What every invoice must show
- The words "TAX INVOICE" in a conspicuous place, in bold or highlighted text.
- The supplier's nine-digit TIN, name and address top left, and the purchaser's nine-digit TIN, name and address top right or below — both exactly as they appear on the VAT registration certificate.
- A serial number in the form YYMMM_QQQQ_XXXXX: two-digit year, three-letter month in capitals, an alphanumeric branch or unit code of 1 to 15 characters, then a purely numeric serial continuing from last month. No spaces, 40 characters maximum. The Gazette's own example for the first July 2026 invoice from branch BR03 is 26JUL_BR03_1.
- Amounts in Sri Lanka rupees to two decimal places, shown as three lines: value of supply excluding VAT, the VAT charged, and the total consideration including VAT. Dates of invoice and of supply in MM/DD/YYYY. Only VAT-able items may appear on it.
Numbering, keeping and correcting invoices
The supplier keeps the duplicate of every tax invoice for five years after the end of the taxable period in which it was issued (VAT Act, section 20(4)). Under section 120 of the Inland Revenue Act, business records and the source documents behind them, including sales and purchase invoices, must be kept in Sri Lanka at the place of business for five years from the date of the transaction, or longer until the time limit for assessment has passed and any related proceedings have ended.
Invoices must be in Sinhala, Tamil or English, with amounts shown in Sri Lankan rupees as well. Records in any other language must be translated, at the taxpayer's cost, when the Commissioner-General asks (section 120(8) and (9)).
If tax was undercharged or overcharged, the supplier corrects it with a tax debit note or tax credit note in the specified form (VAT Act, section 25), not by changing the original invoice. A buyer can only adjust input tax for a note issued within six months of the original invoice.
Failing to issue a tax invoice when it is requested is punishable under section 20(7) by a fine of Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 250,000, plus Rs. 500 for each day the offence continues. If it carries on beyond 14 days after conviction, a court can order the business closed.
Electronic invoicing in Sri Lanka
There is no e-invoicing mandate in Sri Lanka. What is mandatory from 1 October 2026 is a standard invoice format — Gazette Extraordinary 2481/22, as deferred by Gazette 2500/106 — and it applies the same to a printed invoice as to a PDF. Separately, IRD is building a National e-Invoicing System announced in Budget 2026: a Web API that pushes invoice and schedule data from your ERP into RAMIS in real time. It is in pilot with selected garment exporters, tea exporters and tea brokers, and IRD expects full Web API integration by the end of 2026, then a rollout to export-oriented enterprises and later to all VAT-registered persons. Until that reaches you, transmitting invoices to IRD is voluntary and uploading CSV schedules remains the normal route.