Icelandic passport holders need an ETA approved before starting the long journey from Keflavík. It allows 30 days and two entries. Iceland is outside the fee waiver its Nordic neighbours enjoy, so the standard government charge applies.
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
Iceland sends few travellers to Sri Lanka in absolute terms, which is hardly surprising for a nation of fewer than 400,000 people on the far side of two continents. Those who make the journey tend to be deliberate about it: a long winter escape, a honeymoon, a surf trip, or a slow circuit of temples and tea estates that justifies the distance.
The formality that stands between Keflavík and Colombo is an Electronic Travel Authorisation, or ETA. You may see it described as a Sri Lanka visa or e-visa, and Icelanders searching for vegabréfsáritun will arrive at the same thing. It is requested online, connected to your passport number, and ought to be approved before you leave Iceland.
One point needs stating plainly, because the neighbours are treated differently. Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland are among the 40 countries whose government charge on the tourist ETA is waived, and Iceland is not on that list. Icelandic citizens pay the standard government rate, and the live prices shown on this page give the current total including our service fee.
At a glance
Eligibility
Icelandic citizens need an ETA for a short visit to Sri Lanka, as does every other foreign national. Membership of Schengen and the EEA lets Icelanders move around Europe with very little paperwork, but it carries no weight in Colombo, and a brief stay is treated no differently from a full month.
A tourist ETA is right for the trips Icelanders usually make: holidays and sightseeing, visiting friends, yoga and Ayurveda stays, and sporting or cultural events. Employment and self-employment are excluded. So is settling in for the dark months through back-to-back visits, which the conditions describe as living in the country through frequent or successive stays.
Travelling to a conference, a workshop or business negotiations calls for the business option. If Colombo is only a stop of up to two days on the way to the Maldives or elsewhere, a transit ETA exists for that, with no government charge, provided you can document the onward flight.
Icelandic children must be included in an application at any age. Under-12s are not charged the government fee on a tourist ETA of up to 30 days, a real saving for an Icelandic family given that the adults pay the standard rate. Travellers aged 12 and over fall outside that concession.
Stay & validity
The tourist ETA grants an Icelandic citizen 30 days, beginning on the date of first arrival. It may be used for two entries, both within that period. If you slip across to the Maldives for a few nights, the count continues in your absence and your return is admitted for the remainder only.
From the date of issue you have six months to travel, though the conditions written on the approval are decisive. Given how far ahead Icelanders usually book long-haul trips, it is entirely practical to apply when the flights are bought, months before departure.
Icelandic adult passports are valid for ten years and children's for five, so the six-month rule mostly catches families: a parent's passport is fine and a child's turns out to expire in the spring. Renew before applying, since the ETA is bound to the passport number and cannot be moved to a new one.
For anything longer than 30 days, an extension must be sought from the Department of Immigration and Emigration, headquartered at Battaramulla on the edge of Colombo.
Pricing
Live fees for Icelandic 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 Iceland
Requirements
Everything Icelandic 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.
Applications from Icelandic citizens are usually approved within a day or two. No fixed time can be promised. Three to five days before departure is the least you should allow, and Icelanders have good reason to allow far more, because the journey itself starts hours before the long-haul flight does.
Most itineraries begin with a morning flight from Keflavík to London, Copenhagen or another European hub, and the airline at Keflavík may already want to see that you are entitled to enter Sri Lanka. Have the approval in hand before that first leg, not before the second.
Mistakes cannot be corrected after payment. A new application is required, and the standard government charge paid on the first one is neither refunded nor carried over, which for Icelandic applicants means paying it twice.
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
Getting from Iceland to Sri Lanka takes at least two flights and often three. The neatest routing is Keflavík to London Heathrow with Icelandair, connecting there to the SriLankan Airlines nonstop service to Colombo. The alternative is to fly to Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Paris and pick up Qatar Airways, Emirates or Turkish Airlines, which adds a second stop in Doha, Dubai or Istanbul. Travellers from Akureyri and the north must first cross from Reykjavík's domestic airport to Keflavík.
Best time to go
Iceland's winter is long, and Sri Lanka's dry season on the south and west coasts runs from December to March or April, so the fit is obvious. Swapping skammdegi, the weeks of minimal daylight around the solstice, for twelve-hour tropical days at Mirissa or Unawatuna is the main reason Icelanders go.
Easter is a major holiday in Iceland, with days off from Maundy Thursday to Easter Monday, and many people stretch it into a fortnight. Late March and early April are still good in the south-west. A late Easter can run into Sinhala and Tamil New Year in mid-April, when much of the country pauses for family celebrations.
Icelandic summer is short and precious, and few leave during it. If you do travel between June and August, choose the east coast: Trincomalee, Pasikudah and Arugam Bay are in season while the south-west monsoon is under way. The school winter breaks in October and February point in opposite directions, with February far the better bet for beach weather.
The time difference is five and a half hours all year, since neither Iceland nor Sri Lanka changes its clocks. Heat is the bigger adjustment. Coming from a Reykjavík winter into tropical humidity, give yourself a slow first day or two, or begin in the cooler hill country around Nuwara Eliya.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Iceland — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
Icelandic travellers often read Scandinavian news and travel forums, where the waiver for Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and Finns is widely discussed. It does not extend to Iceland. Expect the standard government charge, and do not rely on advice written for the neighbouring countries.
Online forms built around shared family names sit awkwardly with Icelandic naming. A father named Jón Einarsson with a daughter Anna Jónsdóttir and a son Ólafur Jónsson is entirely normal. Do not tidy the application by giving everyone the same last name; each traveller's entry has to mirror their own passport.
Thorn and eth do not exist in the basic Latin alphabet the ETA system works in. Your passport already contains the accepted conversion in the two machine-readable lines under the photograph. Use that spelling, and make sure your airline booking agrees with it.
Some travellers plan to apply during a stop in London or Copenhagen. That leaves no margin if an approval takes longer than usual, and check-in staff at Keflavík may ask for it before the first flight. Apply at home, well before you set off.
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 Reykjavík, and Iceland is looked after from the Sri Lankan embassy in Stockholm. Icelandic citizens do not need to contact it for an ETA. Application, payment and approval are all handled online, which is just as well given the distance involved.
FAQs
The questions Icelandic passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes, Icelanders need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) before travelling to Sri Lanka; it is the online equivalent of a visa for short visits. The tourist ETA gives 30 days and two entries, and it is linked to your Icelandic passport number.
No. Iceland is not among the 40 countries covered by the waiver introduced on 25 May 2026, so the standard government charge applies to Icelandic passport holders. Children under 12 are the exception, as they are not charged the government fee on a tourist ETA. Totals for Icelandic applicants are in the live prices shown on this page.
Put it in the surname field, in the spelling your passport uses. Sri Lanka's system treats Sigurðardóttir or Magnússon as a family name like any other. What matters is that the entry matches the passport, not that it follows another country's naming logic.
Use whatever appears in the machine-readable zone at the bottom of the passport photo page. Icelandic passports convert these characters there, and that converted spelling is the one the ETA should carry.
The shortest practical route is Keflavík to London Heathrow and then the SriLankan Airlines nonstop to Colombo. Routings through Copenhagen, Frankfurt or Amsterdam with a further change in the Gulf or Istanbul are also common.
For 30 days from the first arrival, with two entries permitted in that time. A second entry is given only the unused portion. A longer stay requires an extension from the Department of Immigration and Emigration.
Not if each application entry copies the relevant passport exactly. Differing last names within a family are normal for Icelanders. It is still sensible to carry something showing the relationship when a child travels with one parent, as airlines occasionally ask.
December to March suits the south and west coasts and the hill country, and matches the darkest part of the Icelandic year. For a summer trip, the east coast is the dry side from May to September.
Your nationality is already set to Iceland. 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.
