Sri Lanka, July 14 -- Sri Lanka has lost more than Rs. 25 billion in potential tax revenue since 2025 due to cigarette taxes remaining below the benchmark recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), according to Verite Research.

The policy think tank revealed that the Government lost over Rs. 8 billion in potential revenue during the first six months of 2026 alone.

The findings were released alongside the launch of the Cigarette Tax Leakage Tracker, a real-time online dashboard developed by Verite Research to monitor fiscal losses resulting from cigarette taxation. The tracker provides minute-by-minute estimates of the revenue forgone and is available on PublicFinance.LK, the organisation's public finance analysis platform.

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