Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange earnings from tourism rose by 1.5 percent year-on-year in September 2026 to US$185.6 million, according to figures from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka citing data from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority.
Despite this growth in revenue, tourist arrivals for the month fell slightly by 0.3 percent. The overall trend in tourism revenue has been downward since October 2025, mainly due to a revision by the government-owned tourism authority of average daily spending per visitor and the duration of tourist stays.
Total earnings from tourism for the first nine months of 2026 stood at US$2,245.2
million, down 9.2 percent compared to US$2,472.9 million during the same period in 2025. Tourist arrivals in the January to September period also declined 1.8 percent year-on-year, continuing a subdued visitor growth trajectory.
In contrast, the full-year data for 2025 showed improvement, with total tourism revenue reaching US$3.22 billion, marking a 1.6 percent increase over the US$3.17 billion recorded in 2024. Foreign visitor arrivals increased by 15.1 percent in 2025, rising to 2,362,521 from 2,053,465 the previous year.
The tourism sector in Sri Lanka has faced significant setbacks since 2018, when it contributed close to 5 percent of the national
economy at its peak. Challenges have included the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and a prolonged economic crisis. Amid these difficulties, the government reduced its 2026 targets, lowering the tourist arrival goal from 3 million to 2.7 million and cutting the revenue objective from US$5 billion to US$4.2 billion.
In May 2026, the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority updated its methodology for calculating monthly tourism earnings estimates, applying the revisions retroactively from January. This change addressed how average spending and lengths of stay are measured, aiming to improve the accuracy and representativeness of reported figures.
