Batswana travelling to Sri Lanka need an ETA approved before leaving Gaborone or Johannesburg. It is arranged online, attaches to your passport number, and allows 30 days on the island with two entries.
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
For a landlocked country, the sea is the obvious reason to go. Batswana who have done Durban and Mozambique and want something further afield are starting to look at Sri Lanka, where a single trip can take in warm surf, a train ride through tea estates and temples older than most written history in southern Africa. There is a quieter link too: Sri Lankan teachers and accountants have worked in Botswana for decades, and visits to former colleagues and friends run in both directions.
Sri Lanka requires an Electronic Travel Authorisation from all foreign nationals, and a Motswana is no exception. The approval has to exist before you travel. Since most journeys from Botswana begin with a flight or a drive to OR Tambo, where the long-haul airline checks documents, it is the Johannesburg check-in desk that will ask for it first.
The sections that follow deal with the points that matter for a Botswana passport: what the 30 days cover, how Setswana names should go on the form, why the Omang plays no part, and how to time the application around a routing that crosses a land border before it reaches an aircraft.
At a glance
Eligibility
A Botswana passport does not exempt its holder from Sri Lanka's entry requirements, so yes, an ETA is needed for even a short holiday. Travel agents in Gaborone and search engines alike tend to call it a Sri Lanka visa; the ETA is the electronic form that takes its place for short visits.
The government charge has been lifted for a list of countries that does not include Botswana. Batswana therefore pay the standard rate, with one concession that applies to every nationality: a tourist ETA for a child below the age of 12 carries no government fee, though the child is still listed on the application.
What you plan to do decides which option to pick. Holidays, visiting friends, a wellness stay, attending a wedding or watching sport all sit under the tourist ETA. Officials and business people from Botswana going to Colombo for negotiations, a workshop or a conference are business visitors and should apply on that basis.
Your Omang identity card, useful as it is at home, has no role here. Sri Lanka's system works only from the passport, and it is the passport number, not the Omang number, that the authorisation is recorded against.
Stay & validity
Thirty days is the stay a tourist ETA gives a Botswana citizen, and the first day is the day you clear immigration at Colombo. An itinerary of two weeks, which is what most Batswana manage around annual leave, uses less than half of it.
The ETA is good for two arrivals. Suppose you spend ten days in Sri Lanka, fly to Chennai or Malé for four, and return: you are allowed back in, with sixteen days of the original period still available. A third entry, or one after day thirty, would need a new authorisation.
After approval you have six months in which to make the trip, so it is safe to apply as soon as leave is signed off. Look at your passport first, though. Sri Lanka wants six months left on arrival; if yours expires next year, a renewal at the Department of Immigration and Citizenship should come before the ETA, since the authorisation cannot follow you to a new passport number.
Pricing
Live fees for Botswana 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 Botswana
Requirements
Everything Botswana 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.
Batswana applicants typically hear back within one or two days. The recommended minimum is three to five days before you leave, but think about where your journey really starts. If you are driving to Johannesburg the day before the flight, you want the approval in hand before you cross at Tlokweng, not arriving by email somewhere on the N4.
Demand is highest for travel between December and March, which overlaps with the long school holiday in Botswana. For a Christmas or New Year trip, submit in November. The July President's Day long weekend and the Independence holidays at the end of September are popular for shorter getaways and deserve the same early start.
Gaborone is three and a half hours behind Colombo throughout the year. Anything you send in the afternoon reaches Sri Lanka in the evening, so count the day after you apply as the first real working day.
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
Botswana has no air link to Sri Lanka or to the Gulf hubs that feed Colombo. Travellers fly from Sir Seretse Khama International to Johannesburg with Airlink or Air Botswana, or drive there in around four to five hours, and join Emirates via Dubai or Qatar Airways via Doha. From Maun and Kasane the first leg is likewise to Johannesburg.
Best time to go
December to March is the season for the coast most visitors picture: palm-lined bays between Bentota and Tangalle, the walls of Galle Fort, whale-watching boats leaving Mirissa at dawn. It coincides with Botswana's rains and the long school break, so families can travel together.
April brings the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in the middle of the month. It is a warm, festive time to be a guest in a Sri Lankan home, and a less convenient one for touring, because businesses shut and trains are packed. If you are visiting friends, it is ideal; if you are sightseeing, go a fortnight earlier.
During Botswana's dry, cold winter the weather on Sri Lanka's east coast is settled. A trip built around the July long weekend can combine Trincomalee's beaches with the elephant gathering at Minneriya, where several hundred Asian elephants come to the receding reservoir. Anyone who knows Chobe will find the animals smaller and the setting far greener.
October and November are changeable, with heavy showers that pass quickly. Prices are lower then, and the Cultural Triangle sites of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa can be explored without crowds. Carry a light rain jacket and plan indoor stops for the afternoons.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Botswana — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
Forms at home ask for the Omang so often that people enter it from habit. The ETA wants the passport number only, and the name as the passport prints it. If your Omang and passport differ in spelling or in the order of names, the passport wins.
Names such as Keitumetse, Oreneile or Boitumelo are frequently cut down to Tumi or Neo on tickets and cards. The application must carry the full name from the passport. A nickname, or a missing second name, gives the airline's system nothing to match.
Leaving the application until the drive to OR Tambo, or the hotel the night before, is a real pattern among travellers from Gaborone and Francistown. Mobile data across the border is unreliable and a rushed form invites typing errors that cannot be corrected once paid for.
Delegates heading to a seminar or training course sometimes choose the tourist option because it is the first on the list. A conference invitation in your hand luggage and a tourist ETA on your passport tell two different stories at the immigration desk.
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
Botswana is served by Sri Lanka's High Commission in Pretoria, as there is no Sri Lankan mission in Gaborone. Batswana applying for a tourist ETA will not deal with it at any stage. Contact with Pretoria is needed only for categories that sit outside the online system.
FAQs
The questions Botswana passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Citizens of Botswana must hold an Electronic Travel Authorisation, widely referred to as a Sri Lanka visa, before they travel. It is obtained online and the tourist type gives 30 days with double entry.
You can. Although the responsible High Commission is in Pretoria, the ETA does not involve it. The form is completed online from Gaborone, Maun or anywhere else, and the decision is emailed to you.
No. Only a passport is accepted, and the authorisation is stored against the passport number. Keep the Omang for domestic use and copy every detail for the application from the passport photo page.
A Motswana on a tourist ETA gets thirty days, counted from the first landing. If you leave and come back, the second visit must finish within the same thirty days. For anything longer, an extension has to be sought from the immigration department in Battaramulla.
Yes. Botswana is charged the standard government rate and a service fee applies for our assistance. No government charge is made for tourists under 12. Current amounts appear in the live prices shown on this page.
Before you set off for Johannesburg, and ideally a week or more ahead. The check-in staff at OR Tambo will look for the approval, and by then it is too late to start an application.
No. Conferences, workshops, seminars and business negotiations are listed as business purposes. Select the business option when you apply so that the authorisation matches the reason you give on arrival.
The ETA stays with the old passport number and cannot be moved. You would need to submit a fresh application with the new passport, and the government charge already paid is not refunded.
Your nationality is already set to Botswana. 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.
