Levy of 3.5% on credit, debit card foreign purchases

A 3.5% levy is to be slapped on all foreign purchase transactions with credit or debit cards. The Government has Gazetted an amendment to the Finance Act of 2018 last week to impose the ‘Foreign Commercial Transactions Levy’ on every transaction through a card payment for purchase any goods or services from outside the country.

The rate of the levy will be 3.5 percent on the sum remitted outside Sri Lanka for such transactions.

Previously, a Stamp Duty of 2.5 percent was applied to foreign commercial transactions made by cards, and now it has been increased by 1 percent and converted to a Levy, Finance Ministry’s Tax Policy Advisor Thanuja Perera told the Daily News. Perera also said the previous Stamp Duty had only applied to credit card payments, whereas the new levy applies to both credit and debit cards. The effective date of the new levy will be gazetted by the Finance Minister once the law is approved by Parliament.

(Source: Daily News – By Disna Mudalige)