International courier from Bangalore to Sri Lanka. Free home pickup.
Collected from your Bengaluru door at any hour, packed and documented, and out through Kempegowda on the DTDC International network to Colombo. This is one of the shortest international air legs we run — 4–6 working days door-to-door on express, from ₹650 per kilogram before fuel surcharge and GST.
Five steps from Bengaluru to a numbered Colombo suburb.
Pickup, Bengaluru.
Free at 5 kg+, at any hour, right across the city — Jayanagar and Basavanagudi as readily as Whitefield and Bellandur. On this route the pickup is often from a hospital guest house or a service apartment rather than a home address, and we handle those the same way.
Pack & document.
Sender KYC, a contents declaration with a fair value, and a printed invoice with HS codes for anything commercial. Sri Lanka Customs reads declared values carefully and duty and VAT are commonly charged even on modest gift parcels, so an honest value here saves an argument at the far end.
BLR gateway.
Handover at the Bengaluru international facility, then the short hop out of Kempegowda. Bengaluru to Colombo is a short, well-served sector and Bengaluru flies it internationally without a domestic feeder leg first — an inland origin loses a day or two moving the parcel to a coastal gateway before this stage even begins.
Sri Lanka customs.
Clearance at Bandaranaike International, north of Colombo. Since the 2022 currency crisis the review has been more documentation-precise and clearance charges vary by assessment, so we cannot quote them in advance. Clean, honestly valued parcels still move through in 24–72 hours.
Doorstep delivery.
Colombo, Dehiwala, Negombo, Kandy, Galle, Jaffna, Batticaloa, Trincomalee. Colombo's suburbs are numbered rather than named on official addresses — Colombo 3 is Kollupitiya, Colombo 7 is Cinnamon Gardens — and giving us both the number and the name gets the rider there first time.
Starting rates. Real pricing depends on weight.
We bill the greater of actual and volumetric weight, add the international fuel surcharge current on your booking date, and GST sits on top of that. The short air leg is why express and economy sit closer together on this lane than on the long-haul routes — express is often worth the difference here in a way it is not to North America.
Starting per-kg rates
- Express (4–6 days, door)from ₹650 / kg
- Economy (6–10 days, door)from ₹450 / kg
- Min billable weight0.5 kg
- Pickup from BengaluruFree at 5 kg+
Volumetric formula: (L × W × H cm) ÷ 5000.
Worked example
A 3 kg parcel — say sealed filter coffee, a set of dry podis and a Kanjeevaram saree going to a family in Colombo 6:
- Express, 3 kg × ₹650≈ ₹1,950
- + fuel surcharge (~25%)≈ ₹490
- + GST 18%≈ ₹440
- Approx total, express≈ ₹2,880
Indicative only, and the surcharge moves. Sri Lankan duty and VAT at the receiving end are separate and payable there.
What you’ll need at pickup.
Sri Lanka is a short flight but not a light-touch customs regime, and it has become less so since 2022. Over-document rather than under-document; it costs you nothing at pickup and it is what keeps the parcel out of a query queue at Bandaranaike.
KYC of the sender
One photo ID for whoever's name is on the airway bill — Aadhaar, passport or driving licence. We take a photo of it at the door and it goes no further than DTDC's record. If you are a Sri Lankan national studying or being treated in Bengaluru, your passport is fine; you do not need an Indian document to send from here.
Invoice, and the receiver's NIC number
Commercial goods need a printed invoice with items, quantity, value and HS codes. Gifts need a written declaration with an honest value — and on this lane the value matters, because duty and VAT are assessed on it and the receiver pays. Add the consignee's Sri Lankan National Identity Card number to the booking; clearance moves faster with it.
Prescription, for medicines
A heavily used card on this route, because a great many Sri Lankan patients are treated in Bengaluru and go home on continuing medication. Original sealed strips, the prescription with the doctor's registration number, and the discharge summary. The National Medicines Regulatory Authority screens unregistered formulations and blocks injectables and controlled drugs entirely.
What Sri Lanka doesn’t let in.
Three things shape this list that do not shape its neighbours': a post-war security posture, an island biodiversity that is protected in earnest, and a legal seriousness about disrespect to Buddhism. Items shipped against it are seized at Bandaranaike and disposal is billed to the receiver.
Don’t even try
- E-cigarettes, vapes and their refills — the import and sale of vaping products is prohibited. This is the one Bengaluru senders get wrong most, because a vape is an ordinary object here and a seized one there.
- Novelty or decorative Buddha imagery — a Buddha face on a T-shirt, a tea light, a bar sign or a piece of kitsch décor is treated as an offence against religion, not as a souvenir. Genuine devotional items sent respectfully are a different matter and are fine.
- Drones and radio-transmitting equipment — these need civil aviation and defence clearance in advance. A drone in a courier parcel is held, and the receiver has to argue for it.
- Weapons, replicas and decorative edged items — strict, and the post-war security overlay means there is no discretion to appeal to.
- LTTE-glorifying or separatist material — flagged at customs, and the sender's details are recorded.
- Coral, shells, ivory, and endangered-species products — CITES enforcement here is real rather than nominal. This applies in both directions, so tell travelling relatives too.
- Narcotics and unprescribed pharmaceuticals; aerosols, liquids and lithium cells above 100 Wh — the standard list, enforced without exception.
Allowed with care
- Filter coffee powder, dry podis and masala — sealed, labelled, ingredients declared. Straightforward, and among the most-sent things on this lane. Wet chutney and coffee decoction are liquids and stay home.
- Silk sarees, veshtis and wedding wear — the Tamil-Hindu communities of the north and east buy heavily from south India and this is steady traffic. Declare a fair value per piece.
- Prescription medicines — sealed strips with paperwork attached, as above.
- Books in Tamil, Sinhala or English — declare title, quantity and value. Academic texts move freely.
- Hindu pooja items and devotional goods — welcomed, particularly to Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa. Declare them plainly.
- Electronics and hardware samples without radio modules — declare make, model and true value; keep the retail invoice inside the box.
- Sandalwood soap and powder — fine as manufactured goods; sandalwood oil is a liquid and is not.
Hospitals, universities, and a shared Tamil south.
This is the most culturally continuous of our international lanes. South India and Sri Lanka share language, kinship and food across a two-hour flight, and a lot of what goes in this direction is simply a family in one country provisioning a family in the other.
Patients and medical-travel families
Sri Lankans come to Bengaluru in real numbers for cardiac, oncology and transplant treatment, and the parcels run alongside the treatment — continuing medication in sealed strips, scan films, reports for the local consultant, and personal effects left behind at the guest house. Send the prescription and discharge summary in the box with the tablets, and tell us the follow-up date so we book to meet it.
Students, both directions
Sri Lankan students fill seats at Bengaluru's medical, engineering and management colleges, and the document traffic never stops: transcripts, migration certificates, attested mark sheets, provisional degrees, admission and visa paperwork. Light, urgent, cheap on this lane, and always worth express with a tracked airway bill.
Groceries and provisions to Colombo
Filter coffee powder, dry podis, idli and dosa mixes, sealed masala, tamarind and dry snacks. Sri Lankan cooking overlaps enough with Tamil Nadu and Karnataka that the tastes are shared, and specific brands are easier to buy in Bengaluru than in Colombo. Everything dry, everything sealed, ingredients printed.
Sarees, veshtis and wedding wear
A serious category, particularly to Jaffna, Batticaloa and the Colombo Tamil community. Kanjeevaram and Mysore silk, blouse pieces going for stitching, bridal sets sent well ahead of the date. Always express, always a fair declared value — a wedding parcel held over an under-declaration is the worst outcome on this route.
Tea, spice and the return leg
The traffic is genuinely two-way here. Ceylon tea, cinnamon and pepper come back from Colombo to Bengaluru buyers and small importers, and we book that direction on the same lane. Commercial return consignments need the Sri Lankan shipper's paperwork in order at their end; ask us and we will tell them what to prepare.
Product and hardware samples
Colombo has a real software and product-engineering sector, and Bengaluru companies working with it send dev kits, prototypes, packaging mockups and demo units across. Commercial invoice with HS codes, and check the radio-module and drone question before you pack — that is where these parcels come unstuck.
AWB on WhatsApp. Track on dtdc.in. POD when it lands.
The airway bill reaches you on WhatsApp the moment the parcel is booked into DTDC International, and you can follow it at dtdc.in. One calendar quirk on this route is worth knowing. Sri Lanka observes a Poya public holiday on every full moon — twelve or thirteen a year — and on those days customs and last-mile delivery both stop. Add Sinhala and Tamil New Year in April, when the country effectively closes for the better part of a week, and it explains most of the stalled scans people ring us about. Tell us if you have a date to hit and we will count backwards around them. POD comes to you within the hour of the signature.
Asked most often on this lane.
Colombo is a two-hour flight from Bengaluru. Why does express still take four to six days?
Because almost none of that time is flying. The air leg on this route is genuinely short — it is one of the quickest sectors we book anywhere — and if transit were purely a distance problem the parcel would land the next morning. What fills the four to six days is everything either side of the flight: consolidation and manifesting at the Bengaluru gateway, the outbound customs formality here, then clearance at Bandaranaike, which since 2022 has been more documentation-precise and can take anywhere from a day to three, and finally the domestic last mile in Sri Lanka. Where Bengaluru genuinely helps is at the front — the parcel flies international from here rather than being trucked to Mumbai or Chennai first, which is a day or two an inland origin simply loses. What we will not claim is that the short hop makes the whole journey short. It makes the flying short.
My relative in Colombo was asked to pay duty on a gift parcel. Was something wrong with it?
Probably not. Sri Lanka assesses duty and value-added tax on incoming parcels at a fairly low threshold, and it does so on gifts as well as commercial goods — this is normal on this lane and it is not a sign that anything was mis-declared. The charge is calculated on the declared value and is paid by the receiver before release. Since the 2022 currency crisis the assessment has been applied more consistently and the amounts vary with the day's exchange rate, which is why we do not quote them in advance; anyone who does is guessing. The practical advice is unglamorous: declare a fair value rather than a low one, because a value that looks implausible triggers a revaluation that lands higher than honesty would have, and tell your relative to expect a payment so the courier at their door is not a surprise.
I want to send a decorative Buddha statue to a friend in Kandy. Is that all right?
It depends entirely on what the object is, and it is worth taking seriously rather than treating as an overcautious rule. Sri Lanka treats disrespect to Buddhism as a legal matter, and what falls foul of it is novelty use of the imagery — a Buddha head as a garden ornament, a face printed on a shirt or a bag, a tea light or a bar decoration. Tourists have been detained over exactly this. A genuine devotional statue or image, properly made and sent respectfully to someone who will treat it as such, is a different thing and is fine; declare it plainly as a religious statue with its material and value. If you are unsure which side of that line your piece sits on, send us a photograph on WhatsApp before you pack it. We would much rather have that conversation than put a friend in Kandy in the position of collecting a seized parcel.
Tell us the rough weight and the destination town.
Other countries from Bangalore
A real person at your Bengaluru door, at any hour.
WhatsApp us the pickup address and roughly what is going, or call and we will work it out with you. The HSR Layout desk answers through the night, and hospital-guest-house collections are routine on this route.