/A 2025/2026, and the Commissioner-General can allow paper filing where that's just and equitable.

1. Go to ird.gov.lk and under e-Services, tap Access to e-Services.
2. Select Individual Taxpayer and tap Proceed to Login.
3. Enter your TIN, PIN and the captcha.
4. Under Return / Schedule Management, select Individual Income Tax (IIT).
5. Select the year of assessment and tap Proceed.

If IIT isn't listed, you're not registered for income tax as a tax type yet. There's a Tax Type Registration Request under the Taxpayer Registration tab. If you're registered but the year isn't showing, you can self-issue the return under the Return issuance tab.

Step 4: the simplified return, if you qualify

Before the full form, the portal asks which income sources you have and sends you down one of two paths.

You get the simplified return if your income is any of these, or a mix of them:

• Primary employment
• Secondary employment
• Interest, where a licensed bank or financial institution already deducted AIT
• Income from residential solar panels
• Nothing at all, if you're filing a nil return

One catch worth knowing before you count on it. If you have qualifying payments, or any relief beyond the personal relief, the simplified scheme doesn't apply and you're on the standard return. So a salaried person claiming a donation gets the long form.

On the simplified return some fields come pre-filled from what the IRD already holds. Checking them is still your responsibility, not theirs.

Step 5: fill in the schedules

The standard return is one main form fed by ten schedules. You complete only the ones that apply to you.

Two things people get wrong:

• The 25% rent relief isn't in Schedule 5. It goes in Schedule 3, the investment income schedule, at Cage 316.
• APIT isn't in Schedule 6 or 7 either. Your employer's deductions are a tax credit, so they belong in Schedule 9.

The system does the arithmetic. Most totals populate themselves from what you enter in the schedules.

Step 6: check it, then submit

Before you submit, the portal shows a confirmation page with everything you've declared.

Print it or save it as a PDF now. The IRD's guide states plainly that after submission you can't view, print or edit the return. This page is your only record of what you filed.

If something's wrong, there's an Amend button to go back. Use it before submitting, not after.

Supporting documents can be uploaded with the return or later.

Step 7: pay what's left

Here's the part that catches people out: the money is due before the return is.

If you were meant to pay instalments during the year, and most self-employed people and anyone whose employer doesn't deduct tax were, those dates have passed. Whatever remains is due by 30 September.

Do not treat that as a soft deadline. Tax still unpaid fourteen days after its due date attracts a 20% penalty, plus interest at 1.5% for every month or part month. On Rs. 500,000 owed, that's Rs. 100,000 in penalty alone, and it lands in mid-October whether or not you've filed. Missed instalments carry their own 10% penalty.

When you pay, you'll need your TIN, the tax type code 05 for individual income tax, and the payment period code 25260 for the 2025/2026 final payment. Check the current payment channels on ird.gov.lk before you pay.

One change to know: the separate statement of estimated tax that instalment payers used to file each August has been discontinued. From Y/A 2026/2027, instalments are based on the previous year's tax instead.

What if you miss the deadline?

Late filing carries a penalty that grows monthly and caps at Rs. 400,000 per return.

Prosecution is also possible, and it's worth being clear that this isn't new. Failing to file has long counted as impeding tax administration, an offence carrying a fine of up to Rs. 1,000,000, up to a year's imprisonment, or both. Since June 2026 there's a second route as well: ignore a written IRD notice for 30 days and you can be prosecuted for a fine up to Rs. 400,000, up to six months, or both.

The full picture of penalties and interest is in our guide on who has to file.

Filing is mechanical once you know what you owe. Working out what you owe, which income is taxed at which rate and what you can claim against it, is the part worth getting right first.