What is SSCL (Social Security Contribution Levy) on a Sri Lanka vehicle import?

What is the Social Security Contribution Levy?

The Social Security Contribution Levy (SSCL) is a Sri Lankan turnover-based levy enacted under the Social Security Contribution Levy Act No. 25 of 2022. It applies broadly across the goods and services economy at a headline rate of 2.5% and is administered by the Inland Revenue Department.

In conversation and in older import write-ups, SSCL is sometimes shortened to SRL (“social responsibility levy” or “social revenue levy” in casual usage). The statutory acronym is SSCL — the same tax, regardless of which shorthand a forum thread uses.

Status on a 2026 motor-car import

The post-February-2025 vehicle import gazettes (2421/41, 2421/43, 2421/44 and 2434/04) define the full motor-car tax cascade as five lines: CID, Surcharge on CID, Excise, Luxury tax and VAT. SSCL is not listed as a separate line on the gazetted motor-car cascade.

This matters for two practical reasons:

1. Quote integrity. If an importer’s landed-price breakdown shows a separate SSCL line on a 2026 motor-car landing, ask for the gazette reference. The current canonical breakdown is the five-line cascade plus business costs and any disclosed margin.
2. Search-result drift. Older Sri Lankan import guides, blog posts and even some accounting commentary reference SSCL alongside vehicle import math. Some of those guides predate the 2025 reopen and reflect a different statutory regime.

Where SSCL still applies

SSCL remains a live levy on many domestic and import flows — services, manufactured goods, wholesale and retail turnover above the gazetted threshold all attract the 2.5% rate. The simplification applies specifically to the motor-car tax cascade under HS heading 8703, where excise is the dominant tax line and the rest of the structure has been pared back to clean reproducibility.

Why we mention it anyway

Cardreams’ wedge is that every line on a quote can be checked against a published gazette. Acknowledging legacy taxes that buyers have read about — SSCL, PAL, NBT, ESC — and showing they’re not on the motor-car stack today is part of that work. If a future budget revives any of these on motor cars, the gazettes will say so and the pricing structure will be updated the same day.