The network covers Sri Lanka within the South Asia region. Payslips there are drawn up in LKR, and dealings with a local firm are conducted in Sinhala and Tamil.
The business centres where the network is looking for a correspondent as a priority are Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Jaffna.
The country lies outside the European Union and outside the European Economic Area: the A1 certificate has no standing there. Whether the employee remains in the scheme of origin then depends on the bilateral social security agreement, if any, concluded with the sending country; where no such agreement exists, dual affiliation must be expected and budgeted into the assignment.
The answer to this question changes everything: it determines to whom you may entrust your payslips locally, and what you must ask for before signing. It has been verified country by country with the local authorities.
In Sri Lanka, running payroll on behalf of third parties is reserved by law to no registered profession: any company may take it on. The absence of a legal barrier shifts the checking onto you, and that is why the network itself verifies the registration, the tax and social security standing and the insurance cover of every firm before listing it.
Le titre de Chartered Accountant et l'audit légal sont réservés aux membres de CA Sri Lanka détenant un certificat d'exercice. En revanche, la tenue de comptabilité et la paie externalisée ne sont pas des activités réservées : n'importe quelle société immatriculée peut les proposer. Pour le réseau, l'appartenance à CA Sri Lanka, AAT Sri Lanka ou CMA Sri Lanka doit donc servir de critère de sélection, non de simple case à cocher réglementaire.
Sri Lanka has a mixed legal system, in which the British common law inheritance sits alongside rules of Roman-Dutch origin, and an employment law organised around several sectoral statutes rather than a single code. A foreign company therefore has to identify which statute governs the role in question before reasoning about obligations.
Social protection does not take the form of conventional social insurance. It rests on two separate funded schemes: the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF), fed by employer and employee contributions, and the Employees' Trust Fund (ETF), funded by the employer alone. A statutory end-of-service gratuity, governed by its own statute, sits alongside them. There is no single document evidencing compliance with both funds.
Salaries are paid in Sri Lankan rupees. Contractual documents are drawn up in Sinhala or Tamil, with English serving as a link language and accepted in business dealings.
Neither accountancy nor payroll is a reserved activity: only the Chartered Accountant title and statutory audit are.
Which sectoral statute governs the role is the question that commands everything else, since obligations on working time, leave and weekly rest are not identical across the applicable texts. A written contract is essential in practice and is drawn up once that classification is settled.
The employing vehicle and investment approval are decided alongside each other. A foreign company setting up generally proceeds either through the Board of Investment or by ordinary incorporation with the Registrar of Companies, and that choice governs the regime applicable to expatriate staff, as it governs the residence visa carrying employment approval, which is prepared in advance.
Tax registration with the Inland Revenue Department, employer registration with the Department of Labour for the EPF and registration with the Employees' Trust Fund Board for the ETF then follow, and none of them should be conflated with another.
Withholding on employment income has moved through several regimes in recent years. Whether it is mandatory or elective, and how it operates, are confirmed as at the hiring date rather than taken from an older note. EPF and ETF payments are monthly, and proof is built from payment receipts.
The end-of-service gratuity, lastly, is computed separately from the final settlement, and the two are best presented to the employee as distinct entitlements rather than merged into a single figure.
The network asks 9 documents of any firm wishing to represent it in Sri Lanka. The table gives, for each of them, the exact wording in use locally, the body that issues it and the period during which it remains admissible. These are the terms to use in an application to the local administration.
Of these 9 documents, 6 are required of every applicant and 4 have a limited period of validity, the shortest being 3 months. 1 of these documents exist only in Sri Lanka and have no equivalent in the common core of the network.
| Local wording | Issuing body | Validity | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Certificate of Incorporation (සමාගම් සංස්ථාපන සහතිකය) ; Form 20 (directors) et Form 15 / annual returnCertificate of Incorporation and annual return Le certificat porte le numéro PV/PB. Comme il n'expire pas, exiger en complément la dernière annual return déposée et le Form 20 à jour, qui prouvent que la société est active et qui en sont les dirigeants. | Department of the Registrar of Companies (Registrar General of Companies) | No expiry Required | Official website |
| Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) Certificate ; VAT Registration CertificateTIN certificate and VAT registration certificate Le TIN est délivré automatiquement aux sociétés immatriculées depuis 2024. L'immatriculation TVA dépend du seuil de chiffre d'affaires, abaissé à plusieurs reprises depuis 2022 : vérifier la date du certificat. | Inland Revenue Department (IRD) | No expiry Required | Official website |
| Tax Clearance CertificateTax clearance certificate Attention : au Sri Lanka le tax clearance certificate est le plus souvent délivré au cas par cas, notamment pour les transferts de fonds vers l'étranger au titre de la section 86(7) de l'Inland Revenue Act. Il n'existe pas d'attestation générale annuelle équivalente au quitus français : accepter à défaut la preuve du dépôt des dernières déclarations. | Inland Revenue Department (IRD) | 3 months Required | Official website |
| EPF employer registration (Employees' Provident Fund) et ETF registration ; attestation de paiement à jourEPF and ETF employer registration and contribution compliance letter Deux régimes distincts, EPF (12 % employeur / 8 % salarié) et ETF (3 % employeur). Nous n'avons pas identifié de « clearance certificate » standardisé : demander l'attestation d'immatriculation employeur plus les derniers reçus de paiement, ou une lettre de conformité du Department of Labour. | Department of Labour — Employees' Provident Fund (Central Bank of Sri Lanka) et Employees' Trust Fund Board (ETF) | 3 months Required | Official website |
| Professional indemnity insurance policyProfessional indemnity insurance policy Aucune obligation légale sri-lankaise identifiée pour les cabinets comptables ou les prestataires de paie ; pièce d'usage, à imposer par le contrat de partenariat. | Assureur agréé par l'Insurance Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (IRCSL) | 12 months Where applicable | Official website |
| Certificate to Practise / membership of CA Sri Lanka (ACA / FCA) ; alternativement AAT Sri Lanka ou CMA Sri LankaCertificate to practise / membership of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka Seuls les membres de CA Sri Lanka titulaires d'un certificat d'exercice peuvent auditer et signer des états financiers. La paie n'est pas une activité réservée : exiger cette pièce comme critère de qualité du réseau plutôt que comme condition légale. | Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka), institut statutaire créé par la loi n° 23 de 1959 | 12 months Required | Official website |
| National Identity Card (NIC) හෝ passport of the director ; Form 20Director's National Identity Card or passport, plus Form 20 Le Form 20 déposé au Registrar of Companies est la preuve officielle de la composition du conseil ; le NIC ne sert qu'à identifier le signataire. | Department for Registration of Persons et Department of the Registrar of Companies | No expiry Required | Official website |
| Compliance with the Personal Data Protection Act No. 9 of 2022 — no registration requirementCompliance with the Personal Data Protection Act No. 9 of 2022; no registration La loi n° 9 de 2022 entre en application par étapes et ne prévoit pas de registre des responsables de traitement comparable à celui de la Tanzanie. Demander la politique de confidentialité et l'engagement de sous-traitance. | Data Protection Authority of Sri Lanka | No expiry Where applicable | Official website |
| Business Name Registration Certificate (pour une entreprise individuelle ou un partnership)Business name registration certificate Ne concerne que les candidats qui n'exercent pas en société : au Sri Lanka les entreprises individuelles et les sociétés de personnes s'enregistrent au niveau provincial, pas auprès du Registrar of Companies. | Provincial Registrar of Business Names (autorité provinciale, ex. Western Province) | No expiry Where applicable | Official website |
There is no standardised social clearance certificate, and the absence of a single fund changes how an employer or provider is verified. Compliance is demonstrated through EPF and ETF payment receipts examined over several periods, which means asking for a series rather than a certificate.
The Sri Lankan tax clearance certificate does not serve the function of a European tax clearance. Essentially transactional, required notably for certain outbound transfers, it may be missing from a file without that being a negative signal in itself: the right response is to ask for evidence that returns have been filed.
The Certificate of Incorporation, for its part, never expires. Hence the value of requesting a recent annual return and the form evidencing the current composition of the board, so as to confirm that the company is active and that the people across the table are the ones who can bind it.
Le Sri Lanka est un pays de common law : la pièce fondatrice est le Certificate of Incorporation, qui n'expire jamais — d'où l'importance d'exiger l'annual return et le Form 20 récents. Deux points sensibles. D'abord, le tax clearance certificate n'a pas la même fonction qu'un quitus fiscal européen ; il est essentiellement transactionnel (transferts sortants sous la section 86(7) de l'Inland Revenue Act), donc ne pas le refuser s'il est absent mais demander les preuves de dépôt. Ensuite, la conformité sociale se prouve par deux régimes séparés, EPF et ETF, sans document unique standardisé.
The network opens 3 partner slots in Sri Lanka, not one more. No firm is listed there yet: all 3 slots therefore remain open to applications.
No listed partner in Sri Lanka has asked to appear in the public directory. The contact details of a firm are passed on to the client only when an assignment is awarded.
Filing an application does not amount to admission: every request is reviewed one by one. There is no minimum turnover requirement, and the partner selected invoices its fees directly.
Submit an application: we review your file, we check the documents required on the ground and we give you an answer, whether it is positive or not.
Because payroll is not reserved in Sri Lanka, professional membership is for us a selection criterion rather than a box to tick. We look for a firm including a member of CA Sri Lanka holding a certificate to practise, failing which a professional qualified through AAT Sri Lanka or CMA Sri Lanka. The file comprises the Certificate of Incorporation together with a recent annual return, the tax identification number, EPF and ETF employer registrations, professional indemnity cover and the undertakings given under the Personal Data Protection Act of 2022.
Describe your requirement. No firm is listed in Sri Lanka yet: we review the request, then entrust it to a local firm that the network identifies and vets, or to the partner of a neighbouring country covering this territory. Your contact details are passed on to the selected firm alone.
Request a provider in Sri LankaMobility is rarely arranged one country at a time. The neighbouring profiles follow the same outline.
These countries account for most of the requests received: each one has, in addition to its profile, six pages devoted to a single aspect of local payroll.
The information gathered on this page comes from the registers, administrations and bodies listed below, consulted when the reference base was compiled. It is given for guidance and does not replace the advice of a professional established in Sri Lanka.