The price is the number everybody negotiates. It is not the number you need in the bank.
A purchase in Sri Lanka carries a set of costs that arrive from different parties at different moments, and only one of them is a percentage anybody quotes casually. Below is the whole list, with what is sourced and what is ordinary practice kept clearly apart.
The lines, and which side carries them
| Cost | Falls on | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Stamp duty on the transfer | Buyer | 4% of the assessable value |
| Notary or attorney fees | Buyer | 1% to 3% of value, per LankaPropertyWeb’s guide |
| Registration at the Land Registry | Buyer | A scheduled fee, quoted by your notary |
| Survey by a licensed surveyor | Buyer | Quoted per job |
| Title search | Buyer | Quoted by the notary or attorney |
| Duty on a mortgage bond | Borrower | 0.1% of the sum secured, per Lexelon’s guide |
| Bank arrangement costs | Borrower | Varies by lender |
| Capital gains tax | Seller | 15% of the gain, resident individuals and partnerships |
| Agency fee | As the agency agreement provides | Agreed before instruction |
Two things about that table. The buyer’s liability for stamp duty is the administered position, not a custom. Most of the rest is ordinary practice, and practice can be varied by what the parties actually agree, which is precisely why it belongs in writing before anything is signed rather than assumed at the counter.
Duty is the biggest line and the last one to firm up
At 4%, duty dwarfs everything else on the list. It is also the item you cannot pin down early, because the percentage is applied to whichever is larger: your agreed consideration, or the value assessed for that property by the Provincial Department of Revenue.
The practical consequence is a sequencing problem. You want a total before you commit to an offer; the largest component of that total depends on a figure the notary has to establish. So an honest cost projection carries a range in it until the assessment is confirmed, and anybody handing you a single confident number before then is filling a gap with optimism. How that assessment works, and what it does to a discounted purchase, is set out in our note on the rate, the base and who carries it.
Professional fees, and how wide the range really is
LankaPropertyWeb’s buying guide puts lawyer or notary fees at 1% to 3% of the value, and says they are generally borne by the buyer or the lessee. That is a genuine range rather than a soft one: on the same purchase, the top of it is three times the bottom.
Add duty and the two together account for between 5% and 7% of value. To put a scale on that, LankaPropertyWeb’s own average of the Colombo house asking prices carried on its site is around LKR 117.6m, a portal’s average of what sellers are asking, which is not the same thing as what the market transacts at, and should be read as an order of magnitude rather than a benchmark. Against a figure of that size, 5% to 7% works out at roughly LKR 5.9m to LKR 8.2m in costs that are not the price.
That is not a reason to shop for the cheapest attorney. It is a reason to ask for the fee in writing at the outset, and to know which of the smaller items, search, extracts, disbursements, are inside the quoted fee and which will be billed separately.
If you are borrowing
A mortgage brings its own instrument, and instruments attract duty. Lexelon’s guide to stamp duty puts the charge on a mortgage deed at 0.1% of the sum secured. Confirm the current figure with your notary rather than budgeting from any single guide, including this one.
Bank costs are the less predictable part. Arrangement and processing charges vary between lenders and change with policy, and they are rarely the headline the loan is marketed on. Ask for a written schedule of every charge on the facility, not just the rate.
The checks worth paying for
Two items on the list look optional to a buyer under time pressure. Neither is.
A survey by a licensed surveyor establishes what the land physically is. Extents recorded as more or less in older deeds are frequently inaccurate, and where a current survey and the deed disagree, the survey is the description of reality. Buying a stated extent and receiving a smaller one is a loss measured in perches at the price per perch you just paid.
A title search covering a minimum of 35 years is the commonly cited standard, though some published guides, CB Law Chambers among them, cite 30. Either way, this is the work that finds the encumbrance nobody mentioned. It costs a fraction of the duty and it is the only line here that can stop you making an expensive mistake rather than merely recording one.
What belongs to the seller
Capital gains tax is not a buyer’s cost, but it is worth knowing it exists, because it shapes how a seller behaves in a negotiation. Since June 2026 it has been charged at 15% of the gain for resident individuals and partnerships, up from 10%, under the Inland Revenue (Amendment) Act No. 11 of 2026. The detail is in our guide to the change.
The agency fee follows the agency agreement, and the sensible rule on both sides of a transaction is that no fee should ever be a surprise. Ask for it before you instruct, in writing, with what it covers spelled out.
Buying from abroad
Cost is not usually the obstacle for a foreign buyer; structure is. Under Act No. 38 of 2014 on restrictions on alienation, amended in 2017 and again in 2018, a foreign national cannot take freehold land unless a statutory exception applies. A condominium can be bought outright, subject to the purchase money reaching a Sri Lankan bank as an inward foreign remittance ahead of execution of the transfer deed.
That is a timing requirement with teeth. Remittances that arrive in the wrong order, or through the wrong route, create a problem that no amount of budgeting fixes. Plan the banking with the same care as the price.
Get the numbers before the offer, not after it
This article sets out cost categories and cites its figures. It is not legal advice, and the duty, fees and searches on a particular property are for a notary or an attorney-at-law to quote and to carry out. They are also the only people who can confirm the assessed value that decides the largest line above.
A1 acts on both sides of a sale across seven districts, covering residential, commercial and land. We will set these lines out against the specific property you are looking at, mark which figures are firm and which are still ranges, and point you to the notary for the rest. Ask us for that breakdown before you commit to a price.