Sri Lanka’s Department of Census and Statistics has postponed the 2025 Household Income and Expenditure Survey report until December 2026, citing data-cleaning challenges and staff shortages, leaving policymakers without updated measures of poverty and living standards four years after the island’s sovereign default.

Sri Lanka’s Parliament has confirmed a two-month delay in the release of the country’s most important post-crisis socio-economic survey, raising fresh questions about the reliability of official data used to design welfare programmes and the national budget.

The Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) for 2025, the first comprehensive household-level assessment conducted since the 2019 round and the devastating 2022 economic collapse, was originally scheduled for this money. Officials from the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) told the Committee on Public Finance that complexities in data cleaning, delays in computerisation, cadre vacancies and competing work on the Economic Survey have pushed publication to December 2026.

The survey covered 25,000 households across the island over a full 12-month period. Data cleaning, verification and analysis remain under way. Parliament emphasised the need for timely publication so that changes in economic and social conditions can be identified accurately, and called for an updated consumer basket to calculate the poverty line that better reflects contemporary living costs.

Why the Delay Matters

For donors and investors tracking Sri Lanka’s recovery under its International Monetary Fund programme, the HIES is more than a technical report. It is the primary source for measuring poverty, income distribution, household expenditure patterns and the effectiveness of social safety nets such as the Aswesuma welfare scheme. Without it, claims about the depth and breadth of recovery rest on incomplete or outdated foundations.

The last full HIES dates from 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent debt crisis that triggered shortages of fuel, medicine and food, soaring inflation and a sharp rise in poverty. Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa has repeatedly criticised the government for relying on 2016-2019 figures in recent socio-economic publications while using more recent data for macroeconomic indicators. He has argued that this selective approach risks painting an overly optimistic picture ahead of the November 2026 budget.

Data Gaps and Welfare Targeting Challenges

The absence of updated household data has practical consequences. Sri Lanka continues to struggle with inclusion and exclusion errors in social assistance programmes. Legacy systems based on outdated administrative registries and self-reporting have allowed non-poor households to receive benefits while vulnerable agrarian and informal-sector families remain excluded. Attempts to rationalise energy and fuel subsidies during external shocks have been hampered by the lack of a unified, real-time household data architecture.

Parliament’s discussion highlighted the need for welfare programmes such as Sri Lanka’s Aswesuma to rest on data that accurately reflect current income and expenditure levels. World Bank assessments released in recent months have underscored the same concern. While the economy has returned to pre-crisis output levels and recorded consecutive quarters of growth, household recovery has lagged. Child stunting rates rose from 7.4 per cent in 2021 to 10.1 per cent in 2025, and poverty measured at the $4.20-a-day lower-middle-income line stood at an estimated 16.9 per cent in 2025 – down from a crisis peak but still well above the 11.5 per cent recorded in 2019.

A Boston Consulting Group study prepared with the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce further illustrated the uneven nature of recovery. Between 2020 and 2026, average monthly household income rose in nominal terms, yet roughly 400,000 households slipped out of the middle-income “Emerging” segment into lower categories. Real purchasing power has not fully recovered for large sections of the population.

Structural Weaknesses in Statistical System

The delay is not an isolated incident. Sri Lanka’s statistical system has long faced resource constraints, methodological debates and capacity gaps. The DCS operates under the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development. Officials have pointed to cadre vacancies and the simultaneous demands of multiple surveys as contributing factors. Similar challenges have affected agricultural production forecasts and other official statistics in the past, occasionally leading to policy missteps on imports and price controls.

Independent analysts and opposition voices have called for greater professional independence of the statistics agency, modern legal frameworks to replace the 1957 Statistics Ordinance, and investment in digital infrastructure that would allow more frequent and reliable data collection. The current arrangement, critics argue, leaves fiscal allocations exposed to administrative leakages and reduces the effectiveness of safety nets during macroeconomic shocks.

Broader Recovery Context and Remaining Risks

Sri Lanka’s macroeconomic stabilisation has been notable. Real GDP growth reached approximately 5 per cent in both 2024 and 2025. Reserves have been rebuilt, debt restructuring is largely complete, and the country regained upper-middle-income status. Worker remittances continue to provide a crucial buffer. Yet external risks remain elevated, including volatility in global energy markets linked to Middle East tensions and the potential impact of a strengthening El Niño on agriculture and hydropower.

In this environment, timely and credible socio-economic data become even more important. International partners, including the World Bank and IMF, have repeatedly stressed the need for accurate targeting of social spending and evidence-based policy. Without the HIES results, the November budget and ongoing welfare reforms will continue to draw on imperfect information.

Looking Ahead to December

Officials have assured Parliament that work on the survey is progressing and that results will be published by December 2026. The committee underscored the importance of releasing findings promptly so that policymakers can respond to shifts in living standards with greater precision. Updating the poverty-line consumer basket was also flagged as a priority.

For ordinary Sri Lankans still navigating high living costs and incomplete recovery of real incomes, the wait for reliable data is more than a bureaucratic delay. It determines who receives support, how resources are allocated, and whether the hard-won macroeconomic gains translate into measurable improvements in household welfare.