The Sri Lanka ETA, without the scam sites
What the electronic travel authorisation costs, where the official site is, and how to avoid the lookalike domains that charge three times the price.
Most nationalities need an Electronic Travel Authorisation to enter Sri Lanka. It is straightforward. The problem is that search results for it are full of commercial lookalike sites.
The official route
The government portal is eta.gov.lk. Anything else is a reseller. Resellers are not illegal and some are competent, but they charge a service fee on top of the government fee, and a few of them are outright scams that collect your passport details and issue nothing.
Check the domain before you type a passport number into anything.
What to have ready
- Passport valid for at least six months beyond your arrival date
- A return or onward ticket
- An address for your first night — a hotel booking is fine
- A card for the fee
Approval usually comes back within 24 hours, often within minutes. Print it or keep a screenshot; immigration occasionally asks and airport wifi is not something to rely on.
Things worth knowing
Fees and eligibility change with some frequency, and a few nationalities have had fee waivers applied and withdrawn over recent years. Check eta.gov.lk for the current figure rather than trusting any article, including this one.
If you are transiting and never leaving the airport, you do not need one. If you want to leave the airport during a long layover — and if your layover is over about eight hours, you should — you do.
Bring your first-night address with you. If you are travelling with us, that is the guesthouse on day one of your itinerary, and we will send it to you in writing before you fly.
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