Marshallese travellers need an approved ETA for Sri Lanka whether they set out from Majuro, Ebeye or the United States. It grants 30 days and two entries, with the application made online in advance.
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
From Majuro, almost everywhere is far away, and Sri Lanka more than most: the two countries are separated by the whole breadth of the western Pacific and South-East Asia. Marshallese who make the journey tend to be students and church members attending gatherings in Asia, officials on climate business, or members of the large community in the United States adding a stop to a longer trip.
All of them need an Electronic Travel Authorisation. It is the same thing that search results call a Sri Lanka visa or e-visa for Marshallese citizens: permission, arranged online in advance, to visit for up to 30 days.
This guide is aimed at holders of the Republic of the Marshall Islands passport, whether they live on Majuro, Ebeye or an outer atoll, or in Springdale, Honolulu or Salem. It deals with eligibility, charges, the handling of Marshallese spellings, and the long routing to Colombo.
At a glance
Eligibility
An ETA is compulsory for Marshallese visitors. No bilateral exemption exists, and the approval must be obtained before travel and matched to the passport you carry. Carriers on the last leg into Colombo expect to see evidence of it.
For charging purposes the Marshall Islands is a standard-rate country. Sri Lanka removed its government charge for forty nationalities in May 2026, a group that includes the United States but none of the Freely Associated States. Marshallese applicants pay the standard government charge and a service fee for our support; the live prices shown on this page have the details.
Many Marshallese households in Arkansas, Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest contain both RMI citizens and US-born children. Each person applies according to their own passport. A parent on a Marshallese passport is in the standard category while a child on an American passport comes under the waiver, and both still need the authorisation itself.
Tourist ETAs are meant for leisure, family and friends, medical or wellness stays, sport and cultural events. If you have been invited to speak at a conference, join a workshop or attend a religious symposium, apply under the business option. Reporting or filming for a media outlet requires prior government approval and is outside the online system.
Stay & validity
The tourist ETA lets a Marshallese traveller remain in Sri Lanka for 30 days after the first arrival. There is a six-month period after approval in which to start the trip, so the application can be made as soon as leave is granted and before fares are locked in.
Two entries are included. Visitors who want to see Chennai or Malé as well can leave and return, though the absence does not pause the count, and the officer at re-entry will grant only the days outstanding.
Anyone hoping to stay beyond the 30 days must approach the Department of Immigration and Emigration in Battaramulla, near Colombo, in good time. The terms printed on your approval override general guidance, so read the email when it arrives instead of filing it unread.
Pricing
Live fees for Marshallese 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 Marshall Islands
Requirements
Everything Marshallese 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 decision within one to two days is the norm for Marshallese applications. It is not a guaranteed timescale, and anything unclear in the passport image or the name fields can add to it.
Applying three to five days ahead is the least you should allow. In reality the Marshall Islands' sparse air service argues for doing it two or three weeks out, and before any inter-atoll travel to reach Majuro or Kwajalein. Around December to March, Sri Lanka's high season, add a little more.
Majuro is six and a half hours ahead of Colombo. Marshallese in Arkansas face the opposite problem, sitting ten and a half or eleven and a half hours behind Sri Lanka depending on the season, so in either location replies usually appear overnight.
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
Majuro and Kwajalein are both stops on United's island-hopping service between Honolulu and Guam, and that flight is the start of nearly every Marshallese journey to Asia. Heading west, it reaches Guam after calls in the FSM; from Guam, a flight to Tokyo Narita meets SriLankan Airlines' nonstop to Colombo. Nauru Airlines also links Majuro with Nauru and Brisbane, a slower but workable southern alternative.
Best time to go
Schools in the Marshall Islands break for the summer around June and July, in step with the American calendar. Sri Lanka's east coast is the place to be then. Pasikudah's shallow bay and the beaches north of Trincomalee are calm from May to September while Colombo gets the south-west monsoon.
The stretch from Gospel Day in early December through Christmas and New Year is the main holiday season at home, and it matches the best months for Galle, Mirissa and the hill country. Demand in Sri Lanka is at its highest then, so reserve rooms and apply for the ETA early.
Marshallese visitors are used to land that is never more than a few metres high. Climbing Sigiriya rock or riding the train from Kandy up to Ella, through the central highlands, is the part of the trip people talk about afterwards. Take a sweater for the tea country and expect mist.
Allow for the body clock on the way west: six and a half hours from Majuro, and close to half a day for those coming from the central United States. Schedule nothing demanding for the first two days. Check, too, whether a Poya full-moon day falls during your stay, since it is a public holiday and no alcohol is sold.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Marshall Islands — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
Current Marshallese orthography uses marks under and over letters that passports do not reproduce. Keyboards set up for the language will insert them automatically. The application has to show the unmarked letters exactly as the passport does, or the names will not correspond.
Residents of Springdale or Honolulu rightly enter an American address, then go on to select American nationality as well. The address is where you live; the nationality is what your passport says. An RMI passport holder is Marshallese on this form.
People travelling in from Jaluit, Wotje or other outer atolls sometimes wait until they are in the capital to begin. Boats and domestic flights run late, leaving a day or less before the international departure. Submit before you leave home if you have any signal at all.
A passport that has been good enough for trips to Guam or Hawaii will not do for Sri Lanka unless six months remain at arrival. Look at the expiry date first. Renewing afterwards makes the ETA unusable, as it is fixed to the old number.
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 diplomatic office in the Marshall Islands, and ETA applicants do not have to find one. The embassy in Tokyo and the High Commission in Canberra are the resident Sri Lankan missions nearest the northern and southern routes out of Majuro. They deal with matters beyond the online ETA; a holiday authorisation is applied for and received entirely by internet and email.
FAQs
The questions Marshallese passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes. Marshallese citizens must have an Electronic Travel Authorisation, the online document often described as a Sri Lanka visa, before departure. As tourists they may stay 30 days and enter twice. No embassy visit is involved at any stage.
Yes, at the standard rate, because the Marshall Islands is not one of the forty countries covered by the waiver. Our service fee is charged in addition. Children under 12 visiting as tourists for up to 30 days are not charged the government fee.
You can apply from anywhere with an internet connection. Use your Marshall Islands passport details and state Marshallese nationality, with your Arkansas address as your place of residence. From the US you would normally fly to Colombo through a hub such as Doha, Dubai or Istanbul.
Usually on United to Guam or Honolulu, then to Tokyo Narita, and finally on SriLankan Airlines to Colombo. A southern route via Nauru, Brisbane and Singapore also exists. Expect a journey of a day and a half, and leave long gaps between separately booked flights.
Use the plain letters printed in your passport. Marks such as cedillas beneath consonants or macrons over vowels are not part of the passport's machine-readable text, so they should be left out. Where a family uses both an older and a newer spelling, the passport version is the one that counts.
Two to three weeks ahead is sensible, although the stated minimum is three to five days. The approval is valid for travel for six months, so an early application carries no penalty. A late one, with only a few flights a week from Majuro, risks the whole itinerary.
No. Conferences, workshops and seminars are business purposes, and delegates should apply under the business option. The purpose you declare has to reflect the main reason you are travelling, even if you plan some sightseeing around it.
The authorisation is lost with it. An ETA is tied to a single passport number, so once you have a replacement passport you must make a new application and pay again, as charges already paid are neither refunded nor transferred.
Your nationality is already set to Marshall Islands. 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.
