Greek passport holders must have an ETA approved before boarding in Athens or Thessaloniki. The tourist authorisation gives 30 days and two entries, and the name you enter has to follow the Latin spelling in your passport.
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
Greeks do not need to leave home for a beach, which is why those who fly to Sri Lanka tend to go for everything else: elephants at Minneriya, leopards in Yala, the rock fortress at Sigiriya and train rides through tea estates. It is a winter escape for a nation that spends its summers on its own islands.
Before any of that, there is one formality. Greek citizens need an Electronic Travel Authorisation, known informally as a Sri Lanka visa or e-visa, and it must be approved before departure. Holding an EU passport does not exempt you, and the airline in Athens will ask to see the approval.
Greece is not among the 40 countries whose nationals were relieved of the government charge in May 2026, so the standard rate applies to a Greek tourist ETA. You will find the current figure, together with our service fee, in the live prices shown on this page.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes. Every Greek traveller entering Sri Lanka for a short stay needs an ETA, from a honeymoon couple leaving Athens after a summer wedding to a pensioner joining an organised tour from Thessaloniki. There is no category of ordinary Greek passport that travels without one.
Holidays, visits to friends, Ayurveda and yoga stays, and attending or competing in sporting and cultural events all sit under the tourist ETA. Greek travellers who come for a wellness programme of two or three weeks in the south-west, a growing niche, are tourists for these purposes.
Anything commercial belongs under the business option. Greece's shipping, trading and tourism companies do send staff to Colombo for negotiations and conferences, and those trips should not be made on a tourist authorisation. Employment of any kind, including unpaid work, is excluded altogether.
Greek citizens living abroad apply as Greeks wherever they are resident. A dual Greek-Australian or Greek-American national, of whom there are many, has a real choice to make: the application must match the passport presented in Colombo, and the government charge follows that passport's nationality, not the traveller's heritage.
Stay & validity
A Greek visitor is admitted for 30 days starting on the day of first arrival. Tours sold in Greece usually run for ten to twelve days, so most travellers use well under half the allowance and have room to add a beach extension after the cultural circuit.
Two entries are included. That allows a side trip to the Maldives, a popular add-on in Greek packages, with a return to Colombo for the flight back to Athens. The clock does not restart on the second entry; you get the balance of the first 30 days and nothing more.
After approval you have six months in which to travel, which suits Greeks who book winter trips at autumn travel fairs. Treat what is written on the approval notice as the final word on your conditions.
Remaining beyond the 30 days is possible only with an extension from the Department of Immigration and Emigration, whose head office is in Battaramulla outside Colombo. Arrange it before your original period expires, not after.
Pricing
Live fees for Greek 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 Greece
Requirements
Everything Greek 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.
Greek applications are generally approved in a day or two. We recommend submitting three to five days before you fly at the latest, since no approval time can be promised and Athens flights to the Gulf often leave in the afternoon or late at night, when little can be fixed.
The busiest period for Greek departures is from Christmas to Theofania on 6 January, which is also peak season in Sri Lanka. A second wave follows in late summer and autumn, when couples married in the Greek wedding season take their honeymoons. For both, apply a fortnight early.
Passport age is worth a look. Greek passports were long issued for only five years, and plenty of those are still in circulation and approaching expiry. If yours will have less than six months left when you land, renew it first, because the new booklet has a new number.
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
Greece has no nonstop flight to Sri Lanka, but its position in the eastern Mediterranean makes the journey shorter than from most of Europe. Athens is linked to Colombo by one connection in Doha, Dubai or Abu Dhabi, each first leg taking around four to five hours, and Thessaloniki passengers usually route through Istanbul or Athens.
Best time to go
The Greek travel pattern fits Sri Lanka unusually well. Greeks holiday at home between June and September and look abroad in winter, and December to March is precisely when the south and west coasts, the hill country and the national parks of the south are driest.
Christmas and New Year are the obvious dates, and Clean Monday in late winter can anchor a longer break if you add leave on either side. Whale watching off Mirissa is in season throughout, and the sea on the south coast is calm enough for swimmers used to the Aegean.
Orthodox Easter usually falls in April or early May, at the end of the dry season in the south-west and close to the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in mid-April, when many local businesses close for several days. Around 28 October, expect inter-monsoon showers almost everywhere.
If you can only travel in August, around the Dekapentavgoustos holiday, head for the east coast, where Trincomalee and Pasikudah have their best weather. Sri Lanka is three and a half hours ahead of Greece in winter and two and a half in summer, a small enough gap that jet lag is rarely a problem.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Greece — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
Greek passports carry a standardised Latin transliteration, and it frequently differs from the version people use day to day. Entering Yiannis when the passport says IOANNIS, or Papadopulos for PAPADOPOULOS, produces an approval that does not match the document.
Applications are completed in English and the system expects Latin characters. Copy the Latin line of the photo page; if in doubt, the two rows of capitals at the bottom show the exact letters the airline's reader will see.
Because the tautotita is enough for trips around Europe, some travellers reach for it when filling in forms. Sri Lanka requires a passport, and the ETA must be issued against that passport's number.
In the days after a Greek wedding nobody wants to deal with paperwork. Newly married travellers also sometimes change their surname and renew documents; if a new passport is coming, wait for it and then apply, because an ETA cannot be moved between passports.
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
There is no resident Sri Lankan embassy in Athens, and Greece falls under the embassy in Rome. Greek holidaymakers do not need to deal with it: the ETA is an online process with no appointment and no documents to send. The Rome mission becomes relevant only for purposes the online authorisation does not cover.
FAQs
The questions Greek passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Greek citizens must obtain an Electronic Travel Authorisation, which is what most people mean by a Sri Lanka visa, before they travel. The tourist version permits 30 days in the country and two entries, and it is applied for online.
Yes. Greece is not on the list of 40 countries whose citizens have the government charge waived, so the standard rate applies to adults and to children aged 12 and over. The total, including our service fee, is given in the live prices shown on this page.
In Latin letters, exactly as your passport prints it. Greek passports show the name in both scripts, and the Latin form follows an official transliteration that may differ from your everyday spelling. Match it character for character.
No. The Greek identity card is not accepted outside the European arrangements it was designed for. Sri Lanka requires a passport valid for six months from the date you arrive, and your ETA is linked to it.
There is no nonstop service, so allow roughly 11 to 13 hours with a change in Doha, Dubai or Abu Dhabi. The first sector from Athens takes four to five hours and the second about the same again.
December to March suits most Greek travellers, matching the Christmas holidays with dry weather on the south and west coasts. If your only free time is August, plan around the east coast instead, where conditions are best from May to September.
Apply with the passport you will hand to the immigration officer in Colombo and use the same one for the whole trip. The government charge depends on the nationality of that passport, so the two options may be priced differently.
Aim for at least three to five days, and around two weeks for travel over Christmas and New Year. Approval normally takes a day or two for Greek applicants, but it cannot be guaranteed for a specific date.
Your nationality is already set to Greece. 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.
