Special counter for VAT refund to tourists at BIA from Tuesday

Sri Lanka has introduced a procedure for re-payment of 15% VAT to the foreign tourists on their departure, for the goods purchased by them during their stay in Sri Lanka which will be implemented with effect from  Tuesday onwards, Ministry of Finance and Mass Media announced. 

A special counter was opened at the departure terminal of the Katunayake Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) by the Minister of Finance and Mass Media, MangalaSamaraweera on Tuesday. This procedure that has been proposed by the budget 2018, is implemented by the Department of Inland Revenue (IRD) and the business enterprises should register with IRD under this programme for repayment of VAT to become eligible under this scheme.

Eighteen shops that sold good and Garments have already been registered under the Department of Inland Revenue to become qualified under this procedure. Any enterprise that is willing to be stakeholders of  this system can register under the Department of Inland Revenue based on their permanent VAT number.

The objective of this programme is to attract more foreign tourists to Sri Lanka transforming the country in to a Trading Hub of Asia, in line with Budget Proposal 2018. As per the global trend, with the initiation of this procedure for VAT repayment that is followed by most countries in the world, entire world’s attention will be focused on Sri Lanka. Therefore it is expected that Sri Lanka’s Economy will have a significant milestone in its economic development through this procedure for tourist attraction.