Angolan passport holders need an approved ETA before boarding for Colombo. It gives 30 days and two entries, and the whole application is done online from Luanda, Benguela or Lubango without visiting any embassy.
30 days
Stay on a tourist ETA
Double
Entries permitted
6 months
Passport validity needed
3 options
Tourist, Business, Transit
100% online
No embassy visit
Overview
Sri Lanka is not yet a mainstream holiday choice in Angola, but it sits surprisingly close to a route Angolans already know well. Thousands of traders, families and business travellers fly Luanda to Dubai every year, and Colombo is only a short onward flight from there. Beaches, tea estates and ancient Buddhist cities can be added to a Gulf trip.
What cannot be skipped is the paperwork. Sri Lanka asks every Angolan visitor to hold an Electronic Travel Authorisation, the document most people in Luanda will simply call a Sri Lanka visa or e-visa. It is requested online, tied to your passport number, and checked by the airline before you are allowed to board the Colombo leg.
This page is written for people travelling on an Angolan passaporte. It covers what the authorisation allows, how Portuguese names with several surnames should be entered, how the journey from Luanda works, and which months suit which Sri Lankan coast.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes, Angolans need one. There is no exemption for Angolan nationals and no arrangement between Luanda and Colombo that removes the requirement, so the ETA has to be approved before you leave home. It makes no difference whether your passport was issued in Angola or through a consulate abroad.
Angola is not among the forty countries whose tourists have had the Sri Lankan government charge waived since May 2026. Angolan applicants therefore pay the standard government rate together with our service fee, and both are set out in the live prices shown on this page. The one exception inside a family is a child under 12, for whom Colombo makes no government charge on a tourist ETA.
The tourist option fits what most Angolan visitors actually do: a beach week in Bentota or Mirissa, a circuit of Sigiriya and Kandy, a stay with friends, an Ayurveda programme. If you are travelling for meetings, a trade negotiation or a conference, choose the business option when you apply instead.
A large share of Angolans also hold Portuguese nationality. If that is your situation, the passport you intend to hand to the airline decides everything, because the authorisation attaches to one document only. Apply with the Angolan passport and you must travel on the Angolan passport, both into and out of Sri Lanka.
Stay & validity
A tourist ETA issued to an Angolan gives 30 days in Sri Lanka, counted from the day you first land at Bandaranaike. It allows two entries, which is useful if you want to hop across to the Maldives for a few days, but the second arrival only receives whatever is left of the original 30 days.
An approved ETA gives an Angolan traveller six months in which to start the journey. That suits Angolans who book the December festas months in advance. The conditions printed on your own approval always take priority over any general description.
Your passaporte must still have six months to run on the day you arrive in Colombo. Renewal in Luanda can take time, so check the expiry date first. If a new passport is issued after your ETA is approved, the old approval is of no use and a fresh application has to be made.
Pricing
Live fees for Angolan passport holders, shown all-in — any government charge that applies to your passport and our service fee together, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Angola
Requirements
Everything Angolan passport holders need before starting an application. The first five items apply to every applicant; the rest are specific to your nationality.
Passport valid for at least six months from the date you arrive in Sri Lanka — the same passport you will travel on
A clear image of the passport bio-data page, with every corner visible and no glare over the photograph
A working email address, which is where the approval is sent and which you should be able to open while travelling
A credit or debit card for online payment
Your intended arrival date and an address in Sri Lanka, such as your first hotel
Simple process
Four steps, entirely online, with one form per traveller and a full review before you pay.
Pick the Tourist, Business or Transit option that matches the real purpose of your trip, and add every traveller in your party to the same application.
Give each traveller's details exactly as printed on the passport, plus the intended arrival date and an address in Sri Lanka. Entries are made in English.
Check every name, date and passport number on the review screen before paying. Corrections are simple at this stage and difficult afterwards.
The approval is linked electronically to your passport number. Keep a copy on your phone and a printout with your travel documents for check-in and arrival.
Most Angolan applications are answered within a day or two. We recommend sending yours at least five days before the Luanda departure, and a good deal earlier if you plan to travel over Christmas and New Year, when Sri Lanka is at its busiest and Angolan flights to the Gulf are heavily booked.
Luanda runs four and a half hours behind Colombo throughout the year, because neither country changes its clocks. An application submitted on a Friday evening in Angola reaches Sri Lanka in the small hours of Saturday, so do not count weekend days as working time when you plan backwards from your flight.
Keep an eye on the Angolan holiday calendar as well. Carnival, the 4 April Peace Day break and the Independence celebrations on 11 November all encourage last-minute bookings. A request sent the night before leaves no room to fix a rejected passport image or a blocked card.
On arrival
An approved ETA gets you on the plane. This is what happens once you land, and how to make the arrival as quick as possible.
Bandaranaike International Airport at Katunayake, about 30 kilometres north of Colombo, handles nearly all international arrivals. Follow the signs to immigration and join the foreign passport queue.
The officer retrieves your ETA from the passport number. Have the approval email to hand as a backup, on paper or saved offline, since airport connectivity is not guaranteed.
You may be asked where you are staying, how long for and when you leave. A hotel confirmation and your return ticket answer all three in a few seconds.
Your passport is endorsed with the date you must leave by. Read it at the counter — that date, not the length of your booking, is what counts if your plans change.
Getting there
No airline flies nonstop between Angola and Sri Lanka, so the journey is made with one change of aircraft in the Gulf or Istanbul. Dubai is the natural choice because Emirates links Luanda with its hub and then continues to Colombo several times a day. Luanda's international flights have been moving to the new Dr António Agostinho Neto airport, so confirm which one your ticket uses.
Best time to go
Angola's hot, wet season runs from about November to April, and those are precisely the months when Sri Lanka's west and south coasts are dry and calm. Leaving a humid Luanda December for Galle Fort or the whale-watching boats off Mirissa works well, although it is the island's busiest period.
The cacimbo, the cool grey season from May to September, lines up with the opposite side of Sri Lanka. During those months the south-west monsoon wets Colombo and the southern beaches, while Trincomalee, Pasikudah and the surf breaks of Arugam Bay on the east coast enjoy their best weather of the year.
Angolans who travel in the middle of the year can also catch the Kandy Esala Perahera, the great torchlit procession of elephants and drummers held in July or August. Rooms in Kandy sell out early for it, so settle the ETA and the hotel together.
Whatever the month, allow for the monthly Poya full-moon holiday, when banks close and alcohol is not sold anywhere on the island, and for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in mid-April, when many family-run restaurants and shops shut for several days.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Angola — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
An Angolan passport may carry two given names and three or four surnames. Applicants used to signing as Maria Santos often type only that, but the application must show the complete name as printed, or it will not match the document presented at check-in in Luanda.
Angolans with a second, Portuguese passport sometimes apply with one and pack the other. The approval follows a single passport number and cannot be switched, so decide which document you will travel on before you start.
Domestic-only bank cards and low foreign-currency limits are an everyday reality in Angola. A declined payment does not harm the application, yet it can cost days while the bank lifts the restriction, which matters when the flight is close.
Travellers focused on their Dubai stay sometimes forget that Colombo has its own requirement. Emirates checks for the Sri Lankan authorisation before the onward flight, and an Angolan passenger without it is left in the Gulf.
Passport number mistyped
The authorisation attaches to the number you enter. One wrong character produces an ETA that does not match the passport handed over at the counter, and a paid application cannot be edited afterwards.
Passport with under six months left
Sri Lanka expects six months of validity counted from the day you arrive, not the day you apply. A passport that falls short is refused at check-in regardless of the ETA.
The wrong ETA type
Attending meetings or a conference on a tourist ETA is outside its conditions. Choose the option that matches what you will actually do in the country.
Conditions
These conditions are set by Sri Lanka's Department of Immigration and Emigration and do not vary by nationality.
Sri Lanka requires an Electronic Travel Authorisation for short visits by all foreign nationals, and it should be approved before you travel. Even where the government charge is waived, the authorisation itself is still required.
The authorisation is recorded against the passport number you enter. If that passport is lost, replaced or renewed before you travel, the ETA does not move across and a new application is needed.
A tourist ETA allows two entries. The stay period runs from your first arrival, so a second entry is granted only the balance of that period rather than a fresh allowance.
A tourist ETA covers holidays, family visits, medical treatment and cultural or sporting events. Business meetings, conferences and short training need the business option, and a stopover of up to two days uses the transit option.
Immigration officers at the port of entry may ask for a confirmed return or onward ticket and evidence that you can support yourself for the length of your stay.
An approved ETA lets you travel to Sri Lanka. The decision to admit you is made by an immigration officer on arrival, and the conditions printed on your approval govern your stay.
Consular services
Sri Lanka has no resident embassy in Luanda, and Angolan matters are handled from a regional mission, with the High Commission in Pretoria the closest. None of this affects an ETA, which is requested and issued online with no interview and no passport to hand in.
FAQs
The questions Angolan passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Angolan citizens must hold an approved Electronic Travel Authorisation, often called a Sri Lanka visa, before travelling for a holiday or family visit. It is applied for online, linked to the passport number, and normally gives 30 days with two entries.
No. Angola is outside the group of forty countries covered by the waiver that began in May 2026, so the standard government rate applies alongside our service fee. Current figures appear in the live prices shown on this page. For Angolan children under 12 the government portion is not charged.
Thirty days from the date of first arrival. You may enter twice in that period, for example before and after a side trip to Malé, but the clock does not restart on the second entry. Anyone wanting longer must ask the Department of Immigration and Emigration in Battaramulla for an extension.
Yes. There is no Sri Lankan embassy in Angola and you do not need one. The form is completed online in English, the passport image is uploaded, and the approval arrives by email, wherever in Angola you live.
Copy it from the two lines of capital letters at the bottom of the passport photo page. Include every given name and surname in that order, keep DOS, DA or DE where they appear, and drop accents, tildes and the cedilla exactly as the passport does.
Use whichever you will actually travel on, and use it for the whole journey. The authorisation is recorded against one passport number, and the charge that applies depends on the nationality of that passport, as the live prices on this page show.
A transit ETA covers a stop of up to two days and carries no government charge, but you must be able to show proof of your onward journey. If you stay longer than that, or want to leave and return, apply for the tourist ETA instead.
No. Meetings, negotiations, conferences and short training fall under the business option, which you select at the start of the application. The tourist ETA is for holidays, family visits, Ayurveda stays and sporting or cultural events, and never permits employment.
Your nationality is already set to Angola. Complete the form in around ten minutes, review every detail, and receive your ETA by email.
Other nationalities
Charges, routes and the practical details differ by passport. Here are the guides for other nationalities.
