Iraqi travellers leaving Baghdad, Basra, Najaf or Erbil must hold an approved ETA before their connecting flight to Colombo. It permits 30 days and two entries, with the standard government rate applying to Iraqi passports.
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 Iraqi citizens
Iraq is not on Sri Lanka's list of 40 countries excused the government charge on tourist ETAs, so the standard rate applies to Iraqi passports. The current amounts are in the live prices shown on this page.
Overview
Ask an Iraqi what Ceylon means and the answer is tea: the strong, dark brew poured into istikan glasses from Mosul to Basra has come from Sri Lankan estates for generations, and Iraq is among the island's biggest customers. Seeing where it grows is a small but real reason Iraqis give for visiting, alongside the more obvious ones of greenery, rain and sea after a summer of dust and fifty-degree heat.
Sri Lanka has also become a honeymoon and family option for Iraqis looking beyond Turkey, Lebanon and the Gulf. Halal food is easy to find, the Muslim community is long established, and resorts on the south-west coast are used to guests from the Arab world.
Entry depends on an Electronic Travel Authorisation obtained before you travel, which Baghdad and Erbil travel offices generally call a Sri Lanka visa or e-visa. Iraqi passports fall under the standard charging category, with no waiver. What follows is a plain account of the conditions, the documents and the errors that Iraqi applicants in particular should watch for.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes. There is no exemption for Iraqi nationals, whether they live in federal Iraq or the Kurdistan Region, and the ETA has to be approved before the trip starts. Airline agents at your Gulf or Turkish transfer point will not accept you for the Colombo flight without it.
Tourism in the ordinary sense is what the tourist ETA is for: a honeymoon, a family holiday, a stay with friends, treatment at an Ayurveda centre, or attending a sports fixture or cultural performance. Most Iraqi visitors fit comfortably within those purposes.
An Iraqi tea merchant from Shorja market visiting brokers in Colombo is on business and needs the business option, as does anyone going to a conference, seminar, workshop or training course of less than a month. Decide which applies before you begin the form.
A tourist authorisation gives no right to work, trade or set up as self-employed, and it is not a means of settling on the island by returning again and again. Press and broadcast assignments, political activity and NGO work need Sri Lankan government approval secured first, outside the online ETA.
Stay & validity
Iraqi tourists receive 30 days, running from the date of first entry, and may enter twice. If your itinerary includes a few nights in the Maldives and a return through Colombo, the second arrival is granted the balance of those 30 days only.
You may travel at any point in the six months following approval, which lets you settle the paperwork well before a summer departure. The terms stated on your individual approval are the ones that govern.
Six months of passport validity must remain on the day you land. Iraqi passports are valid for eight years, and many citizens have recently exchanged an A-series booklet for the new electronic passport. That exchange changes the number, so apply only with the document you will carry. To remain longer than 30 days you would have to obtain an extension from the Department of Immigration and Emigration at Battaramulla, close to Colombo.
Pricing
Live fees for Iraqi 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 Iraq
Requirements
Everything Iraqi 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 Iraqi applications are answered within a day or two, though some take longer. We review each form against the passport image before sending it, concentrating on long names that have been shortened or reordered. Regard the typical timing as a guide.
Send your application at least three to five days before you fly. Sri Lanka is two and a half hours ahead of Baghdad. The Iraqi weekend falls on Friday and Saturday, while Sri Lankan offices close on Saturday and Sunday, so an application made on a Thursday night can sit across three non-working days between the two countries.
Add a margin before Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, during the school summer holidays and around Nowruz for travellers from Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Duhok. If you are swapping an old passport for an electronic one, complete that first.
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
Iraq has no direct air link with Sri Lanka. The usual pattern is a short flight to a Gulf hub followed by a sector of four to five hours to Colombo. Baghdad, Basra, Najaf, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah all have services to Dubai or Doha, so there is rarely any need to travel to the capital first. Istanbul is an alternative from Baghdad and Erbil, at the cost of a longer day.
Best time to go
Iraqi schools break for the summer from June to September, the months when Baghdad and Basra are barely habitable in the afternoon. Sri Lanka's east coast is dry then. Trincomalee, Nilaveli and Pasikudah offer shallow, sheltered water suited to families, and the hill country around Kandy and Nuwara Eliya is cool enough to need a jacket in the evening.
The mid-year school holiday in late January or February matches the peak season on the opposite side of the island. This is the time for Bentota, Galle Fort and whale watching from Mirissa, and for honeymooners who want reliable sunshine without the summer's heavy humidity.
Nowruz on 21 March, a public holiday celebrated most widely in the Kurdistan Region, also falls in good weather for the south and west. Because the two Eids shift through the calendar, check which coast is in season for your dates. An Eid in the wetter months can still be spent well among the ancient cities of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa.
Many Iraqis are surprised by how much rain Sri Lanka gets and how green it is as a result, so pack for showers whatever the month, especially in October and November. On Poya days, the monthly Buddhist full-moon holidays, banks and offices close and temples fill with worshippers.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Iraq — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
Iraqi passports typically print a given name followed by the father's and grandfather's names, with a family name alongside. In daily life people use two of these at most. An application showing only Ahmed Al-Jubouri when the passport says more does not correspond to the travel document, so type every name that appears.
During the changeover to electronic passports, plenty of Iraqi households have both booklets in a drawer. Hotel bookings, residence cards and saved browser forms may still hold the earlier number. Only the passport you will present counts, and its number should be read directly from the page.
Arabic names reach English in many forms. A man may be Mohammed on his passport, Muhammad on his ticket and Mohamed on a hotel voucher. Sri Lankan systems treat these as different people. Settle on the passport spelling and ask your travel agent to issue everything to match, including the Al prefix.
The ETA deals with Sri Lanka alone. Some connecting points apply separate transit conditions to Iraqi passports, particularly if you change terminals, collect baggage or travel on two unconnected tickets. Confirm with the airline that your connection is permitted, because being stopped at the hub wastes an authorisation you have already paid for.
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 closed its embassy in Baghdad in 2022, and Iraq has since been covered from the Sri Lankan Embassy in Abu Dhabi. That makes little difference to Iraqi ETA applicants, who deal with no embassy at all and complete everything online. The Abu Dhabi mission matters only for visas outside the ETA scheme or for activities that require approval from Colombo ahead of time.
FAQs
The questions Iraqi passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes, Iraqi citizens need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), the online document usually described as a Sri Lanka visa, approved before departure. The tourist ETA allows a 30-day stay and two entries. Iraq is not covered by the fee waiver, so the standard government rate applies.
Yes. The ETA is requested online from Iraq or from wherever you live, and the approval arrives by email. You are not required to travel to an embassy, which is helpful given that Sri Lanka has no mission in Baghdad.
No. Iraq is outside the group of 40 countries whose government charge was waived in May 2026. Iraqi adults pay the standard government rate together with our service fee; the live prices shown on this page give the total.
For 30 days from the day of first arrival. The ETA allows two entries, and the second uses the days still remaining. Any longer stay needs an extension granted by the immigration department in Battaramulla.
No. The rules are identical for every Iraqi passport, regardless of the governorate in which it was issued or the airport you leave from. What matters is that the details match the passport exactly.
Enter every name printed in the English section of your passport, in the same order and fields. Do not drop your father's or grandfather's name, and keep the family name's prefix as the passport has it.
Each child must be included with their own passport details. Those under 12 are not charged the government fee on a tourist stay of up to 30 days, which reduces the cost for Iraqi families even without the wider waiver.
No. The government charge depends on the nationality of your passport, not where you live. An Iraqi with a UAE residence visa applies as an Iraqi national and pays the standard rate.
Your nationality is already set to Iraq. 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.
