Costa Ricans need an ETA approved before leaving Juan Santamaría for Colombo. It allows a 30-day stay with two entries, is connected to your passport number, and carries the standard government charge.
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
Costa Ricans travel with a trained eye for nature, and Sri Lanka holds up to the scrutiny. In an area only a little larger than Costa Rica it packs wild elephants, leopards, blue whales and cloud forest, along with something a Tico will not find at home: two millennia of Buddhist cities, cave temples and a living pilgrimage culture.
Getting in requires an Electronic Travel Authorisation. Search engines in Costa Rica are asked about the visa para Sri Lanka far more often than about an ETA, yet they are the same thing for a tourist: an authorisation requested online and connected to your passport number, to be approved before you leave.
On cost, Costa Rica sits outside the group of 40 countries that Sri Lanka exempted from the government charge on 25 May 2026. The standard rate applies to a Costa Rican passport, and our service fee for handling the application is added. The live prices shown on this page are the place to see the current total.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes. Costa Rican passports open a great many borders without paperwork, across Europe and most of the Americas, and that can create the expectation that Sri Lanka will be the same. It is not: every foreign national needs an ETA, and airlines check for it before issuing a boarding pass to Colombo.
The tourist ETA takes in everything a typical Costa Rican visitor has planned — safaris and beaches, the train through the tea country, a stay with friends, a week of yoga or Ayurvedic treatment, a surf competition or a cultural festival. It excludes employment of every kind. Naturalist guides, yoga teachers and biologists should note that leading groups or collecting field data for an organisation is work, not tourism.
Business travellers heading to meetings, negotiations, a conference, a seminar or training lasting under a month must choose the business option. Media assignments, political activity and NGO or conservation projects need the Sri Lankan government's approval before travel and are not available through the online ETA.
Children travel on their own Costa Rican passports and are listed one by one in the application. No government fee is charged for a child under 12 holding a tourist ETA of up to 30 days. Costa Rica's own exit permit for minors, the permiso de salida, is a separate requirement that parents should arrange in good time.
Stay & validity
Costa Rican citizens are given 30 days on a tourist ETA, with double entry. Everything is measured from the first arrival: a second entry is possible only within those 30 days and is granted the unused portion. Fly to Malé on day fifteen, return on day twenty-two, and eight days are left.
From the date of issue, the ETA is good for travel for six months, on the terms printed in the approval. A Tico who applies in April ahead of the July mid-year break, or in September ahead of the December holidays, has ample time.
The passport must have six months of validity remaining when you arrive in Sri Lanka. Read the expiry date on your Costa Rican passport before applying, and if it is close, renew through Migración first, allowing a few weeks for the appointment and delivery. Because the ETA is linked to the passport number, a renewal after approval means applying again. Staying longer than 30 days requires an extension from the Department of Immigration and Emigration, based at Battaramulla near Colombo.
Pricing
Live fees for Costa Rican 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 Costa Rica
Requirements
Everything Costa Rican 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 Costa Rican applications are approved inside a day or two. A small number are held for further checks and cannot be hurried, so no fixed time can be promised. Apply at least three to five days before your flight, and earlier if you are leaving in the December and January high season or in Semana Santa.
Costa Rica does not observe daylight saving and neither does Sri Lanka, so San José is always eleven and a half hours behind Colombo. Morning in Sri Lanka is the previous evening in Costa Rica.
Nothing can be altered after you pay. An error means a completely new application, and Sri Lanka neither refunds the government charge nor transfers it to the replacement.
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
Costa Ricans have a better choice of routes than most of the region, because San José has direct flights to several European hubs. Iberia to Madrid, Air France to Paris, KLM to Amsterdam and Lufthansa to Frankfurt all connect onward to Colombo with Qatar Airways through Doha or Emirates through Dubai. That means two connections and no need to pass through the United States, where a Costa Rican passport holder would need a visa even to transit.
Best time to go
The Costa Rican verano and the dry season on Sri Lanka's south-west coast occupy the same months, December to March or April. The long school holiday in December and January is the easiest time to go, with Mirissa, Galle and Bentota at their best and the hill country clear.
Whale watchers have an interesting comparison to make. Humpbacks visit the Pacific coast of Costa Rica in the second half of the year; off Mirissa, between November and April, the animals most often seen are blue whales. Yala and Wilpattu national parks, the strongholds of the Sri Lankan leopard, are also rewarding in the early months of the year.
The two-week mid-year school break in July falls in the Costa Rican rainy season and in the south-west monsoon of Sri Lanka, so look east. Trincomalee, Pasikudah and Arugam Bay are dry from May to September and the surf at Arugam Bay is at its best. The Kandy Esala Perahera takes place in July or August.
Semana Santa usually offers dry weather on the south-west side, followed closely by the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in mid-April. October and November are inter-monsoon months with showers island-wide, much like the wettest weeks at home.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Costa Rica — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
Costa Ricans rarely need a visa and are not used to applying for one. Travellers have reached the check-in desk for the first flight with a valid passport, a hotel booking and no ETA. The authorisation is mandatory and is verified before boarding.
The cédula is the number a Tico gives for every transaction, and muscle memory puts it into forms unprompted. The ETA is attached to the passport number.
Dual nationals sometimes apply with the Costa Rican passport and then present a Spanish, Italian or German one because it happens to be in the same wallet. The ETA will not be found against the second document. Several European countries are covered by the fee waiver, so decide in advance which passport makes sense and use only that one.
Conservation volunteering is second nature to many Costa Ricans, and projects abroad readily advertise for helpers. Unpaid work is still outside the tourist ETA, and NGO activity requires prior government approval.
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 embassy in San José. The nearest resident embassies are in Havana and Washington DC, and Costa Rican tourists do not need to contact them: an ETA is applied for online and sent to you by email.
FAQs
The questions Costa Rican passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Costa Ricans need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), approved before travel, to enter Sri Lanka; it is what is generally meant by a Sri Lanka visa. The ETA is linked to your passport number and allows a tourist stay of 30 days with two entries.
No. The government charge was waived for 40 countries on 25 May 2026 and Costa Rica is not on the list, so the standard rate is payable. A Costa Rican child under 12 pays no government fee on a tourist ETA.
Approval usually takes a day or two, occasionally longer if further checks are needed. It is sensible to apply at least three to five days before departure and earlier for December, January and Semana Santa.
Fly from San José to a European hub such as Madrid, Paris, Amsterdam or Frankfurt, then connect to Colombo via Doha or Dubai. This involves two connections and avoids transiting the United States, which would require a US visa.
Not on the tourist ETA alone. It does not permit employment, paid or unpaid, and work with non-governmental organisations needs prior approval from the Sri Lankan government. Visiting national parks and sanctuaries as a tourist is allowed.
Apply with the passport you will use for the whole trip, because the ETA is tied to a single passport number. Spain is one of the 40 countries whose government charge is waived, whereas Costa Rica pays the standard rate.
A tourist ETA allows 30 days from the date of first arrival, with two entries inside that period. A second entry receives only the remaining days. Costa Ricans wanting more time need an extension from the Department of Immigration and Emigration in Battaramulla.
No. The ETA authorises you to travel, and the final decision is made by the immigration officer when you arrive. Carry your Costa Rican passport, a return or onward ticket and proof of funds, and be ready to say where you are staying.
Your nationality is already set to Costa Rica. 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.
