Sri Lanka’s budget for 2027 will be presented to Parliament on Thursday afternoon, opening a debate scheduled to run for 26 sitting days and conclude with a final vote on 14 December.

Parliament is due to meet at 1.30 p.m. on Thursday, 12 November, when President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in his capacity as Minister of Finance, will move the second reading of the Appropriation Bill for 2027 — the stage conventionally known as the budget speech. The Parliament Communications Department announced the arrangements, Hiru News reported on Wednesday.

The timetable

The debate is divided into two stages across 26 days, from 13 November to 14 December.

On debate days the House will follow a fixed order of business. Time from 9.30 to 10.00 a.m. is reserved for matters under Standing Orders; 10.00 to 10.30 a.m. for five questions requiring oral answers; and 10.30 to 11.00 a.m. for a question under Standing Order 27(2). The budget debate itself runs from 11.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. On every day except the two voting days — 20 November and 14 December — a further half hour from 6.00 to 6.30 p.m. is set aside for an adjournment-time motion.

The Appropriation Bill for 2027 was presented for its first reading on 7 October.

Context: a schedule set six weeks ago

Thursday’s date is not new. This desk reported in July that the 2027 budget speech was scheduled for 12 November, and the detailed debate calendar was settled earlier still. The Committee on Parliamentary Business, chaired by Speaker Dr. Jagath Wickramaratne, fixed the full timetable — the 12 November speech, the 13–20 November second reading, the 20 November vote, the 21 November–14 December committee stage and the 14 December third reading — in a decision published by Parliament on 30 September 2026. Every element of that official schedule matches what the Communications Department set out on Wednesday.

What Wednesday’s filing adds is the sitting time for Thursday and the daily order of business during the debate, neither of which the earlier announcements carried.

The Committee on Public Finance approved the Appropriation Bill on 29 October. The President has signalled further tax cuts in the 2027 budget.

Not reported

The filing gives no indication of the budget’s contents — no revenue or expenditure totals, no deficit target, and nothing on the tax measures the President has trailed. It does not say whether the bill has been amended since the first reading, name the speakers scheduled for the opening day of debate, or state which ministries’ votes fall on which committee-stage days. Nothing addresses whether the timetable leaves room for the holidays falling within the debate period.

On sourcing: this report rests on a single fresh verified source, Hiru News. Searches of the Daily Mirror, NewsFirst, EconomyNext, Daily FT, Island and Daily News returned their earlier October filings on the same schedule rather than a Wednesday report. The official Parliament notice cited above independently confirms the entire timetable, but it was published on 30 September and so falls outside this desk’s source-freshness window; it is cited here as the primary record with its date stated.