Comorian passport holders need an ETA in place before leaving Moroni for Colombo, a journey that normally takes two connections. The authorisation covers 30 days and two entries at the standard government rate.
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
Important for Comorian citizens
The Comoros is not covered by Sri Lanka's waiver of the tourist ETA government charge, and the standard rate applies to Comorian passports. Check the live prices shown on this page before you start.
Overview
Very few people travel from the Comoros to Sri Lanka in any given year, and those who do are rarely on a package holiday. They are students passing through Colombo on the way to universities in Asia, traders in cloves, vanilla and ylang-ylang with contacts in the spice business, relatives of Comorians settled abroad, and the occasional traveller drawn by Adam's Peak, which Muslims have honoured for centuries as the place where Adam first set foot on earth.
For each of them the first step is an Electronic Travel Authorisation. In French it is usually searched for as a visa for Sri Lanka, and the ETA is the document meant. You apply on the internet, the decision comes by email, and the approval is attached to your passport number.
Because the route from Ngazidja, Ndzuwani or Mwali is long and involves several airlines, the authorisation has to be right before the first boarding pass is printed. The guidance here concentrates on the practical points that affect Comorian applicants most: names, payment and timing.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes. A citizen of the Union of the Comoros needs an approved ETA for any short visit, and there is no arrangement between Moroni and Colombo that removes or reduces the requirement. Staff at Prince Said Ibrahim International Airport, or at the transit airport where you change, may ask to see it.
Choose the tourist ETA if you are going to see the country, stay with friends or family, follow a course of Ayurvedic or other medical treatment, or attend a sporting or cultural event. Climbing Adam's Peak as a private pilgrim is sightseeing in this sense.
Commercial travel is handled differently. A Comorian exporter meeting spice buyers in Colombo, or an official attending a conference or a short training programme, needs the business option; so does anyone invited to a formal religious gathering or symposium. Work of any kind, with or without pay, is not permitted on a tourist ETA, and reporting, political activity or NGO missions must be cleared by the Sri Lankan government in advance.
Children are included by name, each with a passport of their own. Sri Lanka leaves its government charge off for those under 12 who are staying up to 30 days as tourists, which helps the large family groups typical of Comorian travel.
Stay & validity
The Comorian tourist ETA is good for 30 days in Sri Lanka and for two entries. Day one is the day of your first arrival. A second arrival within the period is allowed, for instance after a few days in Malé, but it only carries the days still outstanding.
You may make the first entry at any time in the six months after the approval is issued, subject to whatever conditions the approval states. Sri Lanka also expects the passport to remain valid for six months from arrival. A biometric Comorian passport replaced after the ETA was granted has a different number, so the authorisation will no longer correspond to it and a new one must be requested.
Thirty days cannot be stretched by simply remaining. If you need more time, apply for an extension at the Department of Immigration and Emigration in Battaramulla, outside Colombo, before your authorised stay comes to an end.
Pricing
Live fees for Comorian 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 Comoros
Requirements
Everything Comorian 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.
Comorian applications are normally answered in a day or two. Ahead of submission we check the spelling of every name against the passport image, since transliteration from Arabic and Shikomori into French produces more variants than most applicants realise. The usual timing is an observation, not an undertaking.
Three to five days before departure is the latest sensible moment to apply, and a week or more is wiser from the Comoros. Sri Lanka runs two and a half hours ahead of Moroni. More important than the clock is the internet: connections on the islands can drop, so complete the form when the line is steady and do not leave it for the night before the flight.
Leave extra room during Ramadan and the two Eids, when banks and offices in Moroni keep shorter hours, and in July and August, when the diaspora returns for the grand mariage season and seats out of the country are scarce.
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 flight connects the Comoros with Sri Lanka, and no single hub links the two conveniently, so most itineraries from Moroni use two connections. The first leg goes to an East African gateway: Addis Ababa with Ethiopian Airlines, Nairobi with Kenya Airways or Dar es Salaam with Air Tanzania. From there travellers continue to Dubai, Doha or Mumbai and pick up a flight to Colombo. Passengers from Anjouan and Mohéli begin with an inter-island hop to Grande Comore.
Best time to go
The Comorian year divides into kashkazi, the hot and humid season from about November to April, and kusi, the cooler, drier months from May to October. Sri Lanka has two monsoons that strike opposite coasts, so there is a dry shore to be found whichever Comorian season you leave behind.
During kashkazi, when the islands are at their stickiest, the south-west of Sri Lanka and its hills are dry and clear. This is also the pilgrimage season for Adam's Peak, which is climbed from December until the Vesak full moon in May; outside those months the path is wet and the summit often in cloud.
In the kusi months, when school holidays and weddings fill the Comorian calendar, Sri Lanka's east coast takes over. The bays near Trincomalee and the lagoon beaches at Pasikudah are calm from May to September, and the towns of the east have large Muslim communities, mosques and halal food on every street.
Visitors observing Ramadan will find it widely kept in Colombo, Beruwala and Kattankudy, with iftar easy to arrange. Note that the island also stops for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in the middle of April, and that every full-moon Poya is a public holiday.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Comoros — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
A Comorian birth certificate, identity card and passport can each carry a slightly different rendering of the same name: Ahmed and Ahamada, Youssouf and Youssoufa, Abdou with or without a second part. Only the passport version counts for the ETA.
When a brother in Marseille or a cousin in Mayotte pays and fills in the form, the passport number and dates are often dictated over the phone or recalled from an old photocopy. Send a clear photograph of the current photo page and have the entries made from that.
A good many Comorians also hold French nationality, and France is one of the countries for which Sri Lanka has waived its government charge. The saving applies only if you really travel on the French passport. Declaring French nationality and then presenting a Comorian passport leaves you without a valid authorisation.
With two changes of aircraft, the Sri Lankan ETA is only one of the permissions you may need. Some connections require a transit visa or an overnight stay outside the airport. Confirm the rules for each stop with the airline before paying for the ETA, because the government charge is not returned if the trip falls through.
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 neither an embassy nor a consulate in the Comoros, and consular matters are dealt with from outside the country. That gap does not hold up an ETA, since Comorian applicants complete everything online and never send a passport anywhere. For questions beyond the ETA, the foreign ministry in Colombo can direct you to the responsible mission.
FAQs
The questions Comorian passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Comorian citizens need an Electronic Travel Authorisation, generally known as a Sri Lanka visa, approved before they travel. For tourists it allows a 30-day stay and two entries. The Comoros pays the standard government rate.
There is none, and you do not need one. The ETA is requested online from Moroni, Mutsamudu, Fomboni or anywhere else with an internet connection. A valid passport, an email address and a means of international card payment are sufficient.
Yes. The card used for payment does not have to belong to the traveller. What matters is that the passport details entered are yours and accurate, and that the approval email reaches an address you can open yourself.
France is on the list of 40 countries whose government charge is waived, and the Comoros is not, so the French passport costs less to apply with. You must then use it for the entire journey. An ETA cannot be transferred from one passport to the other.
Expect two connections. A common pattern is Moroni to Addis Ababa, Nairobi or Dar es Salaam, then a Gulf hub or Mumbai, then Colombo.
Yes. Making the climb as a private visitor is tourism, and the tourist ETA is suitable. The season runs from December to May. Only an organised religious event or symposium would call for the business option.
It can be used for a first arrival within six months of issue. Once you enter, you may stay 30 days, and a second entry within those days is allowed. Your passport needs six months of validity on the day you arrive.
Errors noticed before payment are easily corrected, which is why we review Comorian name spellings first. After payment the government charge is neither refunded nor moved to a corrected form, so a new application is required.
Your nationality is already set to Comoros. 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.
