What are the Maternity Benefits (including leave entitlements) in Sri Lanka?

This article provides an overview of the saliant legal provisions pertaining to maternity benefits in Sri Lanka.

1. What are the laws applicable to maternity benefits in Sri Lanka?

Maternity benefits for female workers in Sri Lanka are collectively governed by the following statues:

• The Shop and Office Employees (Regulation of Employment and Remuneration) Act, No. 19 of 1954 (as amended)(“SOEA”)
• The Maternity Benefits Ordinance.
  
  

2. Maternity Benefits Under the Shop and Office Employees Act (SOEA)

In terms of the SOEA, female employees in shops and offices are entitled to paid maternity leave.

Birth of a live child –

A female employee is entitled to 84 working days of paid maternity leave. This may be taken 14 days before giving birth to the baby and 70 days after the birth.

Weekly holidays, public holidays (including poya days), statutory holidays and any other holiday or leave to which she is entitled under SOEA are excluded when calculating her maternity leave period.

Therefore, the total leave period can potentially extend beyond 84 days.

Where the confinement does not result in a live baby –

In the case of a still born baby, the mother is entitled to 42 days of paid maternity leave. She would be entitled to 14 days prior to confinement, and 28 days after confinement.

A female worker cannot be given employment at any time during the period of four weeks immediately following her confinement.

It should be noted that maternity leave operates in addition to any other annual, casual, statutory leave and Poya days, weekly holidays and any other holiday to which the employee is otherwise entitled to under any other law or regulation.

3. Notice Requirements –

Employees are generally expected to notify employers of the expected date of birth and the intended commencement of maternity leave.

Following the birth, the employee may also be required to inform the employer of the actual date of delivery and the number of children she has.

There is maternity leave application process for employers prescribed by Law. Under the SOEA, the female employee must provide written notice of her expected confinement to her employer within fourteen days from the date of such notice. Under the Maternity Benefits Ordinance, the female employee is required to give such notice of her expected confinement within a month. The notice must specify the number of children the employee has as of the expected date of confinement. This is necessary to determine the duration of maternity leave entitlement.

Nevertheless, it is common practice for employers to request for the following documents, when processing maternity leave applications, including calculating salary entitlements.

• medical certificates,
• hospital documentation,
• confirmation from a registered medical practitioner, or
• proof of confinement
  
  

Employers should ensure that internal HR policies clearly set out the documentation required for maternity leave applications.

4. Salary and Payment Obligations –

SOEA –

Female employees who fall within the SOEA are entitled to their full normal remuneration throughout the applicable maternity leave period The employee simply continues to draw her usual wages as if present at work.

Under the Maternity Benefits Ordinance –

6/7th of the six-sevenths of the wages must be paid to the worker.

The mount of maternity benefit for the period up to and including the day of birth shall be paid by the employer to the woman within forty-eight hours of the production of such proof of birth.

First post-birth instalment must be paid at the end of the second week after the birth.

Second post-confinement instalment must be paid at the end of the fourth week after the birth.

The employer’s payment obligation is not conditional on having received formal notice. That is a point frequently misunderstood in practice.

7. Protection Against Dismissal and Adverse Treatment

An employer cannot terminate a female worker’s employment ‘by reason only’ of her pregnancy, her confinement, or any illness consequent to pregnancy and/or confinement.

Sri Lankan labour authorities and employment tribunals treat maternity-connected terminations as a category attracting heightened scrutiny. Where the timing alone creates a visible link, notice issued during an authorised leave period, or immediately after a pregnancy is disclosed, employers frequently struggle to demonstrate that the decision was genuinely independent of the employee’s condition. The burden of proof shifts toward the employer in those situations.

Adverse action that falls short of outright termination, including demotion, a sudden restructuring of responsibilities, or commencing a disciplinary process during maternity leave, carries equivalent risk.

8. Maternity Leave During Probation

The Maternity Benefits Ordinance does not carve out probationary employees from its protections. Hence probationary female workers are entitled to Maternity benefits.

Employers in Sri Lanka often proceed on the assumption that the broad discretion associated with probation extends to pregnancy-related situations. That assumption is defensible in routine circumstances but becomes tricky once pregnancy enters the picture. In practice, proceed with caution where a probationary termination arises alongside or shortly after any pregnancy-related disclosure or leave request.

9. Nursing Intervals

A female worker nursing a child under one year of age is required to allow two nursing intervals within any nine-hour working period. These breaks are additional to any meal or rest interval provided under any other written law. Where a creche is provided by the employer the nursing interval will be 30 minutes. Where no creche is provided, the nursing interval is one hour.