External Sector & Foreign Exchange
A visual overview of Sri Lanka’s external sector, covering merchandise trade, the current account, workers’ remittances, tourism earnings, foreign employment and official reserve assets. The dashboard brings together the latest available monthly and year-to-date indicators from the attached datasets.
Sri Lanka continued to record a substantial merchandise trade deficit. Merchandise exports amounted to approximately US$13.58 billion in 2025, while imports reached approximately US$21.48 billion, resulting in a deficit of about US$7.90 billion. During the first six months of 2026, exports reached approximately US$6.90 billion against imports of US$12.39 billion. The persistent gap highlights the importance of services, remittances and other foreign exchange inflows in offsetting the merchandise deficit.
The current account remained positive through most of 2025, although it weakened during the third and fourth quarters. The balance moved into deficit in September and October 2025 before returning to surplus in November and December. In 2026, the account recorded surpluses in the first three months before moving into deficit in April and May. The June 2026 balance improved to approximately US$148.7 million.
Workers’ remittances remained the largest recurring source of the two major service-related foreign exchange inflows. Remittances reached approximately US$4.60 billion during H1 2026, compared with approximately US$1.51 billion in tourism earnings. Remittance inflows were particularly strong in March and May, while tourism earnings were strongest in January and February before moderating during the following months.
Official reserve assets strengthened during the second half of 2025 and rose further in early 2026. Reserves increased from approximately US$6.07 billion in January 2025 to around US$6.84 billion by December 2025. They subsequently reached approximately US$7.27 billion in February 2026, before moderating. The latest official reserve position stood at approximately US$6.46 billion at end-June 2026, indicating a substantially stronger reserve position than during the immediate post-crisis period.