A Sri Lankan ETA, explained properly
Sri Lanka is the cheapest trip on this site to get into and the one where the published information has changed most often. In the last two years it has run an ETA, replaced it with an e-visa on a new domain, scrapped that domain, announced a mandatory ETA, revoked that announcement two weeks later, and then made the ETA free for forty nationalities.
Pakistan is on that list of forty. Here is where things actually stand today.
The free ETA
The Department of Immigration & Emigration's Special Notice, effective 25 May 2026, states that nationals of 40 listed countries "are eligible to obtain a tourist visa (ETA) free of charge valid for 30 days", "with double-entry facility permitted from the date of first arrival."
Pakistan is number 27 on that list. It applies to diplomatic, official, service and ordinary passports alike. No end date is published.
Before this, a Pakistani applicant paid the SAARC rate of USD 20 online or USD 25 on arrival. Sri Lanka's own fee pages have not been updated and still show Pakistan in that fee band. The dated Special Notice is the later instrument and it governs. If someone quotes you USD 20 for a Sri Lankan ETA, they are reading a page Sri Lanka has not caught up with.
The two traps
One: free does not mean on arrival
The same Special Notice that makes the ETA free also says: "all foreign nationals, including nationals of the above-mentioned 40 countries… are required to obtain an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) prior to their arrival in Sri Lanka."
Sri Lanka's fee tables still carry an "on arrival at port of entry" column, and Pakistani travellers read that and assume they can sort it out at Colombo. They cannot. The Department also states separately that "restricted nationals will not be able to apply tourist visa on arrival at the port of entry", and an official Sri Lankan mission notice has previously named Pakistan among the nationalities excluded from the on-arrival facility.
Get the ETA online before you leave Pakistan. It is free and it takes minutes.
Two: the ETA is not needed to board, but it is needed to enter
Sri Lanka's own FAQ says "ETA is not a pre-condition to board a flight/vessel to Sri Lanka." That sentence has stranded people. It means the airline will happily carry you without one — and Sri Lankan immigration will then refuse you.
If an application is not approved, a referral notice is issued and you must contact a Sri Lankan mission. A referral at Colombo airport means refused entry and being sent back to where you came from, with additional fees.
How to apply
The only official site is eta.gov.lk.
One important correction: in April 2024 Sri Lanka moved online visas to a new portal at srilankaevisa.lk. An official Sri Lankan mission notice confirms that portal was deactivated on 2 August 2024 and the system reverted to eta.gov.lk. At least one Sri Lankan mission page still links to the dead domain. Do not use it.
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Check the passport
Valid for at least six months from your date of arrival in Sri Lanka.
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Apply on eta.gov.lk
The form asks for data only: name, date of birth, nationality, occupation, passport details, intended arrival date, port of departure, flight number and airline. Nothing is uploaded.
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Check every character before you submit
The Department operates a no-refund, no-correction policy. A mistake found later means a new application. And the passport you enter online must be the passport you present on arrival — if the details do not match, or you travel on a different document, the visa fee becomes payable again at the airport.
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Carry the approval notice
Print it or keep it on your phone. ETA holders are issued a 30-day short visit visa at the port of entry.
Sri Lanka publishes no processing time for an online ETA. The only official figure is for applications made through a Sri Lankan mission, which are issued within three business days. In practice apply a few days ahead rather than the night before.
Documents
This is the shortest documents section on the whole site, because the Department puts it plainly:
"No passport copies, documents or photographs are required." And: "There is no requirement to endorse the ETA on the passport."
No photograph, no bank statement, no hotel booking, no employment letter. Sri Lanka also publishes no minimum bank balance and no minimum funds figure — only the qualitative requirement that you have "adequate funds for your maintenance whilst in Sri Lanka" and for your return passage.
And there is no separate document list for salaried, self-employed, retired or student applicants. We checked the Department, the ETA portal, the application form, the High Commission in Islamabad and the Consulate General in Karachi. No such breakdown exists anywhere. Any "Sri Lanka visa checklist" with employment categories on it was written by an agency, not by Sri Lanka.
What you do need to hold, and be able to show on arrival: a passport valid six months from arrival, a confirmed return ticket, sufficient funds, and a copy of the ETA approval. Travel insurance is not required.
Stay, entries and validity
- Stay: 30 days, from the date of first arrival.
- Entries: double. The second entry uses the balance of the same 30 days — it does not restart the clock.
- Validity from issue: here Sri Lanka's own two pages disagree. One says you may enter within three months of issue; the FAQ on the same site says the ETA is valid for six months. We are not going to pick one. Apply shortly before you travel and go by the dates on your own approval notice.
One live ETA per passport: you cannot obtain a new one until the current one expires, and you cannot apply for a fresh ETA while you are inside Sri Lanka.
Extending your stay
Possible, in three stages counted from your arrival date: 31 to 90 days, 91 to 180 days, and 181 to 270 days. The Special Notice confirms that free-visa holders who want to stay beyond 30 days "may apply for a visa extension upon payment of the applicable visa fee."
The published fee table shows USD 60 for 31 to 90 days, USD 150 for 91 to 180 days and USD 200 for 181 to 270 days for countries not otherwise named. Pakistan is not separately listed, so that is where it falls — but that is our reading of the table rather than something Sri Lanka states about Pakistan, so confirm the amount on the portal before you pay.
Extensions are applied for online at the Department's e-services, or in person at its head office in Battaramulla, not Colombo. If you apply in person you must attend yourself and collect the visa yourself. The documents for an extension are a return air ticket, the address and phone number of where you are staying, the application with a photograph, and your passport.
Extending cancels your double entry. The double-entry facility is automatically cancelled if you request or obtain an extension during the first 30 days, and a paid extension is itself cancelled if you leave during the extended period. Also note: for an extension, your stay must end at least two months before your passport expires.
Overstaying
Sri Lanka publishes this clearly, under a 2023 gazette:
| Situation | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Departing within 7 days of expiry | Pay the applicable visa fee at the port — no penalty |
| Overstay of 8 to 14 days | USD 250 penalty plus the visa fee |
| Overstay of more than 14 days | USD 500 penalty plus the visa fee |
And a warning worth repeating: "attempting to submit an application online will not be considered to avoid the fines imposed due to visa expiration." You cannot fix an overstay by applying for something from your hotel.
The official site, and the ones charging you for free
Now that the ETA is free for Pakistanis, every rupee a third-party site charges is pure markup on a free government service. Sri Lanka's own warnings, from the Department and from its missions:
- "always ensure that the payments made by accessing to official ETA website"
- Apply "ONLY through the official website (www.eta.gov.lk)", and the mission "is not responsible for any payments made to third-party sites or agencies"
- "Any payments made to other websites or agencies are not valid to process the ETA."
We will say the obvious thing: there is nothing to sell you here. We will file it with you at no charge as part of arranging the trip, and if you would rather do it yourself, do — it takes ten minutes.
How we help
On a free visa, our value is not the application. It is making sure you know it must be done before you fly, that the passport you entered is the one you carry, and that your return ticket and funds will stand up at the counter.
Beyond that it is the trip itself — flights to Colombo, the Kandy and south-coast legs, and the timing if you are thinking of staying past 30 days, because that decision costs USD 60 and cancels your second entry. Breeze Travels & Tours has worked on visa files from Davis Road, Garhi Shahu, since 2003, and flights are issued by the same desk on our own IATA accreditation — see air ticketing.