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E-COMMERCE GIANTS: Shift Sri Lanka shipments to tri-weekly

E-COMMERCE GIANTS: Shift Sri Lanka shipments to tri-weekly

31 Jul 2025 | By Imesh Ranasinghe


  • Temu, AliExpress reduce deliveries to curb costs under new Customs duty structure
  • Backlog cleared; issue attributed to local partner payments, not Customs


E-commerce retailers such as Temu and AliExpress have rescheduled their shipment deliveries to Sri Lanka from daily to three times a week to minimise costs with the new duty structure by Customs, Sri Lanka Customs said.

Speaking at the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) on Tuesday (29), Customs officials said that they have cleared the backlog of e-commerce shipments that were stuck at Customs by mid-July.

Customs officials said that e-commerce platforms from China have changed their shipment mechanism to Sri Lanka from daily shipments of 4-5 tonnes to shipments that arrive three times a week to minimise the cost.

They clarified that the delay in clearing packages by the Customs was not due to an issue with the Customs but due to an issue with the agreement between the local partners and e-commerce platforms in China.

It was revealed that with the new duty structure, the payments to China by those local companies increased, and China had not approved sending shipments to Sri Lanka until the payments were made by the local partners.

In a significant policy shift, the old flat-rate import tax model by Sri Lanka Customs was changed where parcels under 1 kg, which used to be taxed at Rs. 800 or often passed duty-free, now face new regulations.

Since the first week of July, all imports were taxed according to their HS Code, which reflects the type and value of the product, not just its weight.




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