The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is visiting Sri Lanka again. They are heading for another round of reviews, negotiations and post-disaster reassessments. On March 19, 2026, IMF Communications Director Julie Kozack said an IMF team would visit Sri Lanka from March 26 through April 9 to discuss economic policies and aim to complete a combined fifth and sixth review under the country’s Extended Fund Facility programme.
The planned mission comes at a delicate moment for Sri Lanka’s recovery. The IMF said the economy grew by 5 per cent in 2025, inflation was about 1.6 per cent in February 2026, debt restructuring was nearly complete, and gross international reserves had risen significantly, even as the country remained exposed to risks from the Middle East conflict through trade, remittances and tourism. That makes the upcoming talks more than a routine review, as it will be a test of Sri Lankan perseverance and macroeconomic stability.
The road to this visit has been shaped by repeated IMF engagements over the past year. In January 2026, an IMF team led by Evan Papageorgiou visited Colombo from January 22 to 28 to assess the impact of Cyclone Ditwah, focusing on infrastructure damage, livelihoods, the fiscal response, monetary policy implications and financial sector stability. At the end of that mission, the IMF said it would return at the earliest possible juncture to resume discussions on economic policies for the next review under the Extended Fund Facility.
Before that, the IMF’s engagement centred on the regular reform programme. In July 2025, an IMF mission visited Colombo from July 21 to 25 to discuss macroeconomic developments and progress under the reform agenda. The IMF reported that real GDP grew 4.8 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025, headline inflation was negative 1.1 per cent in the second quarter, and gross international reserves stood at US$6.0 billion at end of June. Earlier, in April 2025, another staff team visited from April 3 to 11 for discussions on the fourth review. They described the 5 per cent rebound in 2024 growth as impressive while warning that global uncertainty required more time to assess the implications of an external shock.
That April mission led to a staff-level agreement on the fourth review announced on April 24, 2025. The IMF saying Sri Lanka would gain access to about US$344 million once the Executive Board approved the review. The Board later completed the fourth review on July 1, 2025, allowing Sri Lanka to draw US$315 million and bringing total disbursements to about US$1.75 billion.
The current phase builds on earlier milestones as well. In November 2024, the IMF reached staff-level agreement on the third review, saying the economy had expanded by an average of 4 per cent year-on-year in the four quarters ending June 2024 and that gross official reserves had risen to $6.4 billion at end-October 2024.
The broader programme itself began when the IMF approved Sri Lanka’s 48-month Extended Fund Facility on March 20, 2023, for about $3 billion, framing the series of visits that have since become central to the island’s effort to turn crisis management into a durable recovery.