Sri Lanka has built a national QR standard and then connected it outward, which makes the answer to whether you can pay by phone depend entirely on which phone you arrived with. That is an unusual situation and worth checking before you land.
LankaQR, and who can use it
LankaQR was established by a 2018 Central Bank circular as the national EMV QR code standard. Registered merchants reached 473,214 at the end of March 2026, up 9.9 percent year on year. Transactions in that quarter were 258,000 with a value of Rs 1,097 million.
The transaction range is Rs 1 minimum to Rs 500,000 maximum, the ceiling having been raised from Rs 200,000 with effect from 1 January 2025. Merchant discount rates are capped at zero up to Rs 5,000 and 1 percent above that for domestic apps, or 1.8 percent for apps linked to international providers.
For a visitor the key sentence is the Central Bank's own: LankaQR is enabled to accept payments from tourists whose mobile payment applications are connected to UnionPay International, the Unified Payments Interface, Alipay+ and WeChat. Those connections were made in March 2023, February 2024, March 2025 and March 2026 respectively.
Those tourist-facing transactions grew 48.5 percent by volume and 49.7 percent by value against the same quarter in 2025, so the channel is being used rather than merely announced. Our guide to foreign and local pricing covers that separately.
Cards, and what the numbers actually say
The Central Bank's first-quarter 2026 figures give 20,866,421 debit cards in use, up 7.0 percent, and 2,232,339 credit cards, up 8.5 percent. Point-of-sale terminals numbered 144,046, up 4.3 percent, handling 132 million transactions worth Rs 615 billion in the quarter.
Penetration for 2025 works out at 6.3 terminals per thousand inhabitants and 0.16 ATM terminals per thousand. And ATMs are going the other way: 3,361 machines, down 8.0 percent year on year, alongside 3,475 cash recycling machines.
Fees, and what could not be established
No Central Bank rule prohibiting or permitting a merchant surcharge on card payments could be found, so this guide makes no general claim about it. The 2013 payment cards regulations contain no surcharge provision.
Two adjacent facts are verified. The Central Bank's own credit card FAQ states that cards may be used at fuel stations but that some banks or finance companies may charge a commission, typically around 1 percent. And the 2023 financial consumer protection regulations list among unfair practices the imposing of excessive fees compared to the cost involved, and the imposing of fees without prior written notice.
On ATMs, the cap that exists covers domestic transactions through the common ATM switch: a maximum of Rs 30.00 per cash withdrawal charged to the customer for cards outside the national card scheme, or Rs 15.00 within it. That does not apply to foreign-issued cards, and the fee a Sri Lankan ATM charges a foreign card is not published anywhere this research could reach.
What is required is disclosure. The consumer protection regulations oblige every financial service provider to publish fees, commissions and charges with effective dates on its website and to display the same prominently at its places of business. There is a companion piece on bus and train fares.
Cash you may carry
Two separate rules apply, and they differ in kind. On foreign currency, the Department of Foreign Exchange states that travellers may carry any amount, but a declaration to Sri Lanka Customs is required if the amount exceeds USD 15,000 or equivalent, or if an arriving person intends to take back foreign currency notes exceeding USD 10,000.
On rupees, the limit is absolute rather than declarable: persons in or resident in Sri Lanka may take out of or bring into the country Sri Lanka currency up to Rs 20,000.
Non-residents may retain any amount of foreign currency in possession if it was acquired outside Sri Lanka or from a foreign exchange account with an authorised dealer. The tourist baggage allowance covers personal effects, two regular bottles of wine and 1.5 litres of spirits, a quarter litre of toilet water and a small quantity of perfume, and souvenirs not exceeding USD 250 non-commercial.
Notes, and the inflation backdrop
The current eleventh note series, issued in 2010 on the theme of development, prosperity and Sri Lankan dancers, comprises Rs 20, 50, 100, 500, 1,000 and 5,000. The Central Bank is sole issuing authority under the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Act No. 16 of 2023.
For context on what those notes buy, the Colombo Consumer Price Index stood at 208.8 in August 2026 with year-on-year inflation of 8.0 percent, up from 7.3 percent in July. Food inflation ran at 8.5 percent, transport at 16.7 percent and restaurants and hotels at 11.1 percent.
The wider adoption picture: per capita LankaQR value rose from Rs 86.7 in 2021 to Rs 220.5 in 2025, while currency in circulation per capita rose from Rs 45,365 to Rs 72,113 over the same period. Both are growing, which is the same pattern seen elsewhere in the region. The adjacent question of how Sri Lanka differs from India is treated separately.
What this guide does not cover
Exchange rates and where to change money are outside scope. The fee a Sri Lankan ATM charges a foreign card is not stated, because no official source publishes it and it is set by individual banks. No rule on card surcharging is asserted. No Central Bank requirement that non-residents pay hotels or tickets in foreign currency could be found, so none is described. The LankaQR scheme's own website was unreachable, so all figures come from the Central Bank bulletin instead. Whether a specific merchant accepts a given wallet is not something any published figure can tell you.