COUNTRY / INDICATOR
Sri Lanka Government Expense
Sri Lanka government expense: latest available value for 2023, historical series from 2016, ranking context and source documentation.
Series overview
GC.XPN.TOTL.GD.ZS| Year | Value | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 18,04 | 2,29 |
| 2022 | 15,74 | -1,72 |
| 2021 | 17,47 | -1,60 |
| 2020 | 19,07 | 3,14 |
| 2019 | 15,93 | 0,65 |
| 2018 | 15,28 | -0,05 |
| 2017 | 15,33 | -0,33 |
| 2016 | 15,66 | — |
Source methodology
World Development IndicatorsIndicator note: Expense is a decrease in net worth resulting from a transaction. This indicator is expressed as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which is the total income earned through the production of goods and services in an economic territory during an accounting period.
Source organization: Government Finance Statistics Yearbook and data files, International Monetary Fund (IMF); World Development Indicators, World Bank (WB); National Accounts data files, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Metadata fetched: 2026-08-01 01:31:09. Open original metadata response.
Country-specific interpretation
Automatically derived from the displayed seriesSri Lanka recorded 18,04 percent of GDP in 2023, the latest year available in this series.
Compared with 2022, the government expense increased by 2,29.
Across the latest five-year comparison window, the series shows an upward direction.
Across 8 observations from 2016 to 2023, the average was 16,57; the minimum was 15,28 in 2018 and the maximum was 19,07 in 2020.
Sri Lanka ranks 113 out of 151 countries with a current value in the portal ranking.
The latest value is below the available average for South Asia.
It is also below the available average for the Upper middle income group.
Ongoing fiscal expenditure intensity.