Income tax for engineers in Sri Lanka — Y/A 2025/2026
Firm or site salary under APIT plus interest your bank has already taxed at 10%. Work out which schedules you file, which reliefs apply, and what the final bill looks like.
What did you earn this year?
Pre-filled for your profession — add what applies, skip what doesn't.
A worked example for engineers
Illustrative figures for a typical income mix for engineers — employment salary, bank interest — using the default amounts below. Your own numbers will differ; use the wizard above for your actual figures.
Side consultancy is the item most engineers under-report, not because they hide it but because a single client payment feels too small to matter — until several of them across a year add up to a Schedule 2 business-income figure that pushes part of your income into a higher slab. Track every consultancy payment as it lands rather than reconstructing it from memory at filing time; site-visit fees, one-off design reviews and BOQ consultations are easy to forget individually and easy to underestimate in aggregate. Capital allowances apply to tools and equipment bought for consultancy work — a survey instrument, CAD workstation, or site laptop — claimed over the asset's useful life rather than written off in the year of purchase, and the allowance schedule continues even in a slow year. If a project runs across two tax years, only the portion of the fee actually invoiced or received within each Y/A belongs to that year's return; splitting an invoice to smooth income between years is not a permitted timing choice. Consultancy stacked on a salaried role is usually taxed at your highest marginal rate — worth estimating before you commit to a fixed-price job, not after the invoice is raised.
Common questions
- Is a return needed if APIT covers my salary?
- If salary is genuinely your only income, APIT can settle the liability. Add bank interest, consultancy on the side or rental income and a return becomes necessary to bring them together at the right rate.
- How is consultancy alongside a salaried job taxed?
- As business income on Schedule 2. It stacks on top of your salary for slab purposes, which means it is usually charged at your highest marginal rate — worth estimating before you take the work.
- What is the personal relief for Y/A 2025/2026?
- Rs. 1,800,000, applied once across all your income under the Inland Revenue (Amendment) Act, No. 02 of 2025. It is not per source and not per employer.
Work out a single figure instead
Estimate your annual liability across salary, freelance, interest and investment income — with 2025/2026 reliefs applied.
Compute monthly APIT for a salary, plus one-off bonus / lump-sum withholding (APIT Table 2). For employers and employees double-checking the payslip.
10% Advance Income Tax withheld on deposit interest — creditable against your return, not a final tax.