Travellers from the Dominican Republic need a Sri Lanka ETA approved before departure from Santo Domingo or Punta Cana. It allows a 30-day visit with two entries, and the application is made online with your passport details.
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
A Dominican does not cross half the planet for a beach, having some of the Caribbean's finest at home. Those who make the trip to Sri Lanka go for what Punta Cana cannot supply: wild elephants and leopards, rock fortresses and ancient Buddhist cities, tea plantations in the clouds and a cuisine built on coconut, chilli and spice.
For that journey a traveller with a Dominican Republic passport needs an Electronic Travel Authorisation, the permit that Spanish-speaking searchers generally call a visa or e-visa for Sri Lanka. It is obtained through an online form in English and linked to the number of your pasaporte, with no consular appointment.
The Dominican Republic falls outside Sri Lanka's forty-country waiver of the government charge. Dominican applicants therefore pay the standard rate, plus a service fee for our handling of the application; the live prices shown on this page have the current amounts.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes, all Dominican nationals need one. Airlines at Las Américas, Punta Cana and Santiago's Cibao airport check for the ETA before issuing a boarding pass through to Colombo, and without an approval on record the trip stops there.
Choose the tourist type if you are going on holiday, visiting friends or family, booking medical treatment or a yoga and Ayurveda stay, or attending a sporting or cultural event. Honeymooners, who make up a good part of Dominican long-haul travel to Asia, are tourists in this sense.
Dominicans travelling on company business, whether to meet suppliers, speak at a conference, join a workshop or receive training for less than a month, should apply under the business option. Media work, political activity and NGO projects are subject to prior approval by the Sri Lankan government and cannot be covered by an online ETA.
Large Dominican communities live in New York, New Jersey, Florida and Spain, and many of their members hold United States or Spanish citizenship. Both countries are covered by the waiver of the government charge. The treatment you receive follows the passport on your application, which must also be the passport in your hand at immigration.
Stay & validity
Dominican visitors are granted 30 days on a tourist ETA, running from first arrival. Two entries are allowed, so a few days in the Maldives in the middle of the trip is possible, but the second entry gives only the unused part of the 30 days.
The ETA stays valid for travel for six months from the date it is issued. That is useful when a wedding date or a fare sale fixes your plans early, as it often does for Dominicans coordinating relatives arriving from the United States.
Sri Lanka requires six months of passport validity counted from your arrival date. Look at your Dominican passport's expiry before applying, because replacing it afterwards cancels the link to the ETA and means a new application. Stays beyond the permitted period need an extension granted by the Department of Immigration and Emigration at Battaramulla.
Pricing
Live fees for Dominican Republic 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 Dominican Republic
Requirements
Everything Dominican Republic 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.
An application from the Dominican Republic is typically approved in a day or two. That is what usually happens, not a guaranteed turnaround, and a few applications are held for longer while details are confirmed.
Dominican travellers should apply three to five days ahead at the very least. Before Semana Santa, the summer school holidays from June to August and the Christmas season, when Dominicans abroad fly home and every transatlantic seat is taken, earlier is better, because changing a ticket at those times is costly.
Colombo is nine and a half hours ahead of Santo Domingo all year, since the Dominican Republic does not change its clocks. Office hours on the two islands barely overlap, which is why an application submitted during the Dominican day is normally answered while you sleep.
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 carrier flies from the Dominican Republic to Sri Lanka, but the country's busy airports give a choice of gateways. Madrid is the natural one from Santo Domingo, with a change to a Gulf airline for Colombo. New York works well for those with a United States visa, and European leisure flights from Punta Cana offer further options.
Best time to go
The Dominican Republic and Sri Lanka share a latitude band and a warm sea, but their weather calendars differ. Where Dominicans watch the Atlantic hurricane season from June to November, Sri Lankans watch two monsoons that take turns on opposite coasts.
December to March is high season at home and also the driest stretch for Sri Lanka's south and west. Dominicans who can get away then, or during the Independence holiday at the end of February, will find Galle, Bentota and Mirissa at their best and the hill country clear for walking.
Summer is when most Dominican families have time, and by then the south-west monsoon has reached Colombo and the southern beaches. Turn to the east coast, where Pasikudah and Trincomalee are calm and sunny and Arugam Bay draws surfers, and include Kandy for the Esala Perahera if your dates reach late July or August.
Semana Santa often coincides with the run-up to Sinhala and Tamil New Year in mid-April, a festive but crowded time to travel. Wildlife enthusiasts should note that Yala and Wilpattu are good for leopards in the dry months, and everyone should expect alcohol sales to stop on the monthly Poya 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 Dominican Republic — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
The Commonwealth of Dominica is a different country, and in a dropdown it appears directly beside the Dominican Republic. Picking it by accident records the wrong nationality on the ETA, which cannot be changed after payment and leaves a new application as the only cure.
Two given names and two surnames, sometimes with de la in the middle, rarely fit the way people sign themselves. The ETA has to mirror the passport, so resist the urge to tidy the name, and give the airline the same full version.
Dominican-Americans sometimes book with one passport and apply with the other. Sri Lankan immigration looks up the ETA by passport number, so the booklet used for the application, the booking and the border should be one and the same.
The United States has no airside transit for most travellers, and a Dominican passport holder needs a visa to change planes there. If you do not have one, route through Madrid or another European gateway and check its rules in turn.
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 Santo Domingo. The Sri Lankan embassy in Cuba is its nearest resident mission and the place to ask which office is accredited to the Dominican Republic at present. Dominican tourists applying for an ETA have no reason to contact it, as there is no interview and nothing is lodged in person.
FAQs
The questions Dominican Republic passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Citizens of the Dominican Republic need an Electronic Travel Authorisation, the online permit often called a Sri Lanka visa, approved before they fly. The tourist ETA grants 30 days and permits two entries during that time.
No, they are two separate nationalities. If your passport says República Dominicana, select Dominican Republic. Choosing Dominica by mistake puts the wrong country on your authorisation, and because paid applications cannot be edited you would have to apply and pay again.
Yes. The application is online and can be made from anywhere, so a Dominican living in New York or Miami applies in the same way as one in Santo Domingo. Nationality, not residence, decides how the government charge is applied.
The standard government rate applies, since the Dominican Republic is not among the forty countries with a waiver, and our service fee is added. Dominican children under 12 are spared the government fee on a tourist stay of up to 30 days. For figures, see the live prices shown on this page.
A passport valid for six months after arrival, an email address, a card for online payment, your arrival date and an address in Sri Lanka. At the border you may also be asked for a return ticket and proof of funds, so keep them to hand.
The most common route is Santo Domingo to Madrid, then a Gulf airline through Doha or Dubai to Colombo. Travellers holding a United States visa can go through New York. Either way, plan on about a day of travel and two changes of aircraft.
No later than three to five days before departure, and earlier around Semana Santa, summer and Christmas. Approval generally takes a day or two, but there is no guaranteed time, so do not leave it until the week of the flight.
No. A tourist ETA rules out paid and unpaid employment, self-employment and business or trade. Dominicans with meetings or a conference to attend should use the business option, and nobody may use repeated tourist visits as a way of living in the country.
Your nationality is already set to Dominican Republic. 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.
