Immigration & Corporate Migration
Visa, residency, citizenship, and corporate-migration support, including disputes and status-related challenges.
II · Overview
How we approach migration.
Our immigration and corporate migration practice supports individuals and businesses navigating movement, residency, and status-related legal processes.
Most of this work runs through the Immigrants and Emigrants Act and the Department of Immigration and Emigration: visit and residence visas, employment visas for foreign staff, the Resident Guest Scheme, and residence entitlements attaching to investment. Citizenship questions arise alongside them — grant, resumption, and dual citizenship under the Citizenship Act — each with its own documentary threshold.
For businesses, the questions are usually sequencing ones. Whether a foreign principal needs a work visa or a residence visa, what a Board of Investment agreement or a Colombo Port City registration changes about staff mobility, and how long each step realistically takes, all bear on when an operation can actually begin.
Where a decision goes the wrong way, the remedy is administrative, not commercial. A refusal, cancellation or removal decision that is unlawful or procedurally unfair can be challenged by writ in the Court of Appeal, and those applications are decided on the record as it stood at the time. That is the case for documenting an application properly before it is refused.
The focus is on clear procedural guidance, careful documentation, and practical handling of matters with personal, family, or business consequences.
III · Index of Services
What we handle.
Visit, residence and employment visas
Visa extensions and status regularisation
Resident Guest Scheme applications
Work permits and employment approvals for foreign staff
Board of Investment and Port City residence entitlements
Corporate migration and staff relocation planning
Dual citizenship and resumption of citizenship
Citizenship by descent and registration
Permanent residence applications
Visa refusals, cancellations and appeals
Detention, removal and deportation matters
Writ applications against immigration decisions
IV · Representations
We have acted for those who require discretion.
Individuals
Families
Employers
Businesses relocating staff or principals
Foreign investors
Returning Sri Lankan citizens
V · Connected Writing
Insights, in context.
VI · Common Questions
Questions we are often asked.
- Can non-resident Sri Lankans handle these matters from abroad?
- Yes. Many immigration and related matters can be managed through a properly drawn power of attorney, so a client abroad need not be present in Sri Lanka for each step.
- Does the firm advise on dual citizenship?
- Yes. The chambers advises on the grant or resumption of Sri Lankan citizenship and on dual citizenship applications, including the documentation the Department of Immigration and Emigration requires.
- Can an immigration decision be challenged?
- Yes. Where a visa, residency, or status decision is unlawful or procedurally unfair, it may be open to review, including by writ in the Court of Appeal.
- What visa does a foreign employee need to work in Sri Lanka?
- Employment is generally carried out on a residence visa endorsed for that purpose rather than on a visit visa, and the endorsement usually depends on the employer's own standing — a Board of Investment agreement, a registered local entity, or a Port City registration each open different routes. Working on a visit visa is a common mistake, and an avoidable one.
- Does dual citizenship have to be applied for before renouncing?
- Sequence matters. Sri Lankan law provides for both the resumption of citizenship and the grant of dual citizenship, and which route applies depends on whether and how citizenship was lost. Establishing that first avoids an application being made under the wrong provision.
AW
VII · Engage Counsel
Discuss your matter.
Conversations with the Chambers are confidential. We respond within one working day.
