This page is for holders of a Commonwealth of Dominica passport, the Eastern Caribbean island state whose capital is Roseau. They need an ETA before travelling to Sri Lanka, valid for a 30-day stay 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
Important for citizens of Dominica
This guidance is for the Commonwealth of Dominica (capital Roseau, passport code DMA). It is not for the Dominican Republic (capital Santo Domingo, passport code DOM), which is a different country.
Overview
First, the name. Dominica, formally the Commonwealth of Dominica, is the mountainous English-speaking island between Guadeloupe and Martinique. It is not the Dominican Republic, the far larger Spanish-speaking country that shares Hispaniola with Haiti. The two are confused constantly in airline systems and online forms, and a Sri Lanka travel authorisation issued under the wrong one is useless.
With that settled, the rule itself is short. Anyone travelling on a Dominica passport needs an Electronic Travel Authorisation for a short visit to Sri Lanka. People looking for it online tend to type Sri Lanka visa or e-visa, and they mean the same thing. It is applied for on the internet and recorded against the passport.
Travel between the Nature Isle and Sri Lanka is rare. The applicants we see are mostly Dominicans living in Britain, the United States or the French islands, economic citizens whose homes are in Asia or the Middle East, and a handful of hikers and divers who want to compare one green volcanic island with a much bigger one.
At a glance
Eligibility
Citizens of Dominica require an ETA, approved ahead of travel, for tourism, family visits, medical or Ayurvedic treatment and similar short stays. Being a Commonwealth citizen brings no exemption. Sri Lanka applies the requirement to every foreign passport, and Dominica's is treated no differently.
For charging purposes a Dominica passport sits in the standard category. Neither Dominica nor the Dominican Republic is on the list of forty countries excused the government charge, so mixing them up gains nothing and costs a wasted application. Please refer to the live prices on this page for what you will pay, including our fee.
Dominica has one of the longest-running citizenship by investment programmes in the region. Its passport is therefore carried by people who have never lived in Roseau or Portsmouth, many of them resident in the Gulf, Nigeria, China or South Asia. For them Sri Lanka may be only a single flight away. Nationality on the form is still Dominica, and the passport used to apply must be the one used to travel.
Island-born Dominicans very often have a second nationality through parents who emigrated to Britain in the Windrush years or to the United States later. British and American passports both fall under Sri Lanka's waiver. If you plan to use one, start the application with that document and leave the Dominica passport out of it.
Stay & validity
Thirty days is the stay a tourist ETA allows a citizen of Dominica, and the count runs from the day of first entry. Two entries are permitted. Both must happen within the same thirty days, which means a return from a side trip to India earns only the unused days.
The approval has a six-month life for travel purposes, starting when it is issued. Long-haul trips from Dominica are booked well ahead, so applying two or three months out is perfectly workable. Read the conditions on the approval when it reaches you, since they are the authoritative version.
Should you wish to stay beyond thirty days, perhaps to finish a long Ayurveda programme, you must ask the Department of Immigration and Emigration for an extension at its Battaramulla head office before your time is up. The tourist ETA does not permit work, and it is not a route to living in Sri Lanka through back-to-back visits.
Pricing
Live fees for Commonwealth of Dominica 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 Dominica
Requirements
Everything Commonwealth of Dominica 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.
A day or two is the normal turnaround. Dominica passports go through without special handling, but an application lodged under the Dominican Republic by mistake cannot be converted. It has to be made again from scratch, with the government charge paid a second time, because that charge is neither refundable nor transferable.
Allow three to five days before departure as a floor. From Dominica we would double it, because the island's air links are thin and a storm in hurricane season can cancel the first leg and compress everything behind it. An approval cannot be hurried to order.
Roseau keeps Atlantic Standard Time all year and Colombo is nine and a half hours in front. Morning in Dominica is evening in Sri Lanka. Any question about your application is therefore likely to be answered overnight, and a quick reply from you the next morning keeps things moving.
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
Dominica has no long-haul flights to Europe or Asia, so every route to Sri Lanka starts with a hop off the island. American Airlines links Douglas-Charles with Miami, from where Gulf carriers fly on to Doha or Dubai and then Colombo. The other option is a regional flight to Antigua or Barbados for a transatlantic service to London and the SriLankan Airlines nonstop from Heathrow. Some travellers take the ferry to Guadeloupe or Martinique and fly to Paris. Transit rules vary by passport, so do not assume a neighbour's arrangements apply to yours.
Best time to go
Dominicans are used to rain, living on one of the wettest islands in the Caribbean, and Sri Lanka's seasons will feel familiar in kind if not in timing. The driest stretch on the south and west coasts and in the hill country is December to March. That is the window for Galle Fort, the tea estates and the climb up Sigiriya.
Mas Domnik, the pre-Lenten carnival, lands in February or early March and keeps many people at home. Travelling straight afterwards still catches the tail of the south-west season, and mid-April brings the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, when much of Sri Lanka closes for several days of family celebration.
The long school holiday from July runs alongside the east coast season at Trincomalee and Arugam Bay. It is also when hurricanes threaten the Windward and Leeward chain, a risk Dominica knows too well since Maria in 2017. Insure the trip and leave slack around the first flight.
Late October belongs to the World Creole Music Festival and the Independence celebrations on 3 November. Sri Lanka is between monsoons then, with showers on both coasts. Unless you are joining family, those weeks are better spent in Roseau and the trip saved for the new year.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Dominica — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
This is the error that defines applications from Dominica. The two countries sit one line apart in alphabetical lists and autofill often chooses the wrong one. Check for the code DM or DMA on the review screen. If it reads DO or DOM, stop and correct it before paying.
The surname Jno Baptiste, with its old abbreviation for John, is distinctively Dominican. Some applicants helpfully expand it to John Baptiste or Jean Baptiste. The passport is what counts. Type the letters and spacing that appear on it and nothing else.
Even with a correct ETA, a booking that lists the passenger's nationality as the Dominican Republic can cause a mismatch at check-in. Look at the passport details stored in each airline reservation along the route and have them fixed in advance.
A journey from Dominica can span three calendar days. The six months of passport validity Sri Lanka asks for is measured from the day you land in Colombo, so a passport that just clears the mark when you leave Roseau may fall short on arrival.
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 does not keep a mission in Roseau. Its embassy in Havana is the post accredited to Dominica, and separately to the Dominican Republic, which is one more place where the two names appear side by side. None of this affects an ETA application, which is made online without any visit or posted passport. Contact the embassy only for matters the online system does not handle.
FAQs
The questions Commonwealth of Dominica passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Holders of a Commonwealth of Dominica passport need an Electronic Travel Authorisation, widely called a Sri Lanka visa, before a short visit. It allows 30 days and two entries and is arranged online before departure.
Dominica, the Eastern Caribbean island whose capital is Roseau. Dominican Republic nationals should not rely on it. The Sri Lanka ETA rules are similar, but the nationality on the application must match the passport exactly.
If you have not paid, go back and change it. If payment has gone through, the authorisation cannot be edited and you will need a new application under Dominica. The government charge already paid is not returned, so check the review screen with care.
No. Dominica is charged the standard government rate for a tourist ETA. Children under 12 are exempt from the government charge. The live prices on this page show the amount for your party.
Yes. A passport acquired through the citizenship by investment programme is a full Dominica passport. Select Dominica as nationality, state your real country of birth, and apply from wherever you live.
Most people fly to Miami and connect through Doha or Dubai, or take a regional flight to Antigua or Barbados and continue via London. Either way involves at least two stops and usually more than a day and a half in transit.
As your passport shows it, including the abbreviation and the space. Do not replace Jno with John or join the two words. The same spelling should appear on your flight tickets.
Religious events and symposiums come under the business option, as do conferences and workshops. Pick that option when you start. A tourist ETA is right if you are simply visiting temples, churches or pilgrimage sites as a traveller.
Your nationality is already set to Dominica. 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.
