Money & Practical

Sri Lanka ETA Visa 2026: Apply, Fees & Entry Rules

Pubudu Dissanayaka

September 13, 2026

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Last updated: 13 September 2026 | Written by Pubudu Dissanayaka, founder of CeylonFarer

Every traveller entering Sri Lanka needs an approved Sri Lanka ETA visa, and since 25 May 2026 it costs nothing for 40 nationalities, the United Kingdom and Germany among them. Everyone else pays US$50, or US$60 if you leave it until the airport. The idea is simple. The application itself is not, and the details that catch people out sit on four different government pages.

This guide follows the process in order: what to have ready, the five steps to apply for a Sri Lanka ETA visa, what your passport actually pays, how arrival at the airport differs, what a Sri Lanka visa extension costs past 30 days, and what an overstay really costs. Every figure comes from the Sri Lankan Department of Immigration and Emigration or the UK Foreign Office, checked on 13 September 2026. Where a government table is ambiguous we say so rather than guess.

• Free ETA passports – 40 nationalities, 30 days, double entry, no payment.
• Paid ETA passports – US$50 for a tourist ETA, US$20 for SAARC passports.
• On arrival – US$60 at the port of entry, and no route at all for four West African passports.
• Staying longer – extensions run to a maximum of 270 days from arrival, and cost from US$60.

What a Sri Lanka ETA visa is, and who needs one in 2026

A Sri Lanka ETA visa is an Electronic Travel Authorization issued online by the Department of Immigration and Emigration. It runs on a web system that started in January 2012, needs no passport copies, no photographs and no embassy appointment, and is not stamped or endorsed in your passport. What it does is pre-approve a short visit, so that the immigration officer at the airport issues a 30-day short visit visa when you land. A Sri Lanka ETA visa is therefore an approval to travel rather than a sticker in your passport.

The rule is blunt, and it comes from the department itself: all foreign nationals must hold an ETA before arrival. That includes the 40 nationalities that pay nothing for it. A free visa is still a visa, and turning up without one means buying the same permission at the counter for US$60 instead of US$50, or for free if your passport is on the free list.

These are the 40 nationalities that have received a free 30-day tourist ETA since 25 May 2026, in the order the department publishes them. The list matters more than the headline number, because whether your passport is on it decides whether the Sri Lanka ETA visa is a form you fill in or a form you fill in and pay US$50 for.

A second, smaller group is free under bilateral agreements: Singapore and Seychelles for 30 days, and Maldives for 90 days. Here the department contradicts itself slightly.

Its arrival alert says everyone, bilateral agreements included, still needs an ETA, while its older exempt list still describes those three nationalities as exempt for stays up to 30 days. If you hold one of those three passports, apply anyway and settle it with the mission. The fee is zero on every reading.

Before you apply for a Sri Lanka ETA visa: the six things to have ready

The Sri Lanka ETA visa application takes about fifteen minutes if everything is on the desk in front of you. It takes an evening if you are hunting for a passport number while a session times out. Gather these six things first.

• Your passport. It must have at least six months of validity left beyond your arrival date, and that is checked at the airport, not at application.
• The passport details exactly as printed – number, issue date, expiry date, nationality and the spelling of your name. The application cannot be edited after payment.
• An email address you actually read. The approval notice arrives by email, and it carries the reference number you need for a status check.
• A payment card if your nationality pays: American Express, Mastercard and Visa are the only cards accepted.
• Your intended arrival and departure dates. The ETA can be obtained before you book a ticket, so an estimate is enough.
• The address and telephone number of your first accommodation, which you will need for the arrival card and again if you extend.

One planning note before the steps. The 30 days of a Sri Lanka ETA visa start on the day you land, not the day the ETA is approved, and the clock only starts once. If you plan to move around a lot, read our guide to getting around Sri Lanka first, because transport is what usually decides how long a trip is worth. For a route that fits the visa window, start from the Sri Lanka itinerary that matches your days.

Step 1: open the real Sri Lanka ETA visa website, not a lookalike

The official Sri Lanka ETA visa application site is eta.gov.lk, run by the Department of Immigration and Emigration. Search results for a Sri Lanka ETA visa are crowded with agents who will fill in the same form for you and add a service fee on top of the government charge. Some are legitimate visa agencies. Others simply take your card details.

The department’s own instruction is unusually direct on this point, and it is worth reading twice:

When applying ETA by third parties payments are to be made through the arrangement made in website eta.gov.lk. Therefore, always ensure that the payments made by accessing the official ETA website and avoid making repayment at the port of entry to Sri Lanka.

Department of Immigration and Emigration, General Information on Visa

Two practical safeguards follow. Pay on the eta.gov.lk domain itself, and check the payment page accepts only American Express, Mastercard or Visa. If a site offers to arrange your Sri Lanka ETA visa for a fee, ask what the fee is for, because the form takes fifteen minutes.

• Official site: eta.gov.lk, and nothing with a hyphen or an extra word in front of it.
• Status checks on a Sri Lanka ETA visa application: the ETA call centre runs 24 hours a day on +94 71 99 67 888, and the status page asks for your reference number.
• No documents to upload: no photographs, no passport scans, no bank statements, no invitation letters.

Step 2: choose the right Sri Lanka ETA visa type and entry count

There are three types of Sri Lanka ETA visa, and picking the wrong one is the most common avoidable mistake. Tourist covers sightseeing, holidays, visiting friends and relatives, medical treatment, sporting and cultural events. Business covers meetings, conferences, workshops, short training under a month, and religious or symposium events. Transit covers passing through the country.

The double entry facility on a Sri Lanka ETA visa is the part people misread. It does not mean two separate 30-day visits. It means you may enter, leave and re-enter once inside a 30-day window that starts on your first arrival, and the remaining days of that window carry over to the second visit. Plan a side trip to the Maldives on day ten and you still have twenty days, not another thirty.

Who cannot use the online Sri Lanka ETA visa form

Three groups are pushed away from the online system. Anyone travelling for media or journalist work, political meetings and party events, or NGO and INGO activities needs prior approval from the relevant Sri Lankan authorities instead. Business travellers who want multiple entry must apply at a Sri Lankan overseas mission or the head office in Colombo, because the port of entry issues only double entry business visas and only against documentary proof.

Sri Lanka ETA visa applications for children and families

Children of any nationality under twelve are eligible for a free tourist ETA of up to 30 days, so a family of four from a paid country pays for two adults on arrival. Past 30 days the child switches to the standard extension fees for their nationality. Apply for each child separately on the Sri Lanka ETA visa form, using their own passport details, and keep the approval emails together.

Step 3: fill in the Sri Lanka ETA visa application, then re-read it

The Sri Lanka ETA visa form is short. You enter nationality, passport number and dates, name as printed, contact details, arrival date and purpose of visit, then confirm. The system issues an acknowledgement, and most applicants receive an approval notice by email within a few days. The application can be lodged before you book a flight, and the airline will not ask for it at check-in.

The one thing you cannot fix afterwards is a typing error. Once the details are confirmed and the payment is made, the transaction cannot be cancelled and the processing fee is neither refundable nor transferable. Read the number back twice before you submit the Sri Lanka ETA visa form, and check that the nationality field matches the passport rather than your country of residence.

• Name spelled exactly as the passport machine-readable zone spells it.
• Passport number, issue date and expiry date copied, not remembered.
• Arrival date that matches your best estimate, since the ETA is dated from approval and valid for six months.
• An email address that stays alive through the trip, because the approval notice is the only copy you get.

If you do spot an error after confirmation, contact the ETA call centre rather than submitting a second Sri Lanka ETA visa application. Two applications against one passport usually means two fees, and the second one does not override the first.

Step 4: pay the Sri Lanka ETA visa processing fee

Payment is where the Sri Lanka ETA visa stops being one price. What you pay depends on your nationality and on where you apply. The department publishes both variables, but on separate pages, so the answer is rarely in one place. The table below puts them together using the official ETA fee schedule and the Immigration Department’s own visa fee list, both checked on 13 September 2026.

Three details in that table decide real money. First, applying for a Sri Lanka ETA visa online is cheaper than applying at the airport, by US$10 for a SAARC passport and US$10 for everyone else. Second, the government processing fee is identical whether you apply yourself or through an agent, so any extra charge is the agent’s, not the state’s. Third, transit is free, but only with documentary proof of your onward journey, and only for two days.

Payments run through the government gateway and accept American Express, Mastercard and Visa. If your card is declined while you pay for a Sri Lanka ETA visa, the department’s own guidance is to use a Sri Lankan overseas mission or the head office rather than paying twice online.

Step 5: Sri Lanka ETA visa approval, referral and the printout

Most Sri Lanka ETA visa applications come back approved, by email, with a reference number. Save that email offline. A small share comes back as a referral, which means the application has been passed to the nearest Sri Lanka Overseas Mission for a decision, and that is where the timeline stops being predictable. Three weeks before departure is a sensible minimum, and six weeks is safer if your passport, travel history or purpose of visit is likely to prompt questions.

• Print it or screenshot it. Printing is not required and the airline does not check it, but a copy removes an argument at 3am when a system is slow.
• Check the status online with the reference number if the email has not arrived within a week.
• Call the 24-hour ETA call centre on +94 71 99 67 888 for a referral you do not understand.
• Do not apply twice. A second application on the same passport is a second fee, and it does not speed anything up.

At the airport, produce the passport and collect the 30-day short visit visa. The Sri Lanka ETA visa is not endorsed on the passport, which surprises people who expect a stamp. What matters at the counter is that the electronic authorisation exists, that the passport has six months of validity left, and that your first-night address is written down for the arrival form.

What the Sri Lanka visa cost is by nationality

The Sri Lanka visa cost falls into three bands, and the band matters more than the length of your trip for the first 30 days. Band one pays nothing: the 40 free-list nationalities plus Singapore, Maldives and Seychelles under bilateral agreements. Band two pays US$20 for a tourist ETA. Band three pays US$50.

• Free: the 40 nationalities on the list above, plus Singapore, Maldives and Seychelles.
• US$20: South Asian passports outside the free list, such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan.
• US$50: every other passport, including South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Morocco and Egypt.
• US$25 or US$60: the same nationalities again, if they leave the application until the airport.
• Free for children under 12 on a 30-day tourist ETA, whatever the passport.

Where the cost surprises people is after day 30. A free 30-day Sri Lanka ETA visa is not a cheap long stay: extending it costs US$100 for the first 60 days on a British, European, American, Canadian, Australian or Japanese passport, and US$60 on most other passports. We cover those bands in the extension section below, because a two-month trip on a free visa is not the budget trip it looks like.

Sri Lanka visa on arrival: when it is allowed

A Sri Lanka visa on arrival is still possible, at the port of entry, and it costs more than applying online. Expect US$25 with a South Asian passport and US$60 with any other passport, paid at the airport. The 40 free-list nationalities also get their Sri Lanka ETA visa free of charge at the counter, but they still need the authorisation issued, and doing that at 2am after a long flight is the least pleasant way to get it.

• Advantage: it exists, so a missed application is not a cancelled trip.
• Cost: US$10 more than applying online, per person.
• Risk: a queue after a long flight, and a counter that may want documentary proof of your onward travel and first-night address.
• Not for everyone: nationals of Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Ghana cannot use the arrival route and must apply through a Sri Lankan overseas mission or a sponsor.

One warning from the immigration department deserves repeating. If you have already paid for a Sri Lanka ETA visa online, do not pay again at the port of entry. The department explicitly asks travellers to avoid a repayment at the airport, and refunds are not part of the system: the processing fee is non-refundable and non-transferable on every page it appears.

Sri Lanka visa for UK citizens: the free 30 days

The Sri Lanka visa for UK citizens is one of the simplest in the world right now, and the UK Foreign Office confirms it. British citizens apply for an ETA online, pay nothing for the 30-day tourist permit, and can extend through the Sri Lankan immigration portal if they want to stay longer. The same page carries the conditions that are checked at the airport: a passport valid for at least six months beyond arrival, and a yellow fever vaccination certificate if you are arriving from a country with a transmission risk.

Two traps catch British travellers in particular, both created by the six-month validity of the authorisation itself. A fresh Sri Lanka ETA visa cannot be issued on the same passport until the existing one expires, so a second trip inside six months has to reuse the first authorisation. And a fresh ETA cannot be applied for from inside Sri Lanka at all, which makes the official extension route the only legal way to stay past 30 days.

There is also a cost many UK readers do not expect. Free entry is free only for the first 30 days. An extension into days 31 to 90 costs US$100 on a British passport, and the bands rise from there. For a full picture of what entry rules mean for a two or three-week trip, our best time to visit Sri Lanka guide covers the season side, and the UK Foreign Office entry requirements page is the source we check against its Sri Lankan counterpart.

Sri Lanka ETA visa for South Africans and other African passports

If you searched for a Sri Lanka ETA visa for South Africans, the short answer is that your passport pays. No African country is on the 40-country free list. A South African passport pays US$50 for a 30-day tourist ETA applied for online, or US$60 on arrival, and the extension bands below US$60 for days 31 to 90 rather than the US$100 a British or German passport pays. Seychelles is the exception on the continent, free for 30 days under its bilateral agreement.

Four West African passports have a longer route than the online form. Nationals of Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Ghana must apply for their Sri Lanka ETA visa through the nearest Sri Lanka Overseas Mission, or through a Sri Lankan sponsor, at the head office of the Department of Immigration and Emigration in Colombo. Budget extra weeks for that, and apply before booking flights.

African travellers planning an island trip will also want the practical side in place before the visa: the airport transfer guide covers the arrival side, and money and practical guides covers what to expect on the ground once the ETA is approved.

Sri Lanka visa extension: staying past 30 days

A Sri Lanka visa extension is applied for on arrival in the country, never before it, and it is the only route to a longer stay on the same passport. The Department of Immigration and Emigration extends a short visit in three consecutive steps: 30 days granted on entry, 60 days at the first extension, then 90 days for the second and the third. That adds up to a maximum of 270 days from the date you arrived.

An application goes either online through the Immigration Department’s e-Visa extension portal or in person at the head office in Battaramulla. In-person applicants must be present to submit and to collect, and the office takes tokens from 8.30am, closes the counters at 2pm, closes the payment counters at 3.30pm, and does not open at weekends or on public holidays.

• Passport with the entry visa and at least two months of validity beyond your intended departure.
• Return or onward air ticket.
• Address and telephone number of the place you are staying.
• A photograph and the completed extension application form.
• Extension fees for children under twelve too, if they are staying past 30 days.

The rule that quietly ends long stays is the passport one. Your intended departure date must fall at least two months before your passport expires. Travellers on a passport with eight months left cannot extend a Sri Lanka ETA visa to 270 days, no matter what they pay, and renewing a passport mid-trip is not a plan. Check the expiry date before you plan a slow six-month route.

Five rules that catch people out

These five are the rules we would put on the front of the application page if we ran it. Every one is published by the department, and every one has produced a stressful email at some point.

1. A free ETA is still an ETA. The 40 free-list nationalities must apply and be approved like everyone else. Arriving without one costs US$60 at the counter, or nothing if you can convince the officer, which is not a plan.
2. Six months, one passport. The authorisation is valid for six months, and a fresh ETA cannot be issued on the same passport until it expires. A second trip inside that window reuses the first one.
3. No fresh ETA from inside the country. Once you are in Sri Lanka, a new Sri Lanka ETA visa cannot be lodged on your passport, whether the current one is valid or already expired. Extending is the only legal route.
4. Extensions stop at 270 days, and the passport decides. Your departure has to be at least two months before the passport expires, whatever the fee bands say.
5. The airport is the expensive counter. US$60 against US$50 online, and nationals of Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Ghana cannot use the arrival route at all.

Behind those five sits one boring habit that solves most of them: apply at least three weeks before you fly, print the approval, and keep the email in a folder you can open without a data connection.

Overstaying a Sri Lanka ETA visa: what it actually costs

Overstays in Sri Lanka are priced on a sliding scale rather than a flat fine, and a short overstay is treated far more gently than a long one. The penalties below come from Gazette 2337/10 of 21 June 2023, published on the Immigration Department’s visa fees page, and they are charged in addition to the visa fee you owe.

The money is not the real risk. The UK Foreign Office warns that overstaying can lead to temporary detention, deportation at your own expense, a travel ban, or refusal of entry to Sri Lanka in future. On an island that most people want to revisit, that is the part worth remembering. If a flight is cancelled or a Sri Lanka ETA visa runs short, call the ETA call centre or visit the immigration head office in Battaramulla before the expiry date, not after it.

If your Sri Lanka ETA visa is not approved the same day

An application for a Sri Lanka ETA visa that is not approved automatically is referred to the nearest Sri Lanka Overseas Mission, where it is decided by a person rather than the system. A referral is not a refusal, but it removes any promise of a timeline, and that is why our advice is to apply early enough that a referral cannot threaten the trip.

• Check what was asked for. Referrals often wait on documentary proof of purpose, such as a business invitation, an event registration or an onward ticket.
• Contact the mission, not an agent. The mission holding your file is the only body that can decide it.
• Use the call centre on +94 71 99 67 888 if nothing moves within ten days.
• Do not book non-refundable flights on a referred application. Wait for the decision.

Cases that never go through the online system at all are the slowest: media and journalist work, meetings or conferences with political parties, and NGO or INGO activity need approval from the relevant Sri Lankan authorities before any Sri Lanka ETA visa is issued. Treat those as weeks, not days.

The 30-7-24 checklist before you fly

Three checkpoints, in the order they matter. We use the same list ourselves before any Sri Lanka trip, and it catches the two mistakes we see most: a passport that expires too soon and a Sri Lanka ETA visa nobody printed.

1. 30 days out: apply for the Sri Lanka ETA visa, after checking that the passport has six months of validity beyond arrival and that the name and number match it exactly.
2. 30 days out: write down the address and telephone number of your first night, for the arrival form and any later extension.
3. 7 days out: confirm the Sri Lanka ETA visa approval arrived, save it offline, and check the status online with the reference number if the email went missing.
4. 7 days out: if you plan to stay past 30 days, check your passport expiry against the two-month rule now rather than in week five.
5. 24 hours out: print the approval notice or screenshot it, and keep the passport in hand luggage rather than a checked bag.
6. 24 hours out: skim the destination essentials, starting with the transport guides in getting around Sri Lanka.

Frequently asked questions

Where these rules come from

Visa rules change quietly, so this page names its sources rather than asking you to trust it. The Sri Lanka ETA visa rules, the 40-country free list, the fee schedule, the extension steps and the ETA call centre number all come from the Department of Immigration and Emigration’s ETA service.

The extension fee bands and the overstay penalties come from the department’s visa fees page and Gazette 2337/10 of 21 June 2023. The passport validity rule, the transit window and the overstay consequences for British travellers come from the UK Foreign Office entry requirements page. Everything was checked on 13 September 2026.

What we could not verify, and what we left out

• The published extension chart lists the United States on its own row with two figures against three day bands, so no US extension figure appears here.
• The ETA service’s arrival alert and its older exempt list disagree about Singapore, Maldives and Seychelles. We flag the disagreement instead of picking a side.
• Fees are quoted in US dollars because that is how they are published. What your card is charged in your own currency depends on your bank.
• No figure on this page is copied from another travel blog. Where a number is not on an official page, it is not here.

We update this guide when the department changes a fee or a rule, and the date at the top of the page is the date of the last check. If you spot something that no longer matches the official pages, tell us through the contact form and we will re-verify it. More background on how we work is on the about page, and every other guide is listed in the CeylonFarer guides index.

Pubudu Dissanayaka is a Sri Lankan writer and the founder of CeylonFarer. He covers the island’s transport network, seasons, costs and paperwork from Sri Lanka, and he reviews every guide against the government sources it cites before publishing.

Where to go next

With the visa question settled, the next decisions are the season and the route. Check the best time to visit Sri Lanka for the month you have in mind, pick the trip length from the Sri Lanka itinerary guide, and read getting around Sri Lanka before you book anything that moves.